Monthly Archives: August 2013

Yoosta-Bee is in the bagging area!

craft

Hello Dear Reader,

As promised, I told you that as soon as I’d finished, that I would start thinking about Christmas. I’m planning on making a few bags to sell so people can give them away at Christmas and I made my first attempt at a new pattern as a practise. I used old curtain material and it is brighter than it looks in the photos where it appears to be totally washed out. I have a mass of curtain and upholstery fabric which I shall use to make lots of these bags. I have the fabric so they won’t actually cost me anything to make. I shall use this bag for taking books to and from work as it big and roomy and every seam is stitched and then top stitched so it’s very strong.

It’s a great bag for crafters and quilters to take to workshops with their fabric and notions inside and their tools, scissors and threads in the pockets. It certainly wasn’t easy to make and has taken me the best part of a day to make my first one. I will get quicker as I make more. I would advise anyone to use jumble sale fabric to make your first dress or bag so it doesn’t matter if the seams are lumpy or the pockets don’t sit as you would like them to. I paid 20p for this off cut of fabric at one of the local jumble sales so it really hasn’t cost me much to make it.

The pattern very cleverly guides you to sew the lining into the outer layer and then turn it inside out. I’m really impressed with this pattern and I’m looking forward to making a whole load of these bags with the fabric I have.


If you want to make one of these really useful and sturdy bags the number of the Butterick pattern is B5741.

P.S I will have a ‘Christmas Bazaar’ page up and running by the end of October so my ‘Scrappy Bags’ will be onsale by then.

Over to you, who else is sewing for Christmas, or getting ready for the Christmas Bazaars and Fayres? It’s a great way to earn some ‘pin money’. Who is sewing or knitting for Christmas gifts?

I’m off now to pin out and cut out the next bag as I’m setting myself the target of three a week…… I love a deadline!

Yoosta-Bee? I make bags from fabric and they used to be something else.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx

One summer, four quilts and paying it forward.

frugal quilting, quilting


Hello Dear Reader,

I have defeated the UFOs! All four of the previously half finished, or just cut and not even started, or promised and not even started, have all been finished. The pile above were all finished in my six week summer break and I’m ashamed to say, that two of them were finished in the last week. Procrastination, really is the thief of time!

Below, is the quilt I made from scratch yesterday. I say scratch as I had a few 5″ blocks of pyjama fabric already cut………….from last summer! I didn’t have enough and after a rallying cry, you stepped in to help and sent me lots of brushed cotton to help me out. I couldn’t have finished this without you. A big, big thank you to ‘Mummyhen’ who sent me lots of this and you really were my angel who stepped in to help me xxxxxxxxxxxxx

My final quilt, is a cot quilt for Romania and will head out on the next truck consignment to an orphanage that a local church supports. I have enough scraps for another and I’ll get on with making that as soon as I can so I can keep using my odds and ends to make them as many quilts as I can.

This is quick to make as I quilted it on the diagonal to make it as strong as I could for washing.


You can see all the donated fabric here. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve made this to give away but it’s a really good cause. If any of you know of any charities that could benefit from quilts, then please let me know as I’m happy to make quilts and love the thought of them going to families and children who need them.


The back is also made of brushed cotton or ‘flannelette’ and it’s a very warm cot quilt. I can not thank you all enough for the support and encouragement you’ve all given me with my quilting. I’ve only been doing this for a few years and this kind of quilting, ‘scrappy quilting’ really is my favourite way to quilt.

I’ve got lots of challenges over the next few weeks. I’ve received bags of upholstery and curtain fabric which will be great for cushion covers and bag making. I’ll keep you up to date with some ‘how to’ and ‘tutorials’ as well as telling you what I will be doing with all of them.

A massive thank you to everyone who sends me fabric, old shirts and the bits and bobs that you don’t need or have time to use. Without your support, these quilts would never have been made.

I’ve been cooking away over the last few days and the recipes and photos will be up later.

Over to you, does anyone know of any charities who distribute quilts? Does anyone else make hats, blankets, dresses, quilts for charities? I hate the thought of any fabric, textiles or wool being wasted and I’m sure I can create a page of addresses of charities who could benefit from our crafting and thrifting. I’m sure we can quilt, make school bags, clothes, knitted hats and mittens for a whole range of charities.

As ever, I look forward to hearing from you.

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxx

Chickpea and Chilli stir fry for 65p a portion

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

It’s very near the end of Austerity August and other than food, I haven’t bought anything. Until today! I needed 505 spray adhesive to baste my quilts and more Hobbs Batting/wadding. I’m really lucky that we have a fantastic craft shop right here in Liskeard. I was able to pick up what I needed and four FQ that were on sale for £1 each.

I took a photo of the outside of the shop below so you can see the name ‘Painters’ and their website address. It’s always incredibly well stocked. If you are local, they have lots of stocking kits and toy kits so you can get making home made gifts in time for Christmas. They also run craft classes if anyone would like to go to any. They’ve not sponsored me in any way, but they are really helpful and have often ordered what I’m looking for. I could buy my supplies on line but I like to keep them open……..in case you want anything - they have an on line shop.

I needed so little shopping this week that everything I needed was bought from the greengrocers and fit into my back pack. I bought a kilo of tomatoes for £1 and decided to make some Tomato Chutney.

  • 500g red onions, finely sliced
  • 1kg tomato, chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves, sliced
  • 1 red chilli, chopped (optional)
  • 4 cm piece ginger, peeled and chopped - I had some left over from my Tesco free dinner.
  • 250g brown sugar
  • 150ml red wine vinegar
  • 5 cardamom seeds - I didn’t have any and omitted these.
  • ½ tsp paprika

Tip all the ingredients into a large heavy-based pan and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring frequently. Simmer for 1 hr, then bring to a gentle boil so that the mixture turns dark, jammy and shiny. Place into sterilised jars and allow to cool before covering.

Wherever you might use ketchup, use tomato chutney instead. In fact, you could blend this and then use it instead of ketchup.

Chickpea and Chilli Stir-fry - this makes 4 portions - we’ll eat the same again tomorrow lunch time.

Ingredients

2 tbsp oil - 10p
1 tsp ground cumin
1 onion, sliced - 11p
1 pepper, sliced - optional - 33p
Cooked carrot batons - optional - I had some leftover and used them up. 10p
2 garlic cloves finely chopped - 2p
1 chilli seeded and finely chopped - 20p
2 X 400g cans of chickpeas drained and rinsed, 90p
1 tin of chopped tomatoes - 32p
A few ‘chunks of frozen spinach - I used 6 ‘chunks’ it soon defrosts. - 10p

£2.18 - 55p per portion + rice 65p each.

1. Heat wok. Add the cumin and fry for 1 minute. Add the onions and peppers - stir fry for 5 minutes
2. Add the garlic and chilli and stir fry for 2 minutes
3. Add the chickpeas and tomatoes to the wok. Reduce the heat and simmer
4. Add the spinach - cook until defrosted.

Serve with rice.

I also finished the quilt. (No wonder I’m weary, shopping, cooking twice and finished a quilt). Not any quilt, but your quilt Dear Reader. Remember? Liz sent me her hand made blocks, hand stitched with the cardboard templates still intact. Liz sent me this almost a year ago and there were enough quilt blocks that I made three quilts. One went to DB’s mum, one went to charity to raise money and now I’ve finished this one. This one is for me to remind me of your incredible kindness.

I added blocks and a border (the border is dress from a charity shop that I unpicked) and the binding was also sent to me by you Dear Reader. The entire effect is scrappy and that’s just how I like my quilts. I have a bit more quilting to do, but the quilt is now sound and with a bit of FMQ it’s good to go.

The backing is four retro pillow cases from my local Salvation Army charity shop that I unpicked and opened out. I love the tiny roses on the binding.

As usual, and just for you, the obligatory close ups.

I love the dusky old colours. I’ll treasure this as you made those blocks by hand.

Here, with a glimpse of doggy tail, is the other retro pillow case that backs the quilt. I love those ‘groovy’ flowers. We had wallpaper like that when I was a child.

Here’s a close up of one of the blocks. If you look at the block above, you can see the tiny hand stitches around the black triangles.


The dogs love my quilts even though they really shouldn’t be on the bed but they are such poseurs!


I’ll call that a fruitful day. Shopping - done. Chutney - done. New recipe trialled and eaten favourably - done. Another UFO - done!

One more UFO to go and I can start an brand new quilt!!!!!!!!!

Time for a cup of tea and put my feet up with the Great British Bake off!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Burgers in Baps

frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

If you’ve ever eaten at Mc Muck’s, those filth pedlars with the big yellow M, then you will have the misfortune to have eaten some of the worst bread in the world. It’s so artificial that it would not rot if it survived a nuclear winter! Dearly Beloved loves a burger in roll, with some cheese and some fried red onions. I make all of ours from scratch.

I use my bread machine to make the dough
1 1/4 cups of water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/4 cups of strong bread flour
1 1/2 tsp of fast action yeast

Check if your machine has a dough setting and use that. Mine takes 1.5 hours to make the dough and gives it two rises, knocking back and kneeding again at each stage. I then take the dough out of the machine and form six balls for the rolls or baps and then leave them to rise again for the final time. About 15 minutes in a warm window will do. I then bake them at 190C/Gas 5/375F for 20 - 25 minutes. I would encourage anyone to make their own bread, even without a machine, it’s so easy and it tastes of bread!

Leave to cool and then get on with the burger recipe.

You will also need one large red onion that you will need to slice and fry gently in some butter or oil. Cook them until they are sticky.

Homemade burgers are so much better than the ones you can buy.

 350g of minced beef that cost me £1.
Heaped tbsp of dried coriander,
1 small onion, finely chopped.
1 tsp of mustard - I used Dijon as that’s what we have.
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp of olive oil
salt and pepper to season.

I had every intention of grilling these, but my ageing grill (at the top of the oven) would not heat up in time so I didn’t get the chance to melt the cheese. It is better if you have cheese that it’s melted. These take about fifteen minutes to cook under a hot grill, cook one side, turn over and cook that side and then in the last five minutes add the cheese. Or not, if you don’t want any!

Serve your man mountain his burger with onions, cheese topped burger and a healthy smear of pesto!


I aimed to eat two but I was beaten after just one! They are just lovely. If you ever feel like reaching for the takeaway, or poisoning yourself with Mc Muck’s then stop, make them yourselves for pennies and I can assure you that the combination of home made bread rolls, soft fried onions and burgers are a massive treat and will not break the bank!

I’ve been quilting again today and have finished another quilt top, with I have batted and basted and I’m currently in the process of quilting. I’ll have the photos to show you tomorrow. I now only have one and a bit unfinished quilts and I aim to get them all done by the end of the week!

Now Dear Reader, who else makes their own bread? Is it me, or does shop bread just taste of salt and sugar and has the texture of polystyrene? Any other burger makers out there who like to beat the takeaways?

Until tomorrow’s next reveal,

Love Froogs xxxx

Quilt in a day

quilting

Hello Dear Reader,

Above, is all that was finished of a disappearing nine patch quilt that I started in October 2012 at one of my quilting workshops. I had all the pieces ready to make a cot sized quilt and never finished it. It’s going to someone for her baby girl and I needed it finished for the end of the school holiday. With a week to go! I finished. I made it, quilted it and bound it all today. I’m going to add some FMQ to secure it but it’s ready to go.

All of the fabric is donated by you Dear Reader and you might recognise it as some of the fabric you sent me.

I used 144 5″ X 5″ squares and made 16 nine square blocks. If you are going to do this, position the fabric you like the most if the top/bottom corners as these stay whole.

I arranged each block to make sure that I had a good variety of fabric.

After I had sewn all sixteen nine patch squares, I cut them across the middle vertically and horizontally.

I then muddled up all the blocks so they were not with the original block they came from and then sewed the ‘new blocks together’. I created blocks of four and then sewed them together until I had the finished quilt top.

I backed it, and again that was fabric donated by you Dear Reader. I patched together all the bits and pieces of batting/wadding I had and got straight on with quilting it.

So far, I’ve just quilted the blocks in 6″ squares which is quite loose so I’ll add some FMQ to the middle of each block.

I’ve edged it with my machine and again, do you recognise the fabric you gave me. I would never have been able to produce such a lovely quilt with old shirts and scraps and it’s lovely to use such vibrant new fabric.

I love the backing fabric you sent me with the teddies.

More of the backing.

And a long shot.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a recipe for you and I hope you are enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend.

I’m off for a sit down and cup of tea…………..it’s been a long day xxxx

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx

Froogs, her latest quilt and her quilting companions.

frugal quilting, quilting

Hello Dear Reader,

I’ve finished my latest quilt! To my shame, I started this in Spring 2012! I made the top quite quickly and made star blocks for the first time. I didn’t use a pattern nor did I measure correctly and nor was I good at quarter inch seams and had irregular sized blocks. I felt a total failure and as if my quilt was rubbish. I put it together and the blocks didn’t line up and it was skewed when I finally backed it and had it all together. Well, I got over all that, patched in where it wasn’t square it up and got on with it any way. I then started my first (and probably my last) free motion quilting. I was rubbish at that too! I couldn’t get the tension right, nor the stitch size and in places it’s so amateur! However, I got over that too and got on with it. It has been slow going this summer and it’s taken me ages and in truth, I haven’t enjoyed it. But, I got over that as well and now it’s finished.

The mutts always accompany me when I sew. They don’t mind the sound of the machine. The quilt they are lying on (now the dog quilt) is the first ever quilt that I made. I keep it as a reminder of how far I’ve come. It’s not long ago that I’d never made anything, least of all a full sized quilt.

Below is the texture of the quilt with lots and lots of circles it makes the quilt look as if it is covered in bubbles.

The quilt is made of a collection of fabrics that I bought at reduced rates at the 2012 South West Quilt Show and of course, interspersed with plenty of shirt fabric.

The quilt is for a single/twin sized bed and hangs almost to the floor.

It’s edged in a pink and green check that I bought as an off cut in the reduced price ‘bin’ when I went to Ikea and the backing is a vintage single sheet that I bought in the Salvation Army shop. As usual, I’ve used Hobb’s unbleached batting/wadding and the entire quilt is 100% cotton.

I machine stitch the binding by sewing it onto the back first and then using a decorative stitch on the front to secure it. I know most quilters do this by hand by I’m a strictly machine girl!

Here’s a close up of one of the stars.

I like the fabric in some blocks more than others. My inspiration originally from the colours of the Polyanthus flowers that are in all Cornish gardens in springtime.

You can see that my FMQing is not great, but as I’ve got over it and as I grow to like this quilt then I can forgive my first attempt. It can only get better.

I’m going to use this in the spare bedroom, which is where my daughter stays when she comes to visit.


It’s been emotional and I’m glad it’s finished. I now have FOUR!! other UFOs or WIPs to complete and I’ll keep you posted. I’m going to finish the baby quilt I’ve started first and then the baby quilt that’s being donated to an orphanage in Romania and I’m certain that they won’t take me six weeks each to finish!

Come on you quilters. ‘Fess up! Who else has quilts lurking that you started months or even years ago! Who else needs a size 6 Froogs’ boot up the back end to get it finished. Take the pledge here……….repeat after me, I will finish what I’ve started. I’m embarrassed that I have so many unfinished quilts so here is my pledge. I will not start any new quilts until I’ve finished the ones I’ve started. Feel free to leave your pledge, either about a quilt or craft project that you’ve started and now is just gathering dust. May be, it’s a DIY project or work around the house or garden. Come on, come clean and tell Froogs all about it.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx

Sometimes, Febreze just won’t do!

Uncategorized


Hello Dear Reader,

I have bleached all the grout and polished all the taps with window cleaner. I have use Pledge to make all the wood surrounds and skirting boards shine. I have washed all the dogs in Pantene and given them and extra sniff. I have trained them to look at visitors with big puppy eyes and look cute. I have cut the grass, edged the lawn, cleaned all the windows and the inside and outside of every cupboard. I have bleached the over flows and put Dettol down every drain. The ceilings might collapse because everything is in the loft. I’ve even put my sewing machine away and tidied up my sewing room so it looks like a bed room.I even arranged the cup cupboard so all the handles face one way! You never know where people look!

That reminds me……………..I must scrub the steps and polish the door handles!

I wish I had a house viewing every week to have the house this clean all the time!

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxx

How to write a menu plan for a month.

Budgeting, frugal food

Hello Dear Reader,

There are many ways to menu plan for your family. The starting point is making the plan together. It’s easy for Dearly Beloved and myself as we know our cooking capabilities and what we like. Any family can decide what they like and what they don’t like and you can work on compromises as a family. Once you have decided on that, then you need to know your budget. Our catering budget varies week to week but averages over the month at £50 a week (I know! Prices have shot up!) and that’s for all our food, fresh fruit and veg which we buy weekly, a big meat shop once a month, a big shop once every few months for tea and coffee, a big shop every few months for cleaning products and dishwasher tablets (we buy in bulk from Trago) and a big shop once every few months for tinned, dry goods, UHT milk, pet food and toiletries. In all, our ‘grocery’ budget is £200 a month. It’s high in comparison to some and low to others. We also add to our stores by using Approved Food a couple of times a year and I usually buy a year’s worth of pasta, dried pulses, cous cous or rice from them for a tiny price.(e.g 10 500g bags of pasta shapes for £1)

When I menu plan, the first thing I always do is stock take everything we have to eat in the house. I write everything down and start to formulate a plan of what we are going to eat. I create a spreadsheet so I can refer back to the previous week and check we are not eating the same things over and over. I try to make my plan as varied as possible, even when I have bags and bags of minced beef, or masses of packs of pasta to use up. We tend to eat the same things for breakfast of either cereal or toast and we eat one main meal in the evening and one light meal as well. Lunch is often leftovers from the night before, or a boiled egg in a sandwich or salad. I always have fruit in the freezer and family sized pots of natural yoghurt so there’s always ‘pudding’ if we want it. We rarely snack between meals and we rarely snack after our evening meal so there’s no cheese and crackers lurking and definitely no bought in snacks such as nuts or crisps. Not snacking means we can keep our grocery bill as low as we can. We don’t snack because we fill up of lots of veggies with all our meals so we don’t get hungry until our next meal. Occasionally, I relent and make biscuits or cakes but portion them to last as long as possible.

I have a stock of cookery books, I also use BBC Food, Yummly, allrecipes.co.uk and other recipe websites. I’ll often try recipes from other frugal food bloggers too. I like to try new ideas and will look at my ingredients and then use Google to search for recipes to make from those ingredients. I like to plan from pay day to pay day, so I know we’ve got enough food for the month and other than fresh fruit and veg, that I don’t need to buy anything else. You could find your own way of planning and it might be weekly to start with, moving onto fortnightly and eventually monthly. I have a friend who pins her planning to her fridge to remind her what to prepare, or to take out of the freezer or to defrost if she had made one earlier. Anyone can find their own way. Another friend of mine has a write on - wipe off board on her kitchen wall and writes her planning on that, with a shopping list next to it. You can find your own way.

Of course, I’m not suggesting anyone should plan, it’s just personally something that we do. Our plan isn’t set in stone either. I could cook anything from the plan on any of the days as I’ve got most of the ingredients in the house as we always have veggies and salad here. I cross off the ‘meal’ once we’ve had it, as that helps with my stock taking at the end of the month.

Here’s my plan for the coming month.


You will notice that we eat the same main meal on Sunday and Monday and that’s because we give ourselves the night off cooking on a Monday and have ‘Ding Cuisine’. We’ll often eat soup for lunch two days running as I will have made a large pot one day and we eat it over the next few days for lunch with bread. I like to keep a good store of frozen foods and dry goods so there is always food in the house and I like to keep a good table. We might be frugal but I always do my best to make sure we eat well.

I hope I’ve given you a few ideas about menu planning and now it’s your turn to chip in. Who menu plans? Who has a set budget for food and sticks to it. Who thinks they have a set budget but actually pops down the local Co-op for a bit of this and that? Who else bulk buys and keeps a store? Who batch cooks so you can have days off cooking?

As ever, I look forward to hearing from you.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

p.s A second house viewing on Friday by a couple who have now sold their house, so cross your fingers for me.

Potato Salad and a simple life

Saving money


Hello Dear Reader,

You contacted me via Twitter yesterday and wanted some advice on how to save for a mortgage. The answer will not be what you want to hear. If you want to save up for anything, you have to give up almost everything to get there. You will need to live a simple, austere and frugal life and learn to love it. If you don’t love it, you will not stick at it and you’ll never save up for anything. When we paid off our debts, we totally gave up our previous life and we don’t miss it at all because we’ve not slipped back to any of our old ways at all.

My life is very simple now. I’ve been on holiday from work since the end of July and we haven’t had one day out, I’ve not spent any money on myself, we’ve not eaten out, I’ve not bought any thing new and I’ve not been anywhere. I now consider a holiday to be any day where I’m not at work………..that’s my holiday now. I’ve had the luxury of being able to afford new glasses, had some work done on the house and getting the car serviced; all from money we had saved for such an event. We have enough. We have enough food, our home is heated enough, we have enough stuff, I have enough clothes, I have enough to do and read and our lives are simple. We have no debt other than our mortgage and saving for when we need anything.



My day has been another simple day on planet earth. I baked bread and each loaf costs 30p. I made two quiches for the freezer as I’m bound to have a ‘can’t be bothered to cook’ day really soon. I made jam tarts with the leftover pastry and we had home made potato salad for lunch.If any of you have any suet mix lurking in your cupboards that you may have bought from Approved Foods in the past, it makes great pastry and is brilliant to make quiche with. I always portion my quiche before I freeze it and then just pull it out of the freezer, already wrapped in foil and ready to pop into a lunch box or the mini oven to warm up for lunch.

I’m still using the goodies I was sent by Tesco and have some of the bag of Charlotte potatoes that they sent me. I’ll share my potato salad recipe with you.


Serves 2 - You will need

1 small onion finely diced
10 small new potatoes cut into cubes - only just cook them
1 tablespoon of mayonaise
3 tablespoons of low fat natural yoghurt
4 cornichons or 1 gerkin - finely diced. I get mine from Aldi and they have a stong dill flavour
1/4 of a peeled and chopped cucumber - optional


Combine the lot and serve with cold or warm quiche, or some home boiled and sliced gammon or some home made veggie burgers or fritters. My gammon joint cost £4.69 and after cooking I got 25 slices out of it which worked out to 18p a slice.

Today sums up our simple life. Dearly Beloved had the day off work and the highlight of our day was sitting down to lunch together. You see, normally we eat lunch apart and it’s a great joy when we are both at home together. We don’t hanker for things, experiences, trips, days out and enjoy life just as it is.


I don’t for one minute want to tell the young reader that you should live like me to save for your mortage but I will say you can’t have it all. You can not have new shoes, all the latest toys and crazes for your young children, you can not have the best toiletries, day trips to amusement parks, you can not have trips to the hair dressers (may I suggest the local college or training academy), handbags, ready made supermarket food, holidays, nights out in restaurants and save up for a deposit on a house. However, if you truly want your own forever home for your family, giving up any of the above will be easy.

We are determined to move to a smaller house. We are determined to keep paying the amount we do now and have a very short mortgage term and be mortgage free within six years. If I have to go without to get what we want out of life, then I will have to go without. I’m not telling anyone to live like I do, nor am I suggesting that they should I’m just sharing my simple life and how I save to get what I need. My only regret is that I didn’t think like this earlier. It’s never to soon to be frugal, thrifty and to live a simple life.

Sorry I couldn’t tell you what you wanted to hear but have to tell you that if you want to save for a deposit, that you’ll have to go without for a many years to be able to afford a mortgage at all. I wish you well and know if you are truly prepared to make sacrifices that it will be worth it in the end.

Over to you Dear Reader, what advice would you give to a young family on how to save for a deposit for their first home.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx