before and after: a spinning wheel made pretty

 

Mr. Owl and I gave this lovely spinning wheel, on loan from his aunt, a face lift by sanding her down and coating her with tung oil.  Isn't she pretty?! 

This will be her second appearance at the Maritime Handspinner's Retreat.  This year, she'll fit right in with all the other gorgeous wheels.  She did look a bit scrappy last year (see photo on left).

She and I need to get some quality time together in prep for the retreat.  I've been a bit neglectful as of late.  Sorry Miss Emeline!  I promise to give you the love and attention you deserve.  I've even gotten my hands on a copy of Spin Control, so that I can learn how to enhance our relationship and the offspring we produce.  [Who knew anthropomophizing spinning wheels could be so easy and so funny?]

p.s. I love Spin Control.  It's a fabulous resource and worthy investment.

easy-peasy creamcheese icing

This is my standby creamcheese icing recipe.  It's from Canadian Living magazine.  I love the calculator for multiplying the recipe according to how many cupcakes you've got.

This is for 12 cupcakes.  I had extra leftover; I only needed 3/4 of the recipe.  I suppose it all depends on how much you love icing!

Ingredients:
1/4cup (50 mL) cream cheese, softened
1/4cup (50 mL) butter, softened
1/2 tsp (2 mL) vanilla
1-1/2cups (375 mL) icing sugar
 Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  Transfer to piping tube.  Ice those cupcakes!  
 

Pumpkin spice

I love autumn.  Especially because I get to drink copious amounts of apple cider, be re-inspired to get out the knitting needles, and eat pumpkin treats. I cannot wait to carve a pumpkin, mostly so I can toast the seeds.

On a recent roadtrip to NY, we made numerous pit stops for Starbuck's pumpkin spice lattes.  I rarely buy Starbuck's pricey coffee, but am so glad I made a concession for this trip.  Delish! 

As I've still got pumpkin spice on the brain, I decided to whip up a batch of pumpkin cupcakes for a friend. I followed Martha's recipe.

It says it makes 18 cupcakes. I ended up with 23 regular-sized cupcakes and 6 mini's. This meant more to share!

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree (approx. 450ml) [or pumpkin pie filling]

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.
2. In a large bowl [food processor], mix together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and mix until smooth. Mix in pumpkin puree. [Batter go too big here so transfered to large bowl from food processor to mix in pumpkin].
3. Pour batter into muffin tins with cupcake liners [or greased muffin tin], filling each about halfway.
4. Bake at 350F until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.
5. Ice with creamcheese icing.  Sprinkle cinnamon on top.
6. Enjoy!

A few modifications:
- I used a food processor for mixing.
- I used salted butter.  Usually i omit salt if I do this, but forgot this time around.  Fortunately, the cupcakes didn't end up tasting overly salty.
- I used pumpkin pie filling instead of straight-up pumpkin.  This meant that extra sugar and spices were added to the cupcakes, but they still ended up tasting great!

These were easy to make and sooo delicious.  Even Agatha couldn't resist checking them out.  She didn't eat any but I'm sure she would be a lover of pumpkin spice, if we let her!

clean as a whistle: DIY laundry soap

Laundry soap can be expensive and filled with unknown chemicals and fragrances.  Why waste time in the grocery store cleaning aisle, when you can make your very own laundry soap!

It's crazy simple (only 3 ingredients!) and works like a charm.

What you need:

• 1 cup borax (naturally-occurring mineral; cleaning agent)
• 1 cup washing soda (sodium carbonate; water softener)
• 2 cups finely grated soap (use up an old bar or castile (olive oil) soap bar)
• mason jar (or other) and airtight lid to store finished soap

Borax and washing soda can be found alongside your laundry detergents in your grocery store.

I've used both Ivory soap (which grates nicely, but has additives) and Kiss My Face pure olive oil soap (produces curly green soap strings which look odd) and both work well.  Amanda Soule of Soulemama uses Dr. Bronner's castile soap bars with success (see her laundry soap recipe here).  Her recipe is the same as the one I used from David Suzuki Foundation's Queen of Green.

What to do:
Grate soap bar using your cheese grater.  Don't worry about getting soap on your grater - it's soap and will clean your grater before washing off.  Measure and mix three ingredients together in a jar.  So fast and simple!

Washing instructions:
Shake before use to make sure all ingredients are mixed.

• 1 Tbsp for small load
• 2 Tbsp for large load

Honestly, you don't need more!  Laundry detergent companies want us to use more so that we'll buy more!

We're several loads in, and I'm loving it!  Who doesn't love to save $$ and feel good knowing you made something yourself!

Optional: fabric softener
Throw in a cup of vinegar into the rinse cycle.. I have yet to try this, but apparently it does not leave a vinegar smell on clothes.