First jam of the year -- FAIL

Last year's jam lasted us all the way through the year with plenty for gifts. We do have a handful of jars left, but I am super anxious to get started this summer on replenishing the cupboard and expanding my canning repertoire.

So I was excited to (finally) see Hood strawberries at the farmer's market this last weekend and grabbed a half flat. They were so delicious and I couldn't wait to make some jam. Hoods have fantastic strawberry flavor, but they have a pretty limited season and they don't store particularly well except in jam (and probably frozen).

Because they don't keep well at all, as soon as I get them home I get them washed and cut up. The size that you cut them kind of determines the consistency of the jam, especially with strawberries, and this time I wanted a jammier jam (sometimes when I slice the berries larger the syrup never really gels as well as I wanted to, I figured that a smaller dice would mean more squashed berries and a thicken texture).

All the diced berries go into a big bowl with 4 cups of sugar and the juice of 1 lemon for about 24 hours.

The next day it comes out of the fridge and into a large pot. Now onto the stove. The goal is to take it up to the gelling point, now my books say different things, 221°F, or 8° above whatever your particular thermometer reads when water boils, not to mention the spoon method, plate in the freezer method, blah blah blah. More on this later.

Whenever I make jam I remind myself not to get freaked out as it starts to boil up. I always think it is going to boil over, but it never quite does, probably because I use a big pot. If you are going to make jam, use a big pot, jam boiling over seems like just about the worst kitchen mess ever.

Now, my usual method for guessing the gelling point is when after the terrifying near boil over, it turns into a pot of stuff, which to me, resembles what I would think a cauldron of hot magma would look like. Sweet, jammy magma. It gets deeper in color, stops foaming and boiling up.

Rather than call it good at this point, I decided to use the right way and take it all the way up to 221°F by my thermometer. By about 10 degrees short of my goal I could tell something wasn't going according to plan. I ended up with what I am calling a caramelized strawberry jam. Not so much burnt but, well okay it pretty much scorched. I think it may be edible though, not really gift worthy, but perhaps acceptable for a PB&J, so I canned it anyway.

Next batch I will go with my gut or test my thermometer.

when ideas attack

Unfortunately I am suffering from a severe case. I still have my Serger out, and the sweatshirt pattern cut. I have a selection of sweatshirt fleece out, and felt the need to pull out the stack of jersey knits I've been stashing the last couple weeks. Then I started looking at those wonky blocks again, and oops, wasn't I going to make myself a new purse forever ago? So next thing you know I'm back online, looking at purse patterns and one thing leads to another and I end up deciding that I really need that Kate Spain Central Park fabric for my wonky blocks. Especially the Cobblestone in Aqua. Although it seems silly not to go ahead and get all four colors.

And see, just now in making this link I noticed this. Sherbet Pips by Aneela Hoey, I especially love the Girl in a Tree Swing, it would make a lovely purse. I want to try the Buttercup Bag by Made by Rae, who also has a great series of posts all about making stuff for boys, and I could go on and on about the tens of projects I have stored in the back of my mind for Dino Boy.

I have actually managed to make some progress on both quilts, as well as make a great toy bag for the kids. I wanted to post about some of it here, but I been having a hard time getting any good pics. It's still the gray season here in Portland, and that combined with my less than good photography skills = bad photos.

So now it's war. I need to beat back some of those ideas and actually pick one and do it! I love thinking of projects, daydreaming ideas, and doing the actual work to make them, but I'm not so crazy about starting and finishing them.

to serge or not to serge

Well, it's been a week, and I haven't done much in terms of progress. I did finally finish the quilting on my very first quilt. My problem with the project is that I don't really like it, so there is no motivation to finish it. The more it sits, the less I want to. But now I just have to do the binding. A useful exercise since I've never done it.

I did empty out my piggy bank and get a serger. Of course it sat in the box for a couple of days, then I took it out and stared at it for a couple more days. So now it's been almost a week and I took all the pre-loaded threads out and threaded it. Not exactly easy, but definitely doable.

I have some jersey here waiting and I got a great sweatshirt pattern at Heidi & Finn. I'm really excited for the sweatshirt but I can't decide if it is too difficult a project for my very first spin at this machine.

responsibility

Well, I'm not very far into this experiment and already I'm slacking. Of course I've had good reason. It's February and we have all been sick. No matter, I can already see this will be an ongoing theme.

So I don't have much progress to show on any current WIP, my very first quilt for PZ is still unfinished, and I haven't quite completed the next set of blocks for Dino Boy's quilt. But I have been making mental to do lists of new projects to start. Here goes:

- make bread

- make a new purse

- table runner / trivet

- pillows

- oven mitts for my bro

- find fabrics for Paris quilt

I've also gotten a chance to daydream about brand new things to teach myself. These include:

-knitting

-crocheting

-embroidery

-screen printing

wonky log cabin blocks

Of course in the excitement of seeing the first quilt come together my mind was already spinning with ideas for the next one. This one will be for Dino Boy. I want to do a modern i-spy quilt with wonky log cabin blocks. I though I would do the contrast on the blocks by using blues/greens and yellows/reds. I want the strips to be really random and scrappy though, which can be hard for me because I sometimes over think random. In order to tie the squares together a little I am framing each i-spy print with some white.

The first 4 blocks are done and the second 4 are in progress. I'm thinking I'll need about 30 or so, but I'm not really particular with the size of these first quilts. I'm thinking of them more as lap quilts for the kids or picnics blankets. I probably won't really decide on the size until I have a bunch more done and can start the layout.

Here are the finished ones so far

I'm loving making these blocks since they come together really fast and there is virtually no measuring required. They are basically impossible to mess up (although I did actually mess up the first one but was able to salvage it).

first quilt

I have been thinking about making a quilt since before the holidays, but I had all these gifts that I wanted to make. Well the holidays came and went, and I was still enjoying my planning time (I have a long lead in time to projects where I read books, make plans, look at pictures, and make more plans).

Finally a few weeks ago I decided to go ahead and dive in. I wanted to learn how to do free motion quilting, specifically stippling, where you make wavy lines that end up resembling kind of a brain pattern. I had attempted this a couple of times on some scrap pieces, with pretty terrible results. I decided the best way to go was just to go ahead and make a small quilt.

I decided on a baby quilt for PZ and carefully selected an appropriate, but not particularly attractive fabric bundle that I already had. Some of it I kind of liked, it has the texture of vintage sheets, but some of the prints I absolutely hated. I figured it would matter less when I completely ruined the project during the quilting phase. Despite the throw-away nature of the project, I still thought I should practice a little piecing. I combined the fabric bundle with some remnant linen that I had a couple fat quarters for the back.

Here's the front

For the back I used those fat quarters, plus practiced some freestyle piecing on the back with the scraps.

The quilting, by the way, is horrible by any technical measure. There is a lot of improvement though from the time you start the piece to the time you finish. I still have a little less that 1/4 of the blanket left to quilt. Then on to the binding and done!!!

. . .and so it begins

Finally, I have actually started the first post, at least that is one thing I can cross off my list of things to do. My most recent foray is into sewing. This year my ancient machine died in the middle of my son's Halloween costume (it probably didn't help that I was making it out of the thickest fleece ever). Rather than get the machine repaired (again), I decided to treat myself to a new machine. At first it was just supposed to be a cheap-o Singer or something, but then I went into an actual sewing machine store and tried some of the nice machines. Um, hello, you had me at German design! It was amazing how easy it was! It actually made me want to sew.

Long story short, I ended up with a Pfaff, service plan, and a lot of explaining to do at home as to why DIY, on the cheap costume now cost hundreds of dollars. I promised myself (and hubby) that I would make good use of the machine. And so I have ever since.

There were plenty of hand made holiday gifts, some bags and purses, but fairly quickly I decided I was going to start quilting. It took no time at all for me to become fabric obsessed. This must be what draws so many of us to sewing, I could look at fabric for hours and hours (but really I only have minutes and minutes before the little ones voice powerful objections.) Already I feel the pull of stash hoarding!

My late grandmother quilted, and so does my aunt. Between the two of them I got quilts for both of my kids when they were born, which are really special to me and I hope they will be for the kids as they grow. I made a quilt for my doll once when I was 10 or so at my grandmothers house. It was a simple patchwork with yarn ties. Jumping back into this is going to take some research.