Kelly Casanova Weaving Lessons

Kelly

Home made peanut butter

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We go through plenty of peanut butter here and our youngest daughter in particular is mad about it on toast for breakfast. She is also a huge Nutella devotee.
I had heard that peanut butter is really easy to make and I don’t know why I’ve never tried, but yesterday I was gripped with the thought this was something I needed to do!

I’m glad I did! It is different to store bought peanut butter (it tastes more nutty, more natural, more REAL!) 

Why don’t you try it too? Here is how I made it:

* 500g roasted, salted peanuts 
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of honey
 ** 2 tablespoons of peanut oil

Place your nuts in a food processor. Blend until they are coarsely ground. At this point, if you want chunky peanut butter (like I did) take about 1/3 of the ground nuts out and set aside.
Add the salt and honey. Continue to blend until your mix is smooth or starts to look like a paste. Times really vary depending on your food processor, but it’s generally a couple of minutes to get to the paste stage. Now, drizzle your oil in and blend until it’s a smooth paste. Add your coarse nuts back in and mix through. Put your paste into a jar or sealed container. Drizzle a little more oil over the top as a seal.
I’ve been told that in needs to be kept in the fridge – I’m not sure if this is totally necessary, I think I will experiment by leaving some out to see how it goes.

* If you want to use peanuts from the shell or raw peanuts you can roast them yourself. Then just follow the steps from the beginning.
** If you find your paste is dry try adjusting the oil amount.

Isn’t that simple? Next up I want to try doing Nutella and almond butter would be fun too. Let me know if you give it a go!

Frugal February in the kitchen

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The months of December through to March are our most challenging financially. Christmas, followed by holidays, plus bills and insurance mean that we really have to pull in the reigns and make an extra effort to save money. I thought I would share with you a few of the thrifty things I’ve been doing in the kitchen. 


Last month I set myself a water challenge. It’s Summer here in Australia and we’re using a lot of water on the garden (we have a tank for the garden, but without rain there is no tank water). 


*Place a container in the sink and use the water from rinsing fruit, vegetables and eggs on the garden.
* Run water into a jug while waiting for hot water – I get heaps of water this way, which either goes into our purification jug or onto the garden.
*Halve the amount of water you normally wash up with. There is no need to fill the sink with hot water to do the dishes! I’ve been really surprised by how little I can use for this purpose. This goes for floor washing too – you don’t need that much (not that I wash my floors all that often, ahem..)
Next up is the use of appliances and utilities (gas, electricity) in the kitchen.

*If steaming vegetables, boil until steaming is underway, turn off the gas and keep the lid on. I find this is enough to steam the veggies without having to use another 5 – 10 minutes of gas.
*The oven can also be turned off early. When I make bread, I turn off the oven 5 minutes before the bread is done and let it sit with the door closed. It stays hot enough to cook and it saves 5 minutes of cooking time. Add that up over a year and it would be a lot of time!
*Bake your own bread. I’ve been doing this for a long time and it saves us a lot of money. The whole family prefers homemade loaves too. I bake 4 at a time to get the most out of the oven.
*Think about the appliance before you use it. Is it really necessary to plug into the electricity if you can do it by hand? For example, we sweep hard floors instead of vacuuming, our cooking ingredients are often mixed by hand and all our dishes are done in the sink with no dishwasher.

I’d love to hear your frugal tips for February too!

365 project

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 Last week I joined the 365 project. I thought it would be a good way to form the habit of picking up the camera every day and challenging myself to make the photo interesting. I’m on day 8 and loving it so far! Here are some of my photos from the week: 

Night Beach – my first proper attempt at long exposure for a landscape.

Rainbow Lorikeet – A pair of them have been enjoying our plums. Fortunately we have a bumper crop this year, so plenty to share.

Tomatoes – they are ripening by the dozens each day and make a delightful mouthful.


One of our beautiful girls – I love this portrait!

If you are interested in the 365 project or want to follow my project, you can find it here.

Happy NOT back to school day!

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Today was an awesome day.


We got up early. Not because we had to, but because we wanted to.


The girls did lots of bike riding. They’re practically obsessed with riding – horse riding as a first choice, but when there are no horses around the bikes will do just fine, thank you.


We visited the library.





We spent time in our garden, soaking in the warmth of the sun.


We read.



We studied. A little šŸ˜‰

We followed our own interests. 

Oh, and there was plenty of fun thrown in for good measure!


Yes, it was a great day. And the best part is that we can do it all again tomorrow. Lord, I am so grateful that you opened our hearts to homeschooling. I am so grateful that you have given me the privilege of being with our children all day, every day. And I am so thankful to be able to learn and grow right alongside them.

Hand woven dish cloths

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Over the weekend I wove some dish cloths with some beautiful Australian 10ply cotton that I rainbow dyed. I’ve been wanting to try out waffle weave and thought that kitchen cloths would be perfect.
All of these were woven on the same warp on my rigid heddle loom. Did you know you can do that? Warp once, weave many, much easier! Just leave a gap of 5 – 6 inches between each cloth, towel or whatever item you’re weaving. I hemstitched each one on the loom and left a short fringe at each end.

They sold like hot cakes with an order for more and I’m not surprised. If you’ve never tried a handmade cotton kitchen cloth (either woven, knitted or crocheted) you really should, they are far superior to any commercial cloth. I use mine as a multi purpose kitchen cloth for wiping and washing. They last a long time and can be thrown in the wash and line dried. My next order is for re-usable baby wipes – another great idea.


These are some other cloths I wove last year in plain weave so the baby wipes will be similar – fairly thin and very soft for baby skin.
The next thing for me to look at is tea towels. I really wasn’t happy with my last lot – I think the cotton was too thick, I need specific weaving cotton. 

If you’re interested in trying waffle weave on your own rigid heddle, there is a great pattern sequence HERE, look specifically in the comments section for the sequence.
You need one pick up stick but it’s very easy to master.

Specifications for my cloths: 
10 ply cotton (warp & weft)
7.5 dpi
60cm rigid heddle loom
Hemstitched on loom.
Wet finished, laid flat to dry.

Linking up with Creative Friday on Natural Suburbia.

Encouragement

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A few days ago I received a letter from my beautiful Nanna who is now in her late 80’s. Nanna raised 5 children under financially and emotionally challenging circumstances as her husband went off to war. 
When we began our homeschooling journey 10 years ago she didn’t understand and was very skeptical. But over the years, seeing the “proof in the pudding” she has become a great supporter. Her frequent letters never fail to tell me what a marvellous job I’m doing as a wife and mother. This means so much to me.


About the same time as the arrival of Nanna’s letter I also received my copy of Above Rubies, an American evangelical magazine I’ve been subscribed to for many years. When my girls were babies and toddlers and things were really tough, this magazine gave me great encouragement. I only had my husband for support during these years and he had to work a good deal to meet our mortgage and living expenses. Many family members (not all) and other associates looked down on our decision to homeschool and raise our children in our faith, so we were essentially left alone to figure it out for ourselves without support.


Above Rubies is written by mothers, for mothers. It’s a sharing of knowledge and experience and although it’s not a Catholic magazine I find a lot in common with the mothers featured. Homeschooling, contraception free, faith filled and home grown. Aiming for Heaven and taking others with us. Good stuff. 


The last few issues I hadn’t appreciated so much and though I made time to read I didn’t feel that I came away with much. But reading this recent edition made me realise something major. I need encouragement. Desperately. When my Nanna – mother to 5 during a depression and war times says that she “really admires me for what I do” it brings tears to my eyes. It means that much.


If you see a Mum struggling in the supermarket or trying to keep her kids quiet during Mass or looking completely frazzled with more kids hanging off her than you can count, ENCOURAGE HER! And if you are a Mum in this situation and no one encourages you, ENCOURAGE OTHERS all the more! You can completely turn a mother’s day around with a simple smile and “you’re doing a great job” or “keep up the good work”. 


Mothers do such an essential and important job that at times can be desperately hard. All it take to help is a little encouragement.

No stress this Christmas (re-post)

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I thought it about the right time of year to re-post this one from last Christmas.

As we have been going about our regular errands and appointments I’ve noticed a change in my relatively busy outer city suburb. This change happens about this time every year. It starts with rushing, pained expressions, the inability to obtain a car park and by this time next week will have worked itself into a frenzy. Yes, it’s Christmas.

The junk mail piles up almost daily in my letterbox, the traffic is terrible and people are stressed. People are pre-occupied with who is coming, how many to feed, what gifts to buy on credit to increase their debt just that little bit more.

That is how “the world” celebrates Christmas. But we do not need to be part of that, and that is not part of us. We celebrate Christmas because we love Jesus, and this is His birthday. It is also a time for relaxing, enjoying family and a few treats. What is so stressful about that?!

This year my husband is working right through the Christmas period so we have decided to keep things as simple as possible. Mass on Christmas Eve, a few presents for the children on Christmas morning before husband leaves for work, plenty of fresh fruit, a few special food treats, our traditional fruit punch and my husband’s clootie pudding. When husband returns home we can have our usual Christmas concert (sharing of poems, songs, plays and talents) and just enjoy being together.


If you are feeling stressed or anxious about Christmas I ask you to dig deep and ask yourself why. Because the most important thing about this Christmas is that your words and actions bring glory to He who is the reason for the day itself – Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Angels of Abbey Creek book review

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I suggested to my 9 year old daughter that she might like to review the book by answering some questions and she eagerly agreed.

How long did it take you to read? 
A couple of days. It was hard to put it down.


Describe your favourite part of the book?
I can’t pick a favourite part because it was all really good.


What was different about the book?
It’s hard to find a novel about a Catholic family.


What ages do you think would enjoy this book?
Probably 7 – 12 year olds


Would you recommend this book to others?
Yes, definitely! I’m reading the book again now.


I agree with everything my daughter said, it’s a terrific book and a breath of fresh air to the young Catholic reader. The book is available from Amazon, Fishpond and the Book Depository. Sue has another book “Grief, Love and Hope” about the loss of her son Thomas, which you can read more about here.


You can find out more about Sue and her unschooling family on her blog. 

Woven lap blanket

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A lot of the things I make by hand are a labour of love these days and this blanket definitely falls into that category!
This was my first double weave project on the rigid heddle loom. A brief explanation: The loom usually has one heddle to weave cloth a certain width and in a single layer. Add a double heddle kit (giving you now two heddles instead of one) and you can weave double the width of cloth. The idea of this really appealed to me, as my loom is 60cm wide which is not wide enough for a blanket.


Well, what a steep learning curve! There is not a lot of information about double weave available and it took me a long time (hours in fact) to get the loom warped (normally takes 20 – 30 minutes) and getting all the heddles threaded was a strain on my back. Did I mention my back injury has flared up again? Anyway, once I got to the actual weaving I encountered more issues and re-started twice before I felt comfortable with what I was doing.
The weaving took a long time too. When I finished and took it off the loom I found a lot of floats (threads that didn’t catch in the weaving pattern and so just “float” on the surface of the work) on the underside which was disappointing – they don’t look good and take a potentially professional looking piece to a somewhat amateur piece. 
The story ends well. The blanket isn’t what I hoped it would be but it was an excellent learning exercise (not to mention one in patience!) and it’s a terrifically warm and cosy lap blanket that has been used nearly every day. Success? Sort of!

The specs in case you’re a weaver – 
10ply woollen yarn (didn’t record the amount, silly me)
7.5 dpi
60cm Ashford rigid heddle loom

Will I make another blanket? Oh yes I will! Will it be double weave? Oh no it won’t! It will be panels which I will join – I know the seams will show but it has to be easier than double weave!

Linking up with Ginny’s Yarn along šŸ™‚