Sunday, February 10, 2008

Welcome to my Blog

Welcome to my new blog.  Our family has a small homestead that we are setting up to become self-reliant.  My Beloved husband, Joe, is a truck driver and travels from coast to coast.  I am a SAHM and look after the homestead.  We have a 2 year old daughter and are expecting our second child, a boy, this spring.
 
I am very old fashioned and love it.  I follow the practice of Christian headcovering and modest dress.  We are striving to live a more simple and "plain" lifestyle.  It is a harder life in respects to the amount of physical work that you have to do, but the rewards are wonderful!  It is such a blessing to go into the pantry and see jars of home canned foods that you raised in your own garden. 
 
Becoming self-reliant has been a blessing in other ways also.  One way is through the ability to weather the storms that come along.  While people in the city were having a hard time with power outages and all the difficulties that bring, we were comfortable in our home.  I simply put refrigerated items in totes on the back porch where they were able to stay cold. The wood stove and wood cookstove provided our heat and method for meal preparations.  Our lighting was provided by the oil lamps and candles in large jars.  In our pantry, we had home canned soups, stews, and other meals that were fast & easy to prepare.  What a blessing to not have to worry as many did in the city.
 
I love sewing, quilting, gardening, soap making, cooking & baking, photography & scrapbooking.  I am gradually sewing our family's clothing.  Some of the patterns are from an online company, Buckaroo Bobbins, which carries the historically accurate old west style of clothing.  Our daughter's clothing consists of dresses with pinafores or jumpers with a top.  She wears some type of legging or pantalette with her outfits for additional warmth and modesty.  My own clothing mainly consists of a top with jumper or a cape dress, both of which provide a "double cover".  At this point, I have patterns for everything we each wear with the exception of summer weight socks.  All outer and under clothing can now be handmade.  I am very blessed with a husband who is very supportive of my doing this and enjoys seeing us wear the handmade clothing.
 
My current project is 2 crib size quilts.  One is a Sunbonnet Sue quilt for our daughter's bed.  The second is an Overall Bill quilt for our new baby.  I am having fun stitching together the applique blocks for these quilts.  Both patterns are easy and a great way to use up scraps of fabric from other sewing projects.  When I have them finished, I will post pictures of them.
 
In future blogs, I will be sharing about our days and also recipes and projects that I am working on. 
 
 
The Lord's blessings be with you.
 
Prairie Mom