Stitching for the Kitchen Gooseberry Patch Giveaway

My favorite cookbook company, Gooseberry Patch has released a delicious Stitching for the Kitchen book which has 30 easy projects for the "Heart of Your Home" and involves sewing and cooking!

Let's make this clear up front, I do not sew unless I have to which usually means I need to add a button to my husband's work shirt. Other than that I avoid it like you would not believe! I do readily admit that I'm a quilter-wanna-be (involves sewing, right?) and plan on taking it up someday in the well off distant future. I do think sewing is a talent or a basic skill everyone should have so much that I've encouraged my daughters to take sewing classes over the years! Maybe if I would have been exposed earlier in life I would have liked it more. Who really knows!

So to prove to myself that I could sew if I needed to or if I really wanted to, I jumped at the chance to review this Stitching for the Kitchen book because it stated that it had 30 EASY projects! I was provided a copy of this book to review and my own tasty opinions are shared here today and a giveaway copy to one of my readers.

Guess what? I wanted to make just about every craft project in this book for myself or for gifts. Little did I know the book also had tasty recipes included which was an extra bonus surprise! Each project is easily explained and requires very little supplies and very little time to create.

The book contains adorable sewing, patchwork, applique and embroidery projects which are perfect for your kitchen or for gifts for friends. I fell in love with the napkins, tablecloths and runners, sweet potholders, trivets and warmers, totes and organizers as well as the tasty aprons for cooks of all ages! Remember I don't sew but found this book easy to follow and it inspired me to sew more. I love the Tips and Techniques What You Need to Know section and full size patterns and traceable patterns.

My project that I picked to create was a Recycled Sweater Wine Bottle Cover. This project required a sweater as the sleeve would be needed to create the project. I just cleaned out 3 large bags of clothes to take to Goodwill that are way too big for me and decided to pull out a sweater that I really loved to make this craft. Another idea would be to hit up garage sales and your own local Goodwill or Thrift shops to make this project. I also included one of the recipes in the book (I'm a foodie after all!) Skinny Granola.

Recycled Sweater Wine Bottle Cover

Supplies
1 sweater sleeve
Needle and thread
Scissors
Ribbon or yarn

Directions
1-Measure and mark 13" from the end of one sleeve. Cut off the sleeve at the marking. If you want to make 2 bottle covers, cut off both sleeves.
2-Trim and clean the cut edge of the sweat to remove leftover bits and pieces. 
3-Thread a needle with regular sewing thread and knot off one end. Turn sleeve inside out. Secure the knot near the cut end of the sleeve.
4-Run the needle and thread through each loop of the sweater sleeve or just thread in and out of the fabric to gather it together at the bottom.
5-Pull the thread tightly to cinch the sleeve end together.
6-Knot the thread securely and tie off.
7-Add the wine bottle (or a bottle of flavored coffee syrup) to the sweater cover.
8-Weave your ribbon or yarn through the holes in the sweater at the top of the wine bottle. If you can't weave then just wrap the ribbon around the neck and tie off with a bow. You can hand tack the center of the ribbon to the back of the bottle cover so the ribbon stays attached once it is untied. 
9-Knot, hem or use fingernail polish on the ends of the ribbon so it doesn't fray.
10-Tie the ribbon into a bow. 

Kitchen Note-
This project took me 5 minutes from start to finish! I was amazed at how easy it was and that I actually sewed a project! I pulled out all of my sweaters for Goodwill to make more of these for gifts! Yay me!

Skinny Granola

Ingredients
1/4 c. honey
1/4 c. water
1 t. almond extract
4 c. long-cooking oats, uncooked

Directions
1-In a large bowl, mix together honey, water and almond extract.
2-Add oats; mix with your hands until thoroughly combined.
3-Transfer mixture to a 15" x 10" jelly roll pan; spread to about 1/2 inch thickness.
4-Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour or until golden brow and dry. Stir after 30 minutes.
5-Break into pieces and store in an airtight container. Makes about 4 cups.

Kitchen Note-
This smelled so good when it was baking. I used vanilla instead of almond extract. I also used a variety of oats to use what I had on hand. Some of my oats had flax seed. This turned out great and would be a wonderful gift idea given in a beautiful container made from this book. I loved that the granola wasn't super sweet.

Want to win a copy of the delicious book? Enter on the below Rafflecopter form. Open to USA and ends 8/16/13

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