Ginger-Peach Jam

Since I hope to be entering this into next year's fair, I had to use a "tested recipe" - this is the one I picked: http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_07/ginger_peach_jam.html

Toffee is still helping:


First, dump all the canning lids and bands into the sink.


Stick the recipe to the stove hood with a magnet:


Start prepping peaches! First, an X cut in the top and bottom.


Boiling water bath for a minute, then ice water bath, then rest on the counter. Cut into chunks. Chop with the immersion blender.








Add lemon juice and 7 cups (!!) sugar:


Dice up the crystallized ginger, stir it all up and start boiling!




In the meantime, sterilize your jars and lay out canning tools.




Once you've got them in the jars, process in the water bath.


This was made more complicated by my big pot that I usually use for the water bath blowing a hole in the bottom in the middle of the process!


All done! All but one had sealed already, plus a couple of extra in the fridge that didn't get processed.


It's quite tasty - not overpowering ginger; I might add a bit more the next time.

Basil vinegar

First step in preservation day: Clean off the stove!

The Indoor Electric Grill lives full-time on our stove-top, so the first step was to take it off. Which meant cleaning it out! A job worthy of Mike Rowe.


Toffee helps.


The next step is to collect the basil. No photos of the garden - TOO scary. I naively went out with my Classico pasta jar to fill it. HA! I cut maybe three quarters of our basil flowers and that filled the jar and the rest was all I could hold.





Washed and drying a bit.


I'm using a balsamic white vinegar from Trader Joe's for steeping.


Shockingly, I had just the right amount of basil flowers. Stripped stems and leaves are left over.




Steeping!


It already tastes lovely ~ once it cools, it steeps in the pantry for a week before tasting again. I do need to find clear glass bottles I can seal it up in. I see plenty of other herb vinegars in my future.

Laundry List!

I'm joining in Kathy's linky party this month for the first time (found via Deb's blog).

Since I didn't start out last month, I don't have any goals to cross off my list (and that's what it's all about, right? crossing things OFF!). So I can consolidate my slips of paper here :)

I want to have a lot of stuff to enter into the county fair next year - my husband is enjoying my quest to become "queen of the fair." So most of the goals are related to that.

1. Make ginger-peach jam and start basil vinegar this weekend.

2. Finish beret and start scarf to match.

3. Finish scrappy rose-pink quilt.

4. Work on blue-yellow quilt.

5. Work on red-white-black quilt.

6. Start applique quilt.

7. Make bib and burp cloths this weekend for upcoming baby shower. [The bib will be a test for a fair entry - I have the pattern drawn up but haven't made one yet.]

8. Get back to menu planning.

9. Spend at least 5 minutes EVERY DAY going through crafty stuff.

10. Start t-shirt quilt

11. Keep working on hooked rug

12. Stay off computer games. I've managed this the past week, and have been able to get lots more done.

2014 Stash Report- Week 34

Yards in: 3.75
Yards out: 0
Cumulative yards in: 23.4
Cumulative yards out: 22.85
Net gain/loss: 0.55 GAINED

Spending since last post: $24.70
Spending this year: $210.15

I did some thrift shopping while taking The Lovely Daughter back to Florida, and found a small 3-drawer organizer for $5, a cross-stitch kit for 0.20, and some yarn and a crochet hook for $3.50.

And then I stopped yesterday at the local thrift store that has crafty stuff...all for $16. So, a total of 24.70 over the past two weeks. Good thing I resisted the $2000 thread cabinet at the antique store on the drive back :)

Long weekend

I took Friday off to recover from the road trip, and have actually gotten some stuff done so far this weekend.

1. I got a quilt top sewn together! I blogged before about taking some vintage blocks apart, and they're now resewn into this top:


I quite like it - the blue sashing is appropriate for the period; there's a blue in the vintage part that almost matches it exactly. A close-up:


Maybe tomorrow I can pull together a back for it, and press it.

2. I started crocheting a hat waiting for the Karate Kid at class last night.

3. I pulled the t-shirt rug back out to work on and cut some pink strips for polka-dots:


The pink is  from a butt-ugly French bulldog t-shirt that was my mom's. Not a fan of Frenchies, but love that shade of pink!

4. T-shirts pulled for t-shirt quilts - these are all t-shirts my mom got from some wildlife charity. There are 12 altogether.


I also have a bunch of blood donation t-shirts from my brother that I'm looking forward to working on as well.

5. I stopped at the thrift store after karate today. It's one of the few in the area that ever have any sewing/crafting materials. The score is here:


There's 1.75 yards of flannel that'll make a nice back for a baby quilt:


A real assortment - some tiny seed beads in a nice bead container; beeswax for quilting; some small pieces; a yard of Christmas fabric; some yarn and thread; six smaller crochet hooks; sewing patterns; interfacing; acrylic paint [even if the paint is worthless, it's two very nice brushes for $1]; and (of course) buttons.

2014 Montgomery County Fair

We went to the fair last Wednesday afternoon/evening (over a week ago) ~ I missed it last year taking The Lovely Daughter to college, but since she's not a Freshman this year, we didn't leave until Sunday.

The Ferris Wheel:


Boys riding with me, and TMOTH waiting below:











The view from up above:


Terror on the face of the Small Man ~ he didn't like the fast rides:


TMOTH entered a turned bowl:


I didn't manage to finish the Furlough Quilt in time, but it'll be entered for next year.

Love the cows:


One of the kids' categories is LEGO creations:


My quilt guild's ribbon-winning quilt:


Kid's entries are fun - this is the Starship Enterprise made out of marshmallows!


Lots of Home Arts entries - I'm going to try to put in a bunch for next year:






Love the chickens even more!








Lots of fried stuff! We had BBQ from the Methodists.


And riding the merry-go-round at the end of the evening:

2014 Stash Report - Week 32

Yards in: 4.25
Yards out: 6.55
Cumulative yards in: 19.65
Cumulative yards out: 22.85
Net gain/loss: 3.2 USED

Spending since last post: $32.00
Spending this year: $185.45

A FINISH!

This is the Furlough Quilt, started back in October of last year when the government shut down. It's hand-quilted, 61" x 71", all from stash - 6 yards by my estimate. The rest of the stash reduction is from tossing some more non-cotton, likely to never-be-used-because-it-was-so-icky fabric.

Closeup:

Quilting template for the centers:

Books purchased ($5.30 for both at the Friends of the Library store):

The cover photo on the Maggie Malone book is the reason for 4 yards of fabric purchased. The pattern is called "Wheel of Fortune" and it seems to be an awesome scrap quilt - but I have woefully little fabric that could be called a "light neutral." So with my Jo-Ann 50% off fabric coupon, I bought 4 yards of Kona PFD - They didn't have Snow, and White was too...white. And I had Laura with me, and she both approved the color of the PFD (a cream, and the bonus is no sizing!) and was responsible for the additional quarter-yard, a carnation print for a letters t-shirt for her sorority.

The other purchase was a half-yard of fusible fleece - I found a cosmetics bag pattern that I want to try out.

All in all, a good week.

Things That Make Me Irrationally Happy

Maybe irrational is the wrong word...

1. Eating corn flakes out of my Corn Flakes bowl.
2. When everybody takes turns in the correct order at a 4-way stop
3. Hearing a song I really like on the radio (or in the grocery store!)
4. Our frogs. These are wood frogs, and they sound like chickens clucking most of the time. YEARS ago we abandoned a kiddie pool at the corner of the shed, and the frogs arrived. They've come back every year, although most years we don't have tadpoles. Don't know what's up with that! There are at least 7 of them there. Whenever I walk past on the way to the compost pile, one of them notices and chirps and leaps into the water, and the rest of them follow.

5. Soft sweaters. I hate the cold, so this one really is irrational.
6. Lightning bugs. Fireflies to my kids.
7. Cat tummies. Ralph wasn't cooperating getting his belly photographed. He's got the best cat tummy in the house, and uses it to good effect as a cat trap :)

8. Old books.
9. New shoes. I always put off buying new shoes, and then once I have them, wonder why I waited so long!
10. Nice pens.
11. Good watermelon.
12. Quilt shows.
13. Coffee.
14. Earthworms.
15. Feeling caught up at work. Actually *being* caught up is rare, so feeling that I've filled in all the big rocks and there are only a few pebbles to fit in is good enough.
16. My tiny car. It's cheap, it's little, the belts squeal when it starts up - but it's blue, it's cute, and gas mileage is awesome. The only bell and/or whistle it could possibly be said to have is a reasonable sound system.
17. Good hair days. I don't fuss, so when it happens, it's purely by accident.
18. S'mores.
19. My mom's ugly pink polka-dot robe. This is Mom in the robe, Christmas 2011. It's bubble-gum pink with big white polka dots, soft, fuzzy, and ridiculously comfortable.

20. Beaches.
21. Sewing down that last inch of binding on a quilt.
22. Buttons.
23. Sunrises, sunsets, and rainbows. That weird yellow color of the sky before a storm. Blue skies and white clouds.