So many hobbies!

Six more quarts

Today was a beautiful day for picking.  Not too warm, no humidity... it was great.  It's much more fun to go with a friend.  Alice and I was talking so much, it didn't feel like we were out there for three hours.  The bushes were vicious, however, and both Alice and I have scratches all over our arms.

The plan was to work on the quilt but it didn't happen.  Between napping, working on more boxes, a party at a friends and raspberries, there wasn't time for quilting.  I've got two boxes about halfway done but I need more elastic before I can complete them.  This is the third box from last week:

Triumphs and tribulations

The good news is, I finished the quilt top:

 

And made some peach salsa:

 

I ran out of steam before I got to the peach BBQ sauce.  I plan on picking up more peaches this week so hopefully I'll get to it next weekend.  And maybe some peach jam.  The rest of this round of peaches and the next round will go into the freezer.

The bad news is my new sewing machine (a Viking Emerald 118) doesn't seem to be handling the multiple layers of my spindle boxes.  I'm getting some looping on the back side of the fabric and the bobbin thread is being pulled to the front side.  None of that happens when it's only sewing through two layers of fabric.  I'm going to be in trouble if I have to buy a more expensive machine to get one that will go through multiple layers.  And really ticked off.  Some time this week I'll be hauling it in to the store to see what can be done.  My after work hours are rapidly filling up.  Again.

I blame Val

Val and Elizabeth both, actually.  Val with her Strips and Bricks quilt and Elizabeth with her Paintbox quilt.  Because of them, I decided to buy this:

 

Now, I need to start quilting again like I need a hole in the head, but I can't resist bright, saturated colors and I REALLY can't resist batiks.  Plus, I get the urge to sew periodically.  I'm starting with a basic nine-patch but I'll be adding to it a bit.  This thing will glow on it's own!

Gayle gave me a fabulous recipe for Ginger Rhubarb jam last week.  I made it tonight and Oh.  My. God.  It's fabulous!  Thank you so much Gayle!

Alice and I picked blueberries again and I came home with another 12.5 pounds of blueberries.  Not only will there be freezing but there might be blueberry jam, possibly a cobbler and definately cornmeal muffins with blueberries.  And... since we're in the middle of the season, I might have to pick again next weekend.  I know.  I have issues.

12 lbs.

This weekend's take at Hazen's Farm was 12 lbs. of blueberries which equals 9.5 quarts of frozen berries and about a quart to eat fresh.  Happily, this it's the beginning of the season so I'll be back next weekend for more.  Let's see, I paid $16.50 for my 12 lbs. of bluebs.  If I were to buy them frozen at the grocery store, 12 lbs. of berries would cost me almost $48.  That is one of many reasons why I pick my own.  Plus, it's fun, I get to be outside, I know the berries are fresh and I help one of our local growers stay in business that much longer.  Everybody wins.

Sweet Cherries

    

The plan was to get up early Saturday morning and drive out to the U-pick farm but walking out of the house Saturday morning, I was greeted with dark clouds and thunder.  The picking was pushed back to Sunday morning which t was beautiful:  sunny, cool and breezy.  Perfect for picking.  Once Alice and I got to the farm, we quickly realized the cherries we really wanted, the ripe ones, were at the top of the trees and we were without a ladder.  Alice came up with the idea of the "Grabby Stick" which was a broken branch with a smaller forking branch that could be used to reach up and grab the loaded branches and pull them down into reach.  That Alice... she's one clever cookie!  We spent over an hour picking when it occurred to me that we would be paying $3/lb. for our u-pick cherries and a local grocery chain were selling Bing cherries for $1.77/lb.  We decided to compromise:  1/2 locally picked and 1/2 cherries from somewhere else.  I picked 6 lbs. of cherries at the local farm and bought a little over 7 lbs. of cherries at the store.  Then I mixed the two when I sliced and pitted.  (Sadly, the sour cherry season was earlier than I expected and I missed the season.  I was looking forward to canned sour cherries this winter.)

  

It took me almost two entire Pirates of the Carribbean movies to slice and pit over 13 lbs. of cherries.  Once again, I used my handy dandy cherry pitter:  an unfolded paperclip.  Worked like a charm, although, once again, I have a very stained right index finger and thumb where the cherry juice reacted with the metal in the paperclip and dyed my fingers purple.  I find it easiest to spread a layer of sliced cherries out on a cookie sheet and freeze them before shoveling them into freezer containers.  Doing it that way means I'll be able to pour out individual pieces instead of bricks of frozen, stuck-together cherries.  I've already got 8 1/2 quarts in the freezer and I've got probably 2 more that still need to be frozen on the cookie sheet first. 

 

I'm full of the Happy right now.  Blueberries are next!

Strawberry day

The first picking of the season!  I took the day off from work and my girlfriends and I drove to one of the local U-pick farms and, in total, picked 41lbs. of strawberries.  Then it was a well-deserved brunch and off to Katie's to start turning them into yummy things.  I made a batch of strawberry jam and Katie and Alice made a batch of Spreadable Fruit to split between the two of them.  I had such a great time today.  It was so nice to have girlfriends to share one of my loves with.  Tomorrow after work, I'll stop at another local U-pick farm to pick 6 or 7lbs. of rhubarb that I'll turn into a couple batches of strawberry-rhubarb jam and a couple batches of strawberry-rhubarb sauce.  Mom likes to eat the sauce on toast in the morning and on ice cream at night.  Naturally, I forgot my camera or I'd post a pic of Alice and Katie with their berries.  Sorry.  I'm a bad blogger.

Apple Butter

 

Finally I've turned some of those 42 lbs. of apples into something.  I took Tuesday off and this is what I made - these are 12 oz. jars and I've got a pint jar that didn't fit in the picture.  I'd forgotten how long it takes to make apple butter.  I started around 11:30 and pulled the jars out of the hot water bath at about 4:00.  And that was the fast, no-peel version.  Geez!  Most of the time it takes isn't from the prep work, it cooking down 3 quarts of pulp until thick, adding the sugar and spices, and then cooking it until it's thick again.  The prep work wasn't too bad mostly because I used my grandma's food mill:

 

This is one of my prized possessions.  My grandma died over 30 years ago but whenever I use this, I feel close to her.  What can I say?  I'm a sentimental fool.

More raspberries tomorrow after work.  The weather should cooperate.  Hopefully I'll get enough for a batch of jam.  I've been invited to another spin-in on Saturday that I'm looking forward to.  I need to decide what to work on.  Lately I'm on a big drop spindle kick so I can't decide if I want to take Owen and start a larger project or bring my spindle and work on that ounce of cashmere.  Decisions.  Decisions.  What's on your agenda for the weekend?

I've been tagged!

By Maggie of Little Grey Cat.  Just like Maggie, this is my first game of e-tag. 

These are the rules:  1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog; 2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird; 3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog; 4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Hmm, random or weird facts.  Let's see...

1.  When I'm feeling like life is running out of control, to feel better, I sometimes watch Resident Evil 1 or 2 because Alice really kicks butt.  I think that one can go into the "Weird" category.  

2.  Like Maggie, I long for the day when I don't work for someone else, only for myself.  I think self-employment would be great.  Now if only the economy would improve...   

3. I love canning and preserving food because I like the feeling of security it gives me.  If something should go wrong with the world, I'll be able to feed myself and my family.  I suspect that there's a strong instinctual urge going on with that one. 

4. I find John Barrowman, Hugh Jackman, Oded Fehr and David Tennant so incredibly beautiful, they make me weak in the knees and if I were ever to meet any of them, I'd likely say something really deep and eloquent like, "Gah."  Yeah, I'm a dork.  

5. I'm a complete SciFi geek and proud of it!  I want my very own sonic screwdriver because, how cool would that be!; I plan on knitting a Dalek; and I'm absolutely positive that in some parallel universe, the TARDIS really is traveling through space and time.  (Oh, and I know what TARDIS stands for - Time And Relative Dimension In Space).  Okay, that was all Doctor Who geekiness but I really am a geek in other SciFi-related matters.

6.

I choose my spinning fiber by how it feels as much as by how it looks.  If it doesn't feel nice in my hands, I'm not going to enjoy spinning it and I'm certainly not going to want to wear it.   (Stupid Typepad keeps screwing up my formatting.  I've tried 4 times to line the "6" up with the text and it keeps saving the text below the number.  Stupid Typepad!  I'm so glad they decided to "improve" the software.)

7. Small amounts of lucious fibers I spin on the drop spindle to make the experience last longer.  I'm currently spinning an ounce of cashmere I bought at the northern Michigan fiber show.

I don't think I know 7 people to tag but here goes: 

1. Val is the mama of two pugs and spins and knits amazing things.
2. Jacki of Yarn Zombie is a spinner, dyer, knitter, photographer extraordinare and she makes the most beautiful batts.
3. Beth of Three Sheeps to the Wind.  Beth owns our local spinning store and we are darn lucky to have her and the store.  If you want it, Beth probably sells it or can get it for you.
4. Had I been able to go to SOAR, I would have met Elizabeth in person for the first time.  I'm in awe of her knitting.  Sorry I wasn't there, Elizabeth, to ease the new-kid-in-school moments.

Because my sister requested it, here's a shot of the new shelves I've put up in the basement:

 

It's not the greatest picture - there's another shelf up top - I was leaning against a table to get the shot.  I could have taken the picture from another angle but then you'd see how trashed the rest of the basement looks and I'm too embarassed to show you that.  Sorry Yen, you'll have to see it in all it's glory when you come to visit... or I suppose I could send you a pic from the other angle.  It's not like you don't already know I'm a slob.

If I only had one more day...

I'd be able to get done everything I'd planned on doing this weekend.  I don't know why I think I'm going to accomplish anything on Saturday.  You'd think I'd know by now that I'm pretty much a slug on Saturdays.  All the apples I picked Friday?  All I managed to do with them is bake an apple crisp - and boy was it good!  About half the apples I picked were Golden Delicious, which is my favorite eating apple, and those are in the fridge.  The nice thing about apples is they don't spoil very fast so I've got a while to make my apple butter and apple sauce.  I was going to freeze some for apple pies but I don't have that chest freezer and my little freezer is filling up fast.

The only thing I managed to make on Saturday was a home for my new drop spindle.  I love blue and I love batik fabric:

 

Sunday was my day of industry.  First thing in the morning, my friend Alice and I went to a local U-pick farm and picked raspberries.  Yup, raspberries the beginning of October in Michigan.  The picking was fantastic.  In 2.5 hours, between the two of us, we picked 7.5 quarts of berries.  Here's mine:

They're currently residing in my freezer and if I can manage it, I'll go back for more.  

I need a keeper

I need to have my mother live with me.  I can't be trusted to be a responsible adult.  I picked a bushel of apples today.  A bushel.  Do you have any idea how many apples are in a bushel?!  I need therapy!!