Thursday, October 10, 2013

Day Eight - aiming to finish

My ankle has not been happy for a couple days (which is annoying, but par for the course at this stage of recovery). So it seemed prudent to spend as much of the day as I could off my feet.  But until the buttons arrive, I'm done with the bee sweater...  So what to do?  I went spelunking for a new knitting project and found numerous "almost done" sweaters!  Apparently I'm much better at knitting than finishing...  Clearly working through the finishing backlog is a furlough worthy task!  

These three were the closest to done.  It took less than an hour to finish the red one. The other two will need a bit more ...  Sleeves need sewn in and buttonbands need finished.  (There are five more mostly done sweaters right behind these.  Finishing these up might actually outlast the furlough!)

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Day Seven - costumes, knitting and bikes

I try to avoid veering into the political - but OMG there's no *^%#* end in sight!

(Deep breath)

On the home front, I ordered supplies for  Halloween costumes for everyone in the family, bought my auction costume, installed wire panniers on my bike, and finished sewing sleeves onto the bee sweater. (An aside...  I love wearing set in sleeves and hate sewing them in!). All that's left on this sweater is to decide on buttons. And hopefully find 21 matching ones...


Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Day 6 - picking and (yet more) knitting

Got together with some NASA folks to play bluegrass. It was a blast even though I was rusty.  And knit (and rested my ankle - it's been barking..,)

I finished the button bands on the sweater. Now it's mostly just sewing up. (And finding 21 appropriate buttons!)


Monday, October 7, 2013

Day Five -- ummm... What did I do again?

(Yes, it's day 7 of the government shutdown , but I'm just counting workdays -- so day give it is...)

I'm not sure if I'm losing steam, or maybe just recovering from our weekend excursions, but today was a jumble of little things...  Errands around town, ordered a set of shelves to replace the art table Allison outgrew years ago, more glittering of five foot cardboard masks for the PTA auction, swatched for a couple new sweaters and finished knitting the collar of the bumble bee sweater.   (Sounds much better once it's all written down...)


Friday, October 4, 2013

Day four - knitting and glitter (but not at the same time)

Today I spent a huge chunk of time gluing glitter onto 5 foot cardboard mardi gras masks. Really!  (They're decorations for the PTA auction.  And they're far from the coolest decorations the auction team has ready!)  No pictures of glittered masks though...  Sorry.

I also finished knitting a sleeve. (Pattern is "the line" by Ann Weaver http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-line.)  It's tough to get those colors right...  The stripes that look black really aren't black. They're deep brown with flecks of orange and purple. 


And because I didn't get to it in yesterday's jam extravaganza, I snuck  yesterday's completed bracelet into the sleeve photo...  However that pic doesn't do it justice, so here's another. 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Day three - jam!

On day three my main accomplishment was making feijoa jam.   ( I also ran a bunch of errands and made another bracelet.  This one's for me !) 

I used my default jam recipe.  This seems to yield tasty jam and is dead simple. Three ingredients!  (It does assume that the fruit has its own pectin though. If the fruit is low in pectin, you need a fourth ingredient...)

1. Clean the fruit. Discard any parts that won't be pleasant to find I your jam.  (For feijoa, slice in half, scoop out the insides and discard the skin. 

2. Add juice from a lemon or two. 

3. Cook over medium low heat until fruit is soft. 

4.  Run the fruit through a food mill. 

5.  Measure the resulting fruit paste and put into your jam pan. 

6.  Add sugar. I like my jam a little less sweet than normal, so I usually use 1 part sugar to two parts fruit. (If you want your jam to last forever, use more sugar so you can reap the benefits of the preservative nature of sugar.)

7.  Cook over medium heat until the consistency is jammy...  (Candy thermometer and / or testing on a chilled plate can help with this, but honestly I find it best to just pay attention to the consistency.)

8.  You now have jam!!!  If you're going to eat it all soon, just put it in an airtight container and refrigerate. If you want to make it last longer, then ...

9.  While you're cooking the fruit / sugar mixture, boil your jars, lids, spoon and funnel for 5 minutes. 

10.  When jam is done, spoon into jars. Wipe off rim of jar and close lid firmly. 

11.  Put jars into deep pot and cover with water. Boil for 5 minutes. 

12. Remove the jars from the pot and let them rest. Within an hour or so, any of them that successfully seal will do so. (Listen for the popping...)

Label and enjoy!

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Day two

Started this blog...  It looks like this furlough thing might last a while. 

Today's festivities included installing my favorite programs on my daughter's computer (can't use my work computer...), painting, eradicating clutter in kitchen, picking feijoa, buying canning jars and installing a rear rack and cup holder (true!) on my bike.