Getting back on the horse, with a dolphin

Posted on January 11, 2013 by

It’s a new year, in case you missed it.  Life has been super crazy over the last 8 months. Between school, deployments, being a geographical single parent, travel, illness, and a death in the family, I’ve really let my blog fall by the way side…Eek!  I’m resolved to do better this year. With a lighter course load and my husband returning from overseas soon, I should be able to scrounge up some sewing and blogging time.  

This week I did manage to make a sweet little dolphin for a dear friend’s little girl.  She turned 5 yesterday and we had a wonderful time with them yesterday afternoon at the new Children’s Museum of Tacoma.  

Here is the dolphin I made for my friend’s daughter. After some serious thought, she named her Jane.

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Jane was made from the Dizzy Dolphin pattern by Funky Friends Factory. Pauline has some rocking awesome patterns. :)

I have another one all cut out and ready to be sewn. It will be in my shop next week some time. 

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More Blackberry Jam

Posted on September 7, 2012 by

While Ginger Boy was enjoying his first day of Pre-K, Ginger Baby and myself went blackberry picking.  With the help of my friend, we picked 8 pounds in about an hour.

After running all the berries through my Kitchen Aid to remove the seeds, I had 10 cups of juice and pulp.

I found a recipe on AllRecipe.com.

I altered it a bit since I had slightly different ingredients, but not by much…

  • 1 (1.75 ounce) box of powdered pectin
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 4 cups blackberry juice
  • 1 green jalapeño pepper, cleaned and minced
  • 3 1/2 cups sugar
  • 7 half pint canning jars with lids and rings

Directions

  1. Mix the pectin  with 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl. Stir the blackberry juice, pectin mixture, and minced green jalapeño together in a saucepan; bring the mixture to a boil for 1 full minute. Add the 3 1/2 cups sugar and return to a rolling boil until the sugar has fully dissolved, about 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir while off heat to remove bubbles and foam for about 5 minutes.
  2. Ladle into sterile jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Seal jars in a hot water bath. Refrigerate jelly after seal is broken.

I ended up with 7 half pints.

I really loved the Blackberry Lime that I made last year, so I had to make more! I just used the Blackberry Jalapeño jam recipe and swapped out the pepper for the lime juice.

  • 1 (1.75 ounce) box of powdered pectin
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 4 cups blackberry juice
  • 1/2 cup of Lime juice (I use bottled)
  • 3 1/2 cups sugar
  • 7 half pint canning jars with lids and rings

Directions

  1. Mix the pectin  with 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl. Stir the blackberry juice, pectin mixture, and lime juice together in a saucepan; bring the mixture to a boil for 1 full minute. Add the 3 1/2 cups sugar and return to a rolling boil until the sugar has fully dissolved, about 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir while off heat to remove bubbles and foam for about 5 minutes.
  2. Ladle into sterile jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Seal jars in a hot water bath. Refrigerate jelly after seal is broken.

I ended up with 8 half pints from a full batch and 7 4oz jars from a half batch.  I did have 2 more ounces which I put into another 4oz jar and put in the fridge for immediate use.

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Summer Canning

Posted on August 27, 2012 by

The blackberries came late this year and have only ripened recently, probably due to the chilly summer we’ve had.  At any rate, I came home with 8 pounds of blackberries!  I froze 3 pounds and proceeded to make up some jam with the rest. I followed the recipe at Coconut & Lime for Blackberry Vanilla Bean Jam, but had to change it up just a bit so that I could use what I had on hand.  I didn’t have any Certo so I just used some regular boxed pectin instead.  I ended up with 10 half pint jars.  They took a good 24 hours to set up, but they did eventually set.

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I do like those wide mouth Kerr Jars.  I’ll have to put them on my list to buy more!

I stopped by the Schilter’s Farm stand and picked up 40 pounds of peaches, taking advantage of a coupon they were running. :)

I made spiced peach jam with some of the peaches with cinnamon and nutmeg, based on SB Canning’s Peach Jam recipe. 9 half pints. 

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The bulk of the peaches I simply canned in light syrup.  There are few things finer than the brilliance of summer peaches in the middle of a gray Washington winter. 

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The peaches had rosy flesh around the pit and it was that which made the syrup turn such a pretty color.

Lastly, I made just a small batch of raspberry jam from some of our You-Pick raspberries from Picha Farms. This lone half pint was what was left over from a cake filling I made for my son’s birthday.  Raspberries are his favorites. :) I used the Raspberry Jam recipe from SB Canning, minus the vanilla.

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I have a bunch more peaches to get to and lots more jars to fill.  I’m hoping to get to tomatoes in the coming weeks.

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Vanilla Check-In

Posted on April 29, 2012 by

I’ve been letting my vanilla sit for just over a month.

 

This is what it looked like the day I started the batch.

 

 

 

 

 

I give it a shake or a swirl ever couple of days and it is coming right along.

 

This is what it looks like now.

 

It’s really starting to turn a lovely color.  It definitely needs more time before it can be used.  It still smells heavily of alcohol.  This will subside as it sits.

I’m so looking forward to being able to use the extract in a couple of months.

 

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Raspberries Canes and a Box of Rocks

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

Raspberry Canes

Last fall my husband’s aunt gave me three golden raspberry canes for my garden.

 

I wasn’t sure if they were going to survive the transplant and our wild winter. One of the plants had it worse off and I did loose half of that cane, but they all started leafing outbeautifully!

 

 

 

And look! Babies!

 

 

When I received the canes I was heavily pregnant and wasn’t up to too much garden work. So I made a rough bed for them, planted, gave them plenty of water and called it good. After Etienne was born, my mom was visiting and she helped me get a covering of hay on them to protect them from the forthcoming snow.

Spring has finally sprung in the Pacific Northwest and Gardening is in full swing at my house, so I started thinking about the sad little raspberry bed that needed some TLC.

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Box of Rocks

I studied Geology for some time and we took many field trips. Over the years I amassed quite a collection of rocks. Being military we move a lot, and movers are less than amused when they find out you have several hundred pounds of rocks. Well, the box never got unpacked when we moved from Kentucky to Washington nearly 2 years ago and they’ve been sitting in the garage.  I decided to put them in the garden so we could enjoy them.

Bennett helped me unpack all the wrapped rocks, one by one.  It was like Christmas for him.  These are some of his favorites.


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Raspberries meet Rocks

I weeded and widened the raspberry bed, fed them some organic compost, and lined the bed with my rock trove.  I also put a spare bit of wire fencing up so that when the canes are heavy with fruit I can tie them up for support. I still need to secure the bottom of the fence to the posts with wire, but that can wait for another day.


I’m quite excited about our new garden addition.  Bennett loves raspberries, and these are an ever-bearing variety, so we should have a nice crop of berries in the summer and fall. :)   I’m also happy that my rocks have a new home.  I can see them daily and I can tell Bennett about them and all the different places that they’ve come from.

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More Chalkboard Mats

Posted on April 9, 2012 by

In February I made small chalkboard mats for a busy bag swap.  They were so well received, that I thought I’d make them for my March group too.

 

I just love this Henry Alexander Zoo fabric.  I’ve used it quite a few times before, this was left over from making Doggie’s sleeping bag at Christmas.

 

 

 

 

I had another mama ask about making bigger ones in the penguin fabric but I was out.  I was lucky to find more of that fabric at JoAnn’s!  I did some size tweaking and made some custom chalkboard mats for her. :)

 

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Felt Chocolate Bunnies

Posted on April 8, 2012 by

I didn’t end up making the felt eggs for my March felt food swap, but I did make chocolate bunnies!

I made 8 total.  Five were for my felt food swaps, 1 for Bennett’s Easter basket, and 2 extras.

They are made from Eco-fi felt, which is made from recycled plastic bottles!

 

 

 

It took me a bit, but after some trial and error, I remembered how to tie straight bows!

I tacked the bows down to themselves so they won’t untie.

 

 

 

Since I have 2 extras, I’ve listed them in my Etsy shop. :)

 

HAPPY EASTER!

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