Beekeeping and Raw Milk on NPR

19th July, 2010 - Posted by carsi - No Comments

This morning, I heard two interesting local-food-related stories on NPR. The first was about the health benefits of honey and the increase in popularity of beekeeping. Beekeeping has become more popular recently in urban areas as more and more people become interested in growing their own food. The story went on to discuss the importance of bees in our agricultural system and how honey can provide antibacterial properties, although the allergy-preventing claims are mostly unfounded.

The second story was about the debate about raw milk. Raw milk is also seeing a rise in popularity due to the local and natural food movement. Proponents claim that raw milk is more nutrient-dense than pasteurized milk, and the woman interviewed for the story claims her kids no longer have allergies after making the switch to raw milk. However, critics of raw milk point to the increase in likelihood of the presence of bacteria in raw milk versus pasteurized milk, and they believe that the nutritional benefits don’t outweigh the risks.

I Made an Apron out of Old Clothes (Mostly)!

19th July, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

Ever since I went to the Renegade Craft Fair and saw some really cool aprons made entirely out of old clothing, I’ve wanted to try and do the same thing at home. So I’ve been saving clothes that I normally would have donated in hopes I could make some aprons as presents for the holidays and birthdays. A friend let me borrow her sewing machine and a book  called “A is for Aprons” (it has 25 different apron designs) and I was off on my first sewing project.

I had a pair of khaki pants that belong to my husband that no longer fit him, which I decided to use as the main part of the apron and the ties. I also had a cute pink summer dress that mysteriously wouldn’t zip up this summer when I got it out of the closet, despite the combined best efforts of my husband and myself to wrestle some upper back fat into the dress while leaving enough clearance to safely zip it up without harming said fat.  I decided to use the dress material to add some unnecessary decorative flair to the apron.  I also bought 1/2 yard of green and white fabric with a tiny flower pattern on it to make the pockets and waistband.

The instructions were pretty straightforward but there were many techniques I didn’t know how to do (like a “zigzag” stitch), and parts of the instructions, like attaching the large pocket, that were a little confusing and I just did what seemed to make sense.  The main part of the apron is 15×26, the large pocket was 9×22, and the small pocket was 5×5. The waistband was 5×27 and the 2 ties were each 4×26.  I’m not going to explain in detail how I put everything together step-by-step because I’m not very experienced at sewing and you can check the book out from the library for the exact instructions, but basically after I cut up all of those pieces, I hemmed all of the sides of them, then I attached the small pocket off to the side. For the large pocket (and the book has an illustration of this that helps) I folded the pocket into thirds, ironed those sides so I would know where I needed to sew down the fabric to make the divides in the pocket, and after pinning everything in such a way that the pocket fabric was scrunched up enough so that the pockets would actually come out a little from the apron so you can fit your hands in, I sewed everything down. I also then attached the ties on each side of the top, and then sewed down the hemmed waist band on top of that  so you could no longer see where the ties were sewed to the apron. Before I added fabric from the pink dress, here is what it looked like:

here it is before I decided it needed a ruffle

Here's the dress I used for the ruffle

the finished product

For adding the ruffle, I just used the existing ruffle of the dress and attached it after hemming it. Finally, I added a little hemmed strip at the top.  I had a lot of fun making it even though it’s a little too country sassy!