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.

A tisket, a tasket, a biscuit basket.

This is the basket that i made tyler for his Easter basket.

hopefully next year i will be growing my own willow to use for making baskets.

time will tell.

recent tatting

this first one is crochet. but this is my first attempt at making a hanky.

this is the first tatted hanky, i think they came out really good.

this bookmark was made for a swap. it is the first swap that i have participated in and the idea of getting presents in the mail is great and i can't wait until mine gets here.

i think that i should have a swap. maybe dish cloths or aprons. 

leave a comment for ideas and to sign up for the swap.

redesign clothing

i finished ty's sweatpants today. i recycled them from one of daddy's old sweatshirts. i just got the elastic in them today because ty was crawling out of them. he would just leave them in the dust. so now that are proper pants that stay on and are easy for diaper changes. i'll add a picture later.

The start of my sweater.

This is the start of my knit from the top down sweater. I have been waiting a long time to knit myself a sweater. I have knit myself socks and everyone else in the family socks as well. I tried to knit my husband a sweater but I purchased yarn that wasn't good for the project for many reasons. My sweater is knit with a wool/acrylic blend. so it a will be good and machine washable. i will consider this my everyday sweater. i started it wed. april first 2009. I started the second sleeve today. it's knitting up quit fast and i'm considering another go at making my husband one but this time do top down so he can try it on. i can say that the trying on isn't his favorite part of the creation process.

i have finished the sweater april 8th, 2009. now i just need the perfect buttons. 

I made you say underwear?

the finished product.

This is the pattern for the boxers, my best advise is cut precisely it matters.

they are very time consuming, but they make a high quality boxer short.

the pattern is from timber lane press.

daddy cut his own hair

yeah, you read right daddy tried to cut his own hair and mommy did what she could do to fix it. After i was done it just looked like a short bowl cut. terry has really taken to cutting his hair at home rather that paying some one else to do it. i don't know what the change of mind set is but i like it.

my tatted creations

Happy Valentines day! yeah so what i'm late in posting but i did make them for February.

ok, so i followed a pattern, but not bad from only teaching myself in december. 

socks two at once

designed for the people with SSS (second sock syndrome). people who never finish that second sock. i use 2 circular needles size 2. i put half the stitches of both socks on one needle and the second half of both socks on the second needle. i also use two balls of yarn, because the yarn i chose only does one sock.  any questions leave a comment. i'm about 65% done with these socks. 

i have made many socks this past winter.

tyler eating an apple

ravelry

this is a new knitting community that i joined. you can use it to keep track of your yarn, of the projects you've started, the projects you want to do, you can such for patterns, you can see what others are working on.

he can sit by him self- 6 months

what that poor donkey did to him i'll never know.

tyler making babbling sounds with his lips.

strike a pose

tyler sitting by himself

new year projects

to do:

raising ty
leaving my job- done
building a greenhouse
build a compost bin
starting a raised bed garden
get worms to create organic fertilizer
living as frugal as possible on one income.
pay off our credit cards and run them through the shredder
plan tim and danille's baby shower

continue:

making our bread
making our own soap

the lucy bag

this is my lucy ball bag. it's a knitted bag that you then felt. i recommend not using the washing machine, i broke ours felting my bag and had to call the not so friendly repairman. that of course is a different story. anyway the bag is knitted in the round knitting every row untill you get to the straps. there is a little one and a longer strap. the long strap is threadded though the short one to create the closure. for this bag i used alpaca yarn that i spun myself it was a single ply white. i love this project because i was able to practice my spinning and it didn't matter really how the yarn came out because i felted the project. so when you felt wool or alpaca yarn in a project the yarn becomes one fabric. the loops of the knitting shrink and the individual fibers mesh together thus becoming one piece of fabric.