Messenger Bag

My brother turned 22 last week!  He mentioned that he could use a new messenger bag.  He has been using the bag I made for myself to carry books and whatnot during college.  I knew I still had the pattern too, which made it easy, Butterick See & Sew Pattern # 4583.  Not sure if it’s still a current pattern, but there are plenty of similar messenger bag patterns out there.

 

Since it was my second time around using the pattern, I figured I would actually follow the directions correctly.  I tend to start with the directions, and then eventually abandon them to figure the steps out on my own.  Not a bad technique, but I’m starting to use patterns more as teaching tools to learn new sewing skills. 

 

I wanted this bag to be extra strong too, because my brother was born for academia!  I’m sure he is carrying around much bigger books than I ever did!  So I used a heavyweight fusible interfacing, and doubled up on it, fusing it to the outside and the lining; whereas the pattern only calls for one layer of lighter interfacing.  It made for a pretty sturdy bag; we will see how it holds up!  I added a zippered pocket inside, and made another pocket into a pen holder, making it a perfect school bag!

Dad’s B-Day Gift – Crushed Red Pepper Flakes and Seeded Rye Crackers

 

For my Dad’s birthday this year I put together a jar of my homegrown crushed cayenne peppers and these seeded rye crackers with amaranth, sunflower seeds and fennel from the garden. 

 

My dad like’s spicy food, so I figured he could get some use out of my peppers!  Here is my post about drying the peppers, and then I simply crushed the dried peppers up a mortar and pestle until they were nothing more than seeds and pepper flakes.  So good!

 


This was my first time making crackers.  I didn’t have much wheat flour left, but I had a whole thing of rye flour.  I followed this recipe as my base and added seeds and more rye flour.  My adjusted recipe goes as follows:

½ CUP plus 2 TBSP rice milk
3 TBSP olive oil
1 CUP whole wheat flour
1 CUP rye flour
½ TSP baking powder
1 TSP garlic salt
2 TSP amaranth seeds
¼ CUP sunflower seeds
1 TBSP fennel seeds

 

Mix the milk and oil together.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until dough is formed.

Roll out on a floured surface and cut into cracker shapes (either into squares or use a cookie cutter).  I flattened the dough to about 1 cm, but you could make thicker crackers too, just cook a little longer.

 

Place the crackers on parchment paper lined baking sheets and cook for 18 minutes at 350°F, rotating about half way through.

 

They taste great!  My dad will love them.  I put my goods in glass jars and made a couple personal labels using sticker paper and permanent markers.

(I grew Joe's Long Cayenne Pepper's; I crossed the "E" in Joe's out and put a "Y" above to spell my name, Joy :) )

Father's Day Gift Box

I always have a little trouble coming up with gifts for my dad.  If I had lots of money it would be no issue, because I’m constantly seeing cool gadgets and tech stuff my dad would love!  But I like making my gifts anyways, so when Father’s Day snuck up on me this year I decided to go with an old staple gift… hot sauce!  I made my first batch 2 Christmas’s ago (for my dad!) and I’ve been hooked.  Hot sauce is super easy to make and a great way to use hot peppers up at the end of the summer.  I’m still experimenting with different recipes, and trying to create my own perfect recipe; so this time around I tried Pepper Joe’s Island Hot Sauce Recipe.  It turned out great!  Super spicy with a hint of garlic, onions and lime!  I put it in a Mason jar and attached a sticker on the lid where I stamped out “dad’s fire breath”.

 

 

I also bought him a couple nice beers from this cute little craft beer store around the corner called The Listing Loon.  I needed something to put it all in.  I found this awesome list here that someone composed of tutorials for all different shaped gift boxes.  Using a couple of these as models, I cut a box from a larger cardboard box, glued it together, cut out handles and decorated the outside.  Then I put my gifts inside, and stuffed some ripped up paper in between the bottles so they didn’t break.  I even made my own confetti from the cardboard scraps.  I just cut them into strips and then pulled apart the layers of paper.  Easy, cheap and 100% recyclable!