Sewing and Eating, More of it

Yesterday I made a sample napkin holder.  I had intended to make it in the style of these baskets on Debbie's blog, and I drew the pattern here:

After thinking about it and discussing it with my cousin, who I invited into the creative process, I changed how I wanted to do it.  The calculations are shown here:

The sides are made from the long strip which is folded at the top.  This strip encloses plastic canvas pieces.  The bottom is a double layer square of fabric which is attached to the bottom of the sides.  The bottom encloses a piece of craft foam.  I cut the fabric pieces and did the sewing, while my cousin cut all the plastic pieces.  Here is my first napkin holder for the kitchen:

Even though St Patrick's day was yesterday, we had a very St Paddie's day breakfast today.  The crust of the quiche was nut meal and egg.  The quiche filling was eggs, spinach leaves, and sea salt, blended.  There was cheese sprinkled on top, but it got cooked into the quiche.


The biscuits were made from this recipe.  They are made with mostly eggs and coconut flour, and they are very good.  This was a mostly paleo meal, except for the little bit of cheese:

Today, I went out with DH to buy a step ladder, and we had burgers at Steak n Shake - no fries, no bread, no cheese, but all the other condiments!  Then we went to JA's to get buttons and a zipper.  We got a small pack of very sturdy buttons for the next time I need to replace buttons on his shorts.  We got a 30" light-weight nylon zipper so I can make a cover for the wedge pillow I bought last weekend.

After that, cousin and I laid out in the sun to get our natural Vitamin D and to sweat out the toxins.  The day is not yet over!

I came in just in time!

I got my ration of sunlight yesterday and today. Not five minutes after coming back in today, it started to rain. That's a good thing, since it was over 90 degrees (F) outside, so maybe it will cool down a little bit.

I very rarely use sunscreen, but please do not worry that I might get a sunburn. I have built up my resistance to the sun by getting my tan slowly. I'm not very dark at all, but my skin shows great contrast to a white wall, for example. I like to get my share of vitamin D while preparing my skin for kayak outings (which we haven't done for a couple months due to the extreme heat).

I start each year as the cool weather turns to warm (OK, this IS Florida, so I must really mean Hot). As weather permits, I lay out in the back yard on Saturdays and Sundays in the middle of the day. At first, I limit my time to five minutes on my front and five minutes on my back. I work up to 20 minutes each. I use a small kitchen timer for the five-minute increments, or a cell phone's timer function for the 10-minute increments.

For an extra vitamin D punch, I slather my body with pure coconut oil, either before or after my "tanning" session. I also take vitamin D pills year-round.

I'm glad the weather is starting to cool off. We are looking forward to more kayaking. With my built-in sunscreen (aka, tan), I come back from kayaking with no burn. Yes, I also wear a big-brimmed hat to cut down glare!

Winter is too dark to sew, etc.

I want to "up" the lighting in my sewing room. It's too dark to sew at night in my sewing room. I like to sew with the curtains and mini-blinds open when the sun is out, but winter-time reduces the available daylight to the weekends. Of course, the weekends are when we sleep in (chronically), and also that's when DH wants to get out of the house.

It was really nice out yesterday, so we rode the motorcycle to Joann's where I got white sew-in Velcro. We also went to the flea market, where we found that watermelon and eggplant (my two favorite foods) are out of season. Since the water heater is on the verge of dying, we visited a hardware store, where we learned that the amount to put into our budget is $288 plus tax. Owie!

On the way back home, we stopped by the neighborhood clubhouse to lay out by the pool, clothes and all, with our faces pointed towards the sun (eyes closed, of course). Man, that felt good!