canning with help!

I've been Helping one of my friends get started canning. She has never done it before and needed a help getting started. Well in my opinion she already had a great start when she bought her house it came with two apple trees and one pear tree. So we had all the free fruit we wanted to experiment with. so me loss if something goes wrong.

We have made apple sauce and jared up 12 pints, we jared up 4 dozen jars of varying size pears, also we made 17 jars of pickled vegetables. Now she has asked me about canning apple pie filling. But as I remember you can store apples in the basement for quite some time without doing any thing to them. So I'll mention this to her and see if she wants to jar up some tomatoes instead or make salsa.

This is really a two fer. I was not even thinking about canning this year with a three year old and another little one on the way. I felt way to busy with play dates to get to can. But it's amazing how one little request or meeting at a friends house can change my plans so fast. Last year she gave all her pears to her brother-in-law and didn't even get an offer of half the canned fruit in return. So now she knows how to do it her self and can keep all the spoils.

I feel blessed to have meet my friend, and to have been asked to help her can.

52 in 52 from 2010

Tatted motif it's a heart with a star inside.

Simple tatted motifs.

Celtic tatting using 4 different colors. Tatted over a button.

Three tatted bracelets with beads.

This is Bfl fiber and was dyed by me. I spun up the pinks and the oranges. Lace weight. Yardage unknown, I still have to measure it.

More hand dyed Bfl.

This is a wool blend single waiting to be plied, hand dyed by me and a friend.

Hand dyed, hand spun by me. worsted weight.

Yarn from a roving purchased from Graceful Arts studio. Soon to be a completed hat.

Dyed with Koolaid lucky's lamb fleece.

Romney yarn purchased roving from Graceful Arts fiber studio.

I have joined the challenge. and I have already completed 17 of my 52 projects for this year. The projects include knitting of course, dying, spinning.

I'm planning to do a lot of spinning, shearing season is upon us soon and i have my eye on two or three fleeces. So I'm spinning down my stash.

If anyone wants hand spun from my own hot little hands or want to learn to spin leave a comment and we can set something up.

Projects I've been up too

I have been spinning my brains out. I just purchased a new drop spindle and I love it. My new years pledge is not to buy any more yarn. but i have already amended it to not buying any more acrylic yarn.

I'm currently working on baby sweaters for the new babies in the family. And a wool hat for my little one.

I'm having a weekly meeting at my house on Friday between 10am and 2pm. The ladies and babies get together and knit, spin, talk, and sew. I would love it if we could all create community of creative people.

leave a comment for any questions.

Fiber Club

100 % Romney wool spun on my new turkish drop spindle.

I am selling the spindles if anyone wants one. The spindles are wonderful and i would include a one hour spinning lesson with your purchase.

100 % merino wool yarn that i dyed

Alpaca Yarn

Alpaca Roving

These are a few examples of the fiber included in my fiber club and what yarn you can make with the fibers. The club is for sale on my etsy site. You can find me as twistedtranquility, on etsy. Yes all one word and no capital letters.

please comment if you would like to purchase a turkish drop spindle they are not on my etsy site yet.

New Soap

My homemade soap is made 100% by me and doesn't have any of the harmful chemicals that are in commercial "soap" I put soap in quotations because all that is left in the commercial bars are detergents and chemicals, that aren't good for you. Look it up I'm sure you'll be surprised I was.

I have new soap scents: chocolate, patchouli, lemon grass, spice, fresh rain, tea tree, natural unscented, sugar cookie. orders can be sent to email address: jfobug at g mail dot com. sub the correct characters in email. i can ship them anywhere, i'll just need to send you a invoice thought paypal.

Chocolate soap

I've just finished the batch of chocolate soap. I also have tea tree that is red, fresh rain which is purple I was trying for blue, and unscented which does have a natural smell. Just in time for Christmas. leave a comment or message if you would like to purchase soaps. The soaps are hugh bars 1"x2 1/2"x 4" these measurements are estimated, I hand cut all the bars so there is a hand crafted element(they aren't cut perfectly). But they are really big bars you could easily cut them in half and make 2 gifts out of them. Also there is going to be a open house at Katy's house on black friday, with my soap and her hand painted ornaments.

summer gardening

If you haven't started your seeds. you'll have to buy plants or have a late harvest. i started mine nice and early. i have already moved them out side into there greenhouse of sorts.  and the are loving all the extra sunlight ( they didn't get much in the house just from the window and one grow light. it just wasn't enough) 

it's not too early to plant cold weather crops like broccoli, or your root vegetables. i have already planted my garlic, some chives, and some other plants that i have protected with a make-shift greenhouse.

i always like spring. green grass, new flowers, great weather, and the sun. as soon as the birds came back i knew that spring was on its way.

i can still think of at least 10 more things i would like to grow. so we have planned an organic garden. with raised garden beds. we located the beds out in the back 40. aka in the back .... way back of the property. so it would be unreachable with any hose. need less to say we have been thinking about a relocation program for the garden. maybe into the witness protection program. some where we err. i  could reach it with the hose.

i like the idea of having the garden right out the back door. i'll see what terry says.