Oven Cleaning Tips.

We have had a few sunny days lately and & the bulbs are starting to appear in the garden, you can almost hear the earth groaning on its axis and know that spring will soon be here.  I have been itching to get stuck into my spring cleaning but I am stalling myself because I just know the months of mud and mildew are not over yet & its probably a little too soon.

So I satisfied my urge to deep clean by giving my oven a lovely clean.  My now gleaming oven makes me smile every time I open it - I am not embarrassed to tell you.  You may remember the post I did last year about cleaning your oven with bicarbonate of soda and water.  Well I have been using this method very successfully for about a year now & it's working well.  The thing I love most about it is that's its easy, chemical free and very inexpensive to do.

In essence I sprinkle the inside of my oven with bicarb in the evening & then spray it with water and leave over night - get the full instructions (and some other handy kitchen cleaning tips) here.  The next day I scoop out all the gunk that has lifted of the bottom of my oven and then rinse it well with mild soapy water.  I have found you need to rinse thoroughly to remove all the bicarb otherwise you get a slight residue when you next use your oven.

The inside of my oven is now clean so I turn my attentions to the glass. I remove the glass from the door and using bicarb, water, a scouring pad & some elbow grease I scrub the glass of my oven.  If the glass is especially mucky I make a bicarb and water paste which I smear onto the glass and leave overnight.  To give it extra sparkle once I have removed all the muck I spray with a little white vinegar and polish to a nice shine.

The thing I always struggle to get clean are the oven racks.  They are rather fiddly and time consuming to clean in my experience.  The other day it occurred to me that these could go through the dishwasher (I am still new to dishwashers - do forgive me if this is very obvious to you all).  I put my oven racks into the dishwasher with my dishes on a normal cycle.  They came out looking better than I have seen them looking in a while & further more the rest of the grime came off so easily with just a sponge!  they are now shiny and like new - as is the rest of my oven.

Reading my previous post about how despairing I was about the state of my oven and conventional oven cleaners I am so glad I found the bicarb method my oven looks 100x better than it did this time last year - & so thrifty too ;)

Darning

A bit of make do and mend for you today.  My girls have gone through the knees (& crotch) of several pairs of tights lately & as my girls rarely wear trousers they need lots of pairs of tights.  Just like ladies hosiery girls tights are not cheap on a cost per wear basis.  So I have been mending them using a technique called darning. Darning can be used to repair any hole in knitted fabric.

Mary Poppins darning a sock (excuse the subtitiles)

 It’s very easy - the hardest thing about it is finding darning wool to do the job.  After hunting high and low locally for some I looked online and found e-bay was about the only place where you can buy it.  It starts from as little as 99p.  You will also need a darning needle and either a darning mushroom or if you don't have one a small ball or even a sturdy drinking tumbler - anything with a curved edge - to support the hole whilst you work.

Here is how to darn.  Turn you item inside out and place your curved object inside the garment under the hole.  Starting about 1cm in from the hole make a line of vertical running stitches beginning 1cm below the hole and extend to 1cm above the hole.  Repeat this step going up and down as in the diagram below making rows of vertical stitches as close to each other as possible.  When covering the hole make one long stitch to cover the hole and then continue 1cm below and 1cm below the hole, as before.

Image via martha Stewart - see below for link

Now repeat the above taking stitches horizontally and weaving them in and out of the vertical stiches you have just made.

Image via martha Stewart - see below for link

These images were taken from the Martha Stewart website - read the full article here for more tips on repairing knitwear.

Le Ballon Rouge

Hello

Here is a little recommendation that I hope will brighten up your weekend.  Justine over at Sew Country Chic recommended this as a lovely film to watch with little ones and well you know how suggestible I am ;)

This cute little french film made in 1956 is so delightfully simple & best of all the whole film is on YouTube - for free!

I didn't know how long my girls would put up with the slightly grainy film & dated soundtrack but they LOVED this film.  I loved it too, it reminded me of the summer I lived in Paris.  Its a city I am fortunate to know well & I think this film really catches it without being cliche.  It has a certain charm about it and I think it qualifies as a children's classic.

I hope you enjoy it too!

P.s. After we watched this film I blew up a red balloon for my girls to play with, they spent hours pretending it was "The Red Balloon"

Easter Parade

Not long until Easter now & my thoughts are turning to Easter Bonnets.  I always make my girls Easter Bonnets.  Sometimes we just trim a plain straw hat with eggs or flowers and sometimes I sew a cute vintage style baby bonnet.  This year We have a wedding to attend the weekend after Easter & my girls have requested "Little House on the Prairie" bonnets.  Well I don't need much encouragement (a you know) so I am going all out and making dresses with matching bonnets.  

Yesterday I made the first dress using the Flower Girl Dress pattern (below) from the book Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross.  Isn't this image beautiful?  I have been hoping to have occasion (such as a wedding) to make this dress for quite a while.

 I haven't settled on a bonnet pattern yet, I am still looking - once again Pinterest is offering of wealth of inspiration.  I was hoping to make the girls identical outfits & dreamt of using some lovely Liberty Tana Lawn like the fabric in the picture above.  However this was too expensive & when I looked through my stash of fabric I found 2 meters of a lovely floral design that complimented my eldest red hair beautifully.

However nothing for L my youngest.  I began looking for fabric and was delighted to win an e-bay auction for some Tana Lawn in a print that my sister and I saw plenty of in the children's department on our recent visit to Liberty's- just enough to make her dress and bonnet.  This luxurious fabric will make a dress and bonnet that will be treasured for years!  I can't wait to show you how it turns out.

A little on the wild side but I love the retro look of this fabric.

 I am really enjoying my sewing at the moment I feel like I am finally no longer a beginner and can produce a simple project like a skirt or simple dress in a few hours and find this tremendously satisfying and relaxing.  I am experimenting with different seam finishes with these next projects to produce items that are as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside and hopefully more durable too.  My girls are delighted when I whip up a little something for them to wear - I hope that continues for a few more years at least.

Bread

My latest "do it yourself" attempts have been at making bread.  This is slightly bonkers because I can't actually eat bread!  I am intolerant - hate that phrase I don't like to consider myself an intolerant person - to gluten.  However the rest of the family does eat bread & I am very concerned about all the nastiest in shop bought bread.  The E numbers, preservatives etc.  So I bought the cheapest bread maker on the market (Argos Cookworks if you are interested and I am experimenting with bread making.  The girls have no problem with this but my husband loves his baked goods particularly white bread (which even pre-bread machine I refused to buy).  White bread is nutritionally useless I beg you not to go near the stuff!  He is not impressed by this latest thrifty venture but has graciously consented to a trial period.

The first thing I have discovered is that bread baked in the machine is not great.  So I generally only use the dough setting.  The dough setting kneads and proves the dough you then turn it out, shape it, leave to rise & then bake.  This may sound a little silly but even using the dough setting is a serious time saver & gives better results than doing the whole thing by hand.

Having tried a few recipes from the book I am now trying a recipe I found online.  Today's adventure - currently in the oven - is a sweet bread which uses condensed milk.

If you have a bread machine gathering dust at the back of the cupboard or fancy having a go at this yourself check out bread machine 101 by blogger Paula Rhodes as I don't think I could hope to better it

I've costed it up and a loaf of home made bread is costing just short of £1 so is cheaper than bought bread and a lot healthier!  However I am starting to worry that I may have made myself a little too self sufficient in the kitchen and that I may never be able to leave my kitchen ever again.

Teaching Children to sew

A post that is a little off the topic of thrift today but something I get asked a lot is "What is the best way to teach your children to sew?"  Let me just say there is no "best" way or "right" way to do this.  If you have an enthusiasm for it this will shine through.  Think about and, talk to your child about what types of projects they would like to do.  I love teaching my girls to sew.  Gradually I am passing onto them the skills and little tools that I used when I was a child.  Our sewing time together is precious and I often share my memories of learning to sew at my Grandma's knee with my girls as we sew.

Sewing cards are a great place to begin & children of all ages and abilities can do these from about 2 years old.  All you need is some stiff card, a whole punch and a shoe lace or piece of stiff string.

image and tutorial available at moms best network

Once children have grasped the over and under technique of a basic running stitch try drawing a picture using a permanent marker onto large plastic canvas and using a darning needle and wool get them to sew around the outline you have drawn.  These activities are great "quiet time" activities even for older children and make a nice alternative to the TV.

About a year ago I introduced my eldest (then 4) to french knitting.  I know this isn't technically sewing but it's a great way to improve dexterity and and get them used to controlling and holding their work, the yarn and a needle or hooked tool to manipulate the wool (we use a crochet hook).  I still had my french knitting dolly from when I was a child but you don't have to have one to have a go.  French knitting is sometimes called spool knitting because it was traditionally done using a wooden spool with 4 small tacks in the top as shown in this handy french knitting tutorial.  If you only have a plastic spool or bobbin to hand simply attach 4 paper clips to the inside.

you don't need a knitting dolly to begin french knitting as the picture above from CraftSanity blog demonstrates.

 So far I have not suggested you lay out a great deal of money in teaching your children to sew but let me strongly recommend the following small investment to you.  The book Made By Me by Jane Bull is a delight for adults and children alike and covers many different sewing and knitting techniques as well as some wonderful projects.  Girls LOVE this book!  It is fresh, modern and accessible & I can not recommend it highly enough to you.

Another project I have written about before that is a beginners classic is lavender bags, they are such fun and can be hand or machine sewn.  The next project I plan to start with my 5 year old is some cross stitch.  A friend of mine passed on some cross stitch magazines with free kits and wealth of free designs inside.  I must confess cross stitch bores me to tears but it's a good technique to teach children as once they have mastered it it is quite easy for them to produce a piece of work they can be proud of.

felt is another classic beginners project and there are lots of kits available however, don't feel confined to these.  Craft felt is inexpensive and easy to come by.  For little girls get them to make a little felt doll and as her sewing skills improve she can make little dresses and outfits for her doll.  Boys (I know we have neglected boys projects somewhat) will love designing their own monsters and making them.

As you can see I could go on all day - sewing is something I am very passionate about and I thank you for indulging me.  I am sure as my girls grew there will be more on this topic to share with you.  happy sewing!

Meal Planning

The job of creating 6weekly meal plans has been on my to do list for AGES!  Although I do always plan our weeks food I end up doing this each week just before I do our food order online.  I always feel totally uninspired and daunted by the prospect of dreaming up a weeks worth of family meals on a Sunday evening.  I often end up turning to my husband who seems to only ever reply is questioning tones "sausages?" I think if it were down to him we'd have sausages 3x a week!  Anyway this January I promised I'd do it and (by a whisker) I completed the task on January 30th.

There is a wealth of pretty free printables out there to help you with this task & if pretty paper and colour coding gets you going on this project then go for it!  I recommend Pinterest as a great place to look for free prinatables.  Much as this idea appealed I knew I would spend half an hour looking at different prinatbles, change my mind each time about how I was going to organise my meal plans and ultimately accomplish nothing!  Instead I drew myself a table in good old Microsoft Word and went to it.  I can always pretty it up later ;)

I had a chart with days of the week and 3 spaces for meals.  Below this I had a chart with 2 columns one column for the things I would need to buy and another for store cupboard essentials I would be using this week so as I could check I already had them & buy them if not.

Feeling daunted by the prospect of planning 6 weeks worth of menus I began by choosing the breakfast cereal we would be having each week.  Week one Wheatabix, adding that to my list and so on, adding dried fruit such as raisins or a fruity porridge at the weekend to mix things up a little.  I should also say I had made a list of every family meal that I have memorised, cook regularly & we all (more of less) like.  I am pleased to say I had around 23 meals on that list - apparently the average number a person can come up with in a task like this is 9!  However I still had an empty meal plan so my next tip for filling these gaps is theme nights.  For example we always have Jacket potatoes on a Wednesday night.  So I filled in Jacket potatoes each Wednesday & then added various toppings.  Lately we have been in a baked potato rut (I hold my hands up) we have had tuna, sweetcorn mayo for countless weeks but now with my plan I have lots of different toppings lined up.  We are adopting meat free Mondays (I do always try to have one day without meat in our week but felt keeping this to a set day would help at the planning stage).  Tuesdays are cheap nights (just like at the cinema) which prompts me to use Sunday's roast dinner leftovers and prevents them from sitting in the fridge until inspiration strikes.

Our Wednesday potato ritual, using up leftovers and a meat free day are all principles I always try to stick to when I plan our weeks food but I've just got a bit more organised about it with this plan.  The aim of planning your meals is to save you time in the long run not to look up a ton of new recipes and ideas to try (that would just be too much work!).

I have numbered my plans and will use them in order because I have designed them to follow on from another.  They run Monday to Sunday (Because I generally do my food shopping on a Monday) and therefore, I use the leftovers from Sunday dinner on the following weeks menus.  In practise this might look like this Meal plan one might end with a roast chicken for Sunday lunch therefore in week 2 we will have chicken soup for lunch on Monday and Tuesday and have chicken and avocado in our jacket potatoes on Wednesday.