Tackle It on Tuesday: Civil War dress progress

Last week, I started working on a Civil War dress for a friend of mine. I knew I would not be able to have the whole dress finished by this Tuesday, which is okay. Some tasks take a bit longer, some can be finished a bit quicker. But making a bit of progress on some of these bigger tasks over each and every day gets you closer to the goal of finishing!

Bodice and sleeves are almost done!

Over the next couple of days, I need to finish up the bodice and sleeves, then start working on the skirt. Hoping I can finish this big project up in the next day or two so my friend can wear it to a Civil War event this upcoming weekend!

In addition to working on this dress, today I need to put together a batch of pizza sauce.

Homemade pizza sauce ingredients

When I cleaned out my freezer a couple of weeks ago, I realized we were out of homemade pizza sauce! We like to have homemade pizza about once a week, usually on Friday nights. I will share more about our pizza next week, so stay tuned!

What project are you tackling this week?

Tackle It on Tuesday: Freezer

Last week, I announced that I was planning on tackling my freezer over this past week. A little bit of procrastination on my part led to taking a bit of time this afternoon to tackle this project. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly I was able to clean out the freezer.

Here is how my freezer looked last week:

The before picture

After throwing out a couple of things and doing a bit of organizing, here is what my freezer looks like now:

And the after picture

Ah, looks so much better! Will it stay like this? Most definitely not! And that is okay. I know this is one place where the contents is always changing. But now I know we need to use up some frozen blueberries soon!

This week, I am hoping to tackle a pretty big project for a friend. I have resisted sewing Civil War dresses for friends because everybody's shape is so different, and when you don't live very close to the person, it makes it a little difficult to do fittings. Since I am trying to earn money to go to Colombia though, I thought this would be a good time for me to tackle this one project.

The beginnings of a Civil War dress

This project may take me more than a week, so I will be sure to at least post my progress next Tuesday.

Are you tackling any big projects soon?

Tackle It on Tuesday: Laundry Soap

Last week, I happened to read a post in my Bloglovin' blog feed from Mary at Owlhaven where she shared her recipe for homemade laundry detergent. Her post was very timely for me because it was almost time for me to make another batch of laundry detergent. I had been using a recipe from a friend that makes 5 gallons of liquid detergent. One thing nice about Mary's recipe is that it uses all the same ingredients that I already have on hand.

Laundry soap ingredients

Another nice thing about this recipe is that you can make a smaller quantity and it can be ready right away.

Preparing the laundry soap ingredients

In a matter of minutes, I had enough laundry soap to run quite a few batches of laundry.

Laundry soap ready to use!

I only had enough Borax to made half of the recipe, but it made more than enough for me to have laundry soap for quite a few weeks to come! Since yesterday was Monday (which equals 'laundry day' at my house), I used this new-to-me laundry soap and was quite pleased with the results. The hardest part about making the recipe was grating the Fels Naphta soap, but I love that this recipe comes together so quickly. It just might be my go-to laundry soap from here on out!

So what I am going to tackle this week?

Contents of my baker

Yep, this is the contents of my freezer right now. A little disorganized, and really, I am not even really sure what all is in here. Yikes! 

What project are you working on this week?

Tackle It on Tuesday: Books

I know, I know...today is Wednesday, not Tuesday. But sometimes, you just have busy days and don't have a chance to type out a blog post. So this one is a day late...anyway...last week, I started to tackle just one book case in our home.

Now you have to know, it is very hard for me to part with books. I am not your typical girl. I really hate to shop for clothes, make-up, shoes, jewelry, etc. But let me spend hours in a bookstore, and I am in heaven!! I love the look of books, the feel of books, the stories you can learn from books. I have been known to read well-loved stories over and over again.

Because we have book cases in almost every room in our home, I thought it was about time to start selling at least some of the reference books we have referred to over the years when my children were younger in our homeschool journey. Not only that, by selling some of these, I can add some cash to my Compassion Colombia fund!

Progress!

I am so happy that I made some good progress on clearing out this one book case. Now to try to sell what I have! If you are interested, I would be happy to send you a list if you are searching for some great reference books for your home library.

So in addition to finding homes for quite a few books, my new task for this week is to try a new laundry soap recipe.

Trying a new laundry soap recipe

For a couple of years now, I have been making a homemade liquid laundry detergent recipe, but you know what? There are times when I really don't feel like making 5 gallons of laundry detergent!! So I was excited to see this recipe for a powder laundry detergent and uses all the same ingredients! I will be putting this together and giving it a try over the next week.

Do you use homemade laundry detergent? What project are you tackling this week?

Tackle It on Tuesday: Civil War Women's Clothing

Last week, I had a deadline for myself to finish sewing some Civil War underclothes for a friend of mine. Almost came right down to the wire, but here is the finished chemise:

Civil War Woman Chemise

Looks kind of like a nightgown doesn't it? The chemise, along with a pair of drawers, would be just the first layer that a woman would where during the Civil War time period. Women would also wear a corset, layers of petticoats, maybe a hoop skirt, her dress, an apron, and a bonnet or hat. There were a lot of layers! To read a bit more about clothing during this time period, here is a good article that covers some of the basics.

So this last weekend, our family went to one of my favorite locations out here in California for a Civil War Reenactment. This event takes place every spring in Mariposa, which is just about an hour west of Yosmite. The location is a dream location for a photographer because it is very rural, not a lot of modern items to get in the way. And of course I took a lot of pictures...

Just a few photos to edit in Lightroom

...about 300 or so. Which means I need to spend some time this week doing a bit of editing. And I just found something on Pinterest which might just help me work through these photos a little quicker. Next week, I will share a couple of my favorites from the weekend with you.

Are you working on anything special this week?