Obviously, or I would have more time to think about blogging, right?
The past couple months have been very busy and the last 19 days were way toooo busy with many, many 12-hour days and a few 20-hour days mixed in. I was kind of zombie-like, maybe robot-like -- either way I was a hungry zombie or robot.
Due to the work schedule, I didn't get many dinners made. That was a result of no time to plan, no time to shop, no time to chop and cook. Fortunately DH is easy on that score, mostly self-sufficient and really appreciative when I cook for him. But at this time, he was on his own and even brought me food several times. Otherwise it was sandwiches, cans, commercial frozen boxes, and leftovers.
I don't want that to happen again, so this week's obsession has been reading about meal prep and freezer to slow-cooker recipes for whole meals. The slow-cooker is a wonderful appliance to have around, but you do have to have the ingredients and a few minutes to prepare, chop, measure, etc. for them to be of any use. I realized if I had all that stuff done ahead and frozen, then I could take a meal out of the freezer and use the slow cooker to have a completely effortless meal at times like these.
I tend to cook by technique more than recipe, using recipes as a guideline rather than rule book, so I'm having to change my ways a bit to accomplish this -- that's the planning part. I'm having to pull out recipes and think about how they will work in the slow cooker before I make my shopping list and spend a few hours with all the prep and assembling of freezer to slow-cooker meals. I'll let you know how it goes.
One last thought, though, I don't know when I'll have a day that I feel I have enough time to get all the necessary groceries, come home and do the work. So, in the meantime, I realize that anytime I am preparing a meal that might also work in the slow cooker, I should just prepare double the ingredients and put the extra directly into a freezer bag. That'll be a meal ready to go with no extra planning steps, no extra mess or thought, just a few extra chops on the cutting board. Woo hoo!
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
WDITOT Wednesday Stapling
Why Didn't I Think of This (WDITOT) Wednesday could become a thing.
This is so smart and so simple. Why didn't I think of it myself?
In this video tutorial, Amanda Leins of mandalei.com shows how easy it is to attach your quilt back to the leaders using a stapler instead of pins or grippers. Pinning can be slow, tedious, and hard on your fingers. Grippers can be expensive, stiff, and add bulk as your quilt rolls onto the bar.
The only tools you need are a standard office stapler and plenty of staples. Be sure the stapler has two settings where the staple prongs get bent. You know the spot on the bottom of the stapler "jaw" where the staple prongs come out and get pushed into two little grooves that cause them to bend to meet at the center on the back side of your paper? Well you need a stapler that lets you rotate that base around where there are two little grooves spaced a bit apart. That causes the prongs to be bent facing outward away from center on the backside of the paper or, in this case, fabric. As far as the staples, the cheaper, the better.
In this stapler method, you match up center and other increments as carefully as always and start at the center as always. Hold the leader edge, bottom side to right side/bottom side of quilt backing and staple together, making sure the flat bar of the staple is on the fabric backing side and the prongs end up on the leader side. Continue stapling in the same directions and increments you would if you were pinning.
Wasn't that easy? No sore fingers!
https://mandalei.com/2014/01/24/staple-a-backing-to-your-longarm-leaders-now-on-youtube/
Now for the real fun--removing your quilt. Carefully pull the quilt backing apart from the leader. Don't pull too fast-- you do not want to send those pointy little staples flying all over the place. You want them to stay in the fabric. If you staples correctly, with the prongs on the leader side, they should all pull easily out of the leader and stay in you quilt backing. Now all you have to do is make a snip in the edge of the backing about an inch from the stapled edge and rip a strip off from that edge. That strip should have all your staples in it. Throw it away. No muss, no fuss!
Here's the video, courtesy of Craftsy and YouTube:
This is so smart and so simple. Why didn't I think of it myself?
In this video tutorial, Amanda Leins of mandalei.com shows how easy it is to attach your quilt back to the leaders using a stapler instead of pins or grippers. Pinning can be slow, tedious, and hard on your fingers. Grippers can be expensive, stiff, and add bulk as your quilt rolls onto the bar.
The only tools you need are a standard office stapler and plenty of staples. Be sure the stapler has two settings where the staple prongs get bent. You know the spot on the bottom of the stapler "jaw" where the staple prongs come out and get pushed into two little grooves that cause them to bend to meet at the center on the back side of your paper? Well you need a stapler that lets you rotate that base around where there are two little grooves spaced a bit apart. That causes the prongs to be bent facing outward away from center on the backside of the paper or, in this case, fabric. As far as the staples, the cheaper, the better.
In this stapler method, you match up center and other increments as carefully as always and start at the center as always. Hold the leader edge, bottom side to right side/bottom side of quilt backing and staple together, making sure the flat bar of the staple is on the fabric backing side and the prongs end up on the leader side. Continue stapling in the same directions and increments you would if you were pinning.
Wasn't that easy? No sore fingers!
https://mandalei.com/2014/01/24/staple-a-backing-to-your-longarm-leaders-now-on-youtube/
Now for the real fun--removing your quilt. Carefully pull the quilt backing apart from the leader. Don't pull too fast-- you do not want to send those pointy little staples flying all over the place. You want them to stay in the fabric. If you staples correctly, with the prongs on the leader side, they should all pull easily out of the leader and stay in you quilt backing. Now all you have to do is make a snip in the edge of the backing about an inch from the stapled edge and rip a strip off from that edge. That strip should have all your staples in it. Throw it away. No muss, no fuss!
Here's the video, courtesy of Craftsy and YouTube:
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