The Edible Front Yard by Ivette Soler: a Book Review

It's winter, and I'm already planning my spring planting. Aren't you?

This year I've decided that I want to go predominantly edible with my plantings, because not only can they be beautiful, they're functional. Let's face it, anything is more functional than grass. Sure, grass is great if you need something for your sheep or goats to munch on, but we don't have sheep and goats at my house (at this point in time) and I'm so tired of wasting time and money on the gas powered goat, I mean, lawn mower. It's silly. Water the grass (okay, I admit I'm not a grass waterer, but my neighbors are), mow the grass, water the grass, mow the grass. We want it to grow, we don't want it to grow. As a nation, we have an identity crisis going on in our own front yards.
No more, I say.

So, I've been spending the long nights reading up on some alternatives, and I want to share them with you, then maybe as planting time approaches we can share some of our plans with each other and check back in throughout the growing season. It will be good old fashioned hard work with delicious rewards.

You with me?

The Edible Front Yard: The Mow-Less, Grow-More Plan for a Beautiful, Bountiful Garden by Ivette Soler

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Edible Front Yard by Ivette Soler is a good jumping off point for a person who is ready to start making the transition from growing a great big lawn of useless and resource wasting grass to having a functional garden space planted with the things one loves to eat while still maintaining the all important curb appeal. Her descriptions of various ornamental edibles that one might not consider growing, hello nasturtiums and orach, are truly useful in planning a garden. I appreciate that she includes a description of color, height, habit, days to maturity, drainage requirements, hardiness zones, and even what to do with the various edibles. That said, I wish she had included light requirements. It is not safe to assume that all plants need the same light, and while on a rare few Mediterranean herbs she says they require a lot of heat and sun, I know that my plant wish list, if drawn from this book, is going to require a substantial amount of light checking while in the planning phase. It just seems silly that with all of the details provided, that this one was omitted.
Still, it's a good book to have on hand when you're planning and drawing a blank outside the go-to garden veggies and looking for something both yummy and pretty.



View all my reviews

Repurposing the Ubiquitous Altoids Tin

 Remember when I demonstrated how to fold an vast amount of bias tape quickly? Well, if you've started making lots of it and have it coming out your ears like some woman I know, you might be wondering just how to keep it from becoming a tangled mess.

The obvious answer is "wrap it around something. But what?

A piece of cardboard, like commercial bias tape is packaged, leaves those obnoxious creases in your special bias tape. This is why I don't use a flat piece of cardboard.

A cardboard tube such as is I the center of a roll of paper towels (or toilet paper) works much better, but it's garbage day, and the recycling has already been picked up, so I needed something better. Enter the ubiquitous Altoids tin. I can never seem to toss them in the recycling bin, they're just so handy! So, there's usually an empty one floating around my house.

I simply inserted one end into the tin, closed it, and wound the bias tape around it, then secured with a pin.

Easy Peasy

I like that it isn't going to crease my hard-earned bias tape, and I like that I can stack them in my sewing closet a little better than rolls around tubes. Alright, I admit I also like it because it's an excuse to expanding my Altoids tin collection.

Happy sewing!

Folding 5 yards of bias tape, in 10 minutes.

Try It Tuesday

So you've taken the fabric you picked to make your own homemade bias tape and turned it into a parallelogram of doom. You've marked it, folded and pinned it so that the first marked strip pins to the second and so on. You've pinned it, lost hope and stitched it anyway, all the while grateful you decided to try it with a fat quarter instead of larger yardage. You took your twisty wonky mess to your sewing machine, stitched skeptically, then used your good shears to cut out one bit continuous string of fabric, on bias.
That's a triumphant place to be, but also a daunting one. If you're like me and cut those strips at 2", suddenly you have just over 5 yards of bias tape, and therefore a LOT of edges to turn under and press.
Yeah, major time suck.
Well, I don't believe in time suck, so here's what you do to quickly turn that strip of bias tape into something functional.
Get TWO long needles and a ruler. Decide just how wide you want your bias tape to be when both edges are turned. I went with an inch.
Take your pins and put them, about 2" apart so they go through your ironong board cover and back up, then through and up again, so that the space created in the middle of each needle, over the ironing board, is your desired distance, in this case, 1". do it with both needles, 2" apart. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't.
Now hand turn the edges at one end of your bias strip and feed it through the needles. Pull it out about six inches, slowly, and press this section. It's "the hard part."
Now, your can take the ironed end of your folded bias tape and just pull the rest through, under your iron.

You'll want to move your iron around a little so you don't scorch your ironing board.
If the bias tape starts feeding unevenly, just stand up your iron, manually readjust the fold a few inches away from the needles, and start up again. I find I have to readjust about ever 2 or three feet, but it's not a big deal, and still so much faster than painstakingly folding down one edge, and vastly superior to spending money on one of those "bias tape maker" contraptions. It's a free modifiable bias tape maker that you didn't even know you already owned. Pretty cool, huh?

Tutorial: Toddler Blanket

This year for my nephew's birthday, I decided to make him a blanket and matching pillow case.

 I made blankets for all of my parents' other grandkids for Christmas, and a couple of their half-siblings, so it was time to make sure the latest toddler on the list had a blankey too.

For toddlers, small children, and people who like a light weight blanket while watching tv, I like to make them either 42"x60" or 42" x 72".  42"x72" is what my great-grandma called "bunk size," and was about the size she made all her quilts for children, since they didn't need them hangin' off the bed and makin' a mess.  She sold quilts by the side of the road and pieced ones for her own family from the scraps from the ones she'd sell.  To make a baby blanket I would reduce the size to 42" x 36" or use the same size, because I'm a big fan of borrowing my kids' baby blankets when I'm watching Doctor Who.

(note- finished blanket sizes are closer to 41"x59" or 41"x71")

What you need:

 Fabric-
2 yards quilting cotton, 2 yards Minky. (If you want to make the blanket only 60" long, you can get away with only using 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 yards of Minky, as it is 60" wide)

Thread- matching or complimentary to your fabrics
Iron
Ironing Board
Scissors,
Pins
Either Measuring tape or cutting board and rotary cutter with rotary cutting ruler.  I highly recommend  using rotary cutting methods as I'm awful with scissors.
Sewing Machine
Bobbin
Extra needles for your machine.  If you don't have at least one, go procure one before starting any new project.

How to make the blanket:

Step 1:  Pick the fabrics that are going to make your heart sing. Then Wash and Iron the quilting cotton.
Step 2: Straighten your work area, double checking that you have all the supplies you'll need.
Step 3: Thread your machine and test your stitches and tension on a scrap of fabric.
Step 4: Cut  quilting cotton fabric to your desired size, taking care to cut straight lines at 90 degree angles.  Note- This is fairly easy if you are cutting for a 42" x 72" size blanket and you've bought exact amounts from a supplier who takes great care in their cutting of yardage, as your quilting cotton will already be the right size and you can trim your minky to match in Step 7. Because I didn't use exact yardages, I had to cut mine, and I used my rotary cutter to trim it to length.

Step 5: Lay fabrics flat  and smooth on top of one another, right sides together. (This is easier said than done. In order to keep the Minky smooth you need to have some amount of friction with it, so I usually lay it on a bed, carpet, or on top of an acrylic afghan to keep it from slip-sliding around.  Some people prefer to lay the cotton down first to act as the gripping agent.)

Static clingy afghan of goodness.

Step 6: Pin edges all of the way around.  At this point you have to decide where you want the opening to turn the blanket.  I usually place it about 10" from a corner, and use the length of my hand as a guide.

I mark the extremes of this area by double pinning at each end so I'll know where to stop and start stitching.  (This is a good time to cut the Minky layer if you still need to)

Step 7: Trim excess Minky away.

Step 8: Begin stitching at the first set of doubled pins and stitch around the entire blanket.  I usually use between a 1/4" and 1/2" seam allowance.  Always backstitch when beginning or finishing a line of stitches.  When I am a seam allowance's length from the end of a side, I lower my needle through the fabric, raise the foot, and turn the fabric. Then I lower the foot again and continue stitching so as to not have to start a new seam.  At the second set of double pins, backstitch, remove from machine, and clip loose ends.

Step 9: Remove all those pins.
Step 10: Turn rightside out. I generally worm my whole arm into it and grasp the far corner, then pull it out first.

This is the fun part.

Step 11: See that open area? Time to handle that.

Take the whole mess and the pins back to the open area where you first pinned it and  carefully arrange the blanket so it lays flat with all of the seams nicely open.  This takes patience. You can iron the seams in place if you like, but use a low temperature, as the Minky is synthetic and can melt.
Step 12: Pin the edges so that the nice seams you've just lined up don't move around. Be sure to carefully turn in the open section and pin this area more densely than the rest of the blanket, again marking the starting and ending points of the opening with doubled pins.
Step 13: Starting with the opening, stitch all around the entire blanket, remembering to backstitch at the end as before, turning at the corners.

Step 14: Remove all pins except the doubled pins.
Step 15: Gently pull back the seam between the double pins to make sure that it is properly closed and there are no exposed raw edges.  If necessary, run a second seam between the doubled pins nearer the edge to make sure to enclose any raw edges, backstitching at the beginning and end.
Step 16: Trim all loose ends
Step 17: Take pictures so you can show off your spiffy cuddly new blanket masterpiece.

This is anotherI've made using that technique:

Ta-Da!