What a week! I'm glad it's over. and extra excited, because tonight we are harvesting our 4th batch of kombucha from our continuous brew system, made using the tutorial here.
This stuff is delicious! So far we haven't been very brave with flavor experimentation...it is good plain, or bottled with ginger and lemon juice, or ginger and lemon juice with a few Tbsp of dried orange peel thrown in...that last one is my current favorite, though you definitely want to sift out the peels after a day or two...they are tough to drink around!
one thing that has really helped us out is that we had the foresight to save our storebought kombucha bottles for bottling our homemade brew in. The night we bottled our first batch, I peeled the labels off our clean bottles, and was left with this nasty, stubborn goo.
ick. I've tried pretty much everything to get that stuff off...I know there is probably some sort of scary chemical I could use, but I opted to wrap them in brown paper and just cover it up. bad idea. when the brown paper comes off, it sticks to the goo and looks even worse. Thus, the Kombucha Korset was born!
Take your bottle of choice, and using a piece of paper, make a template for how big you want your korset to be. Now, mark the approximate location where you want your buttons to be. try to keep them as evenly spaced as possible. go ahead and lay that template on your fabric (make sure your fabric is face-to-face with the right sides in), and cut out roughly around it, leaving a bit of space around the edge.
Next, take some elastic thread (I used the heftier jewelry making type) and cut it into four 3 inch lengths.
Fold these in half and pin them as shown between the 2 fabrics at the spots you just marked. Make sure that the loop part sticks out a bit past your pattern.
Sew around your pattern, right along the edge, leaving a 2 inch space in the middle of the side opposite your loops (between the green arrows)
Using the gap, turn your piece right side out, fold in the extra fabric around the gap you left, and press the seams. Take care around the elastic so as not to melt it.
Now top stitch the whole dang thing close enough to the edge that you sew the gap shut :)
Using the elastic as a guide, sew on your buttons on the opposite end.
wrap your korset around your bottle, and stretch your elastic, tying it around the corresponding button to create a loop.
Trim your ends, and enjoy your kombucha korset!
(I am aware by the by that corset starts with a "c" not a "k")
Hey I read this about getting that nasty oil buildup off of appliances today and thought that it might help with the sticky label death stuff!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.areal-lifehousewife.com/2012/01/tip-16-toast-to-this.html