More Fabric or Yes, I'm officially insane.

So... Since the first lot of quilting fabric was so much fun and did so well and I'm down to a tote and a half ish. I'm going to do it again!! Yes, I might be nuts. I'm headed to Alexandria on Thursday to pick up umm a lot of fabric. I think I'll need the roof bag for my car.

Fiberecycled or Disliking orphans is un-Amur'can.

Everybody loves an orphan right? Cute, rejects of society that they are. Orphaned kids and animals are easy to love. Somehow I've ended up with a penchant for acquiring orphaned objects. Yes, I know, it is a disease. But at least I'm not bringing home random street children and trying to strip and refinish them.

It is in this orphan theme that I'm working on a quilt.

In this fabric stash I've been sorting I found boxes and boxes of parts to already finished quilts. I'm not sure if they were just extras. Sometimes you think a piece will work, until you see it all pinned together. Maybe she decided to just never finish a project and scrapped the whole thing to be canalized for other crafts. Maybe as part of the dementia she decided that what she really needed at the end of days was totes and totes of size graded squares and strips of fabric all organized by color and pattern and individually bagged. No, I'm not kidding and, yes, other people have confirmed the existence of said totes.

Either way unless you know the original plan for these, it's a little hard to know what to do with them.
My solution, randomness. Debag about 6 or so packs of 1.5" squares along with the 1.5" strips and sew strip, square, strip, square ad infinitum until I have a large line of fabric. Then sew these into a large rectangle that looks like a waterfall of stripes. Sort of.
My next crazy idea was that this should be a messenger bag. Throw on Buffy, pay ZERO attention to what you are doing and suddenly the rectangle of fabric is umm a bit large for a duffel bag much less a messenger bag. Decide that there are too many duffel bags in the world and to make one of those draw string backpack things is just too Shepherdstown Hippie Chic for my mood at the moment.
New plan. Skirt, no. Dog bed, nah. Scrap the whole thing into the bin, NEVER! Would you throw away a string of orphan children that someone had tied together? No, I think not. You'd find something productive to do with them even if it was just to hold your parking space. The next guy would have to be a real meanie to boot orphans out of their only parking space in the world just so he could have a shorter walk.

But I digress... a lot.

So we have this largish waterfall looking stripey thing. That REALLY needs to be ironed. Get out iron and then curse a lot and remember why one does NOT wait until the end to iron quiltish pieces. Swear to never do small piece work again and promptly sew a 4 inch wide solid border all around the blasted piecework and say ironing be damned.

Glance at boxes and boxes if itty bitty squares. Glance at iron. Decide that quilt (as it has somehow now become a quilt) needs a border ALL around with tiny tiny itty bitty squares.
Decide that it won't be so bad if I just do a couple at a time. Sit down and sew all of them all at once and confirm that original plan of a few at a time was a better one.

I'm now at the point where I'm a little tired of looking at it and still happen to have all the rest of the ball of strips sewn together that made the original waterfall thingy. Hmm, what else can we do. Another border! So, I'm currently working on making a border of horizontal stripes to go around the whole thing to contrast the vertical stripes in the center. Before I can attach them I have to 1) finish making them and 2) find a solid border to go between the border of tiny tiny microscopic squares and this new border of strips. Am thinking solid border may be two toned. Maybe pumpkin and navy or gold and navy.

We shall see.

Fabric Storage

So I've been going through this huge load of fabric from an estate and I let the local sewing ladies come peruse and purchase since I'll never use it all.

For those of you who know who I'm talking about...

Paulette's Pile












Jenn's Pile











Just an illustration in personality differences via a classic example.

Apple Jelly - Part the First

This project has been going on for 3 days now and I took the photos on day 1. Kitchen does NOT look the same after 3 days of apple processing.

I'm following the Ball canning recipe for apple jelly. Sort of. They rant on for a while about only using top produce and nothing with blemishes. Well my apples are free and unsprayed and have all the benefits and blemishes that come with that so :P to the Ball canning book.


1) Start with a large box full of free apples. (box is not really full as I've already got a pot going)













2) Cut the apples so as to remove the bad spots, stems, major bruising, etc. These are free apples so I'm not too worried about getting every last little scrap. If a side is damaged I just don't use that side at all. The scraps are going in the compost pile so either way I benefit from the huge box of free apples. You will see rather large chunks of apple in the compost bowl. Don't be tempted, they're gross and will pollute the flavor of your jelly. With free apples, it's ok to toss (compost) the iffy bits. You have my permission.











The double shot here is the same apple. It had 1 perfect side and 1 horrible side, but you couldn't tell when you cut it open which is which. Just a lesson in "look at both sides of the apple before you throw it in the pot".


3) Admire the beauty of the interior of some of the apples. This is where the shockingly beautiful champagne pink at the end comes from.











4) Start a large stock pot going about 1/2 full of water. I can't tell you an amount because you'll have a different pot. Generally I start with it 1/2 full of water and then add water as needed until the apples are mushy.


5) Let them boil / simmer (your preference) away until they can all be easily smashed with a spoon or the are falling apart anyway when you stir the pot.












6) This is the part I don't have a photo of. When they are all nice and smoooshy. Take a canning jar, a canning funnel and coffee filters of some kind. (I had a bunch left over from when I switched my pot from paper filters to a mesh filter so that is what I used) I find the cone filters stand up better to this kind of abuse than the circular ones. Stack in order, Canning jar, canning funnel, 2 coffee filters with the seams opposite of each other. Cone filters have a seam down one side. When you layer one in side the other, simply flip one around so you have a solid side and a seamed side on each edge.

7) This is the lovely canning jar full of yummy apple goodness ready to make into jelly.













Notes on quantity. I started out with a large file box nearly full of apples. Many hours later I have 5 quarts of juice + 2 little 1/2 pint jars. I probably could have spent more time extracting juice from the pulp but I'm lazy and when it was becoming to much of an effort I'd throw the pulp in the compost bowl.


Part 2 will cover the actual canning process probably to happen some time next week. All the juice is in the freezer as I have another bushel of apples to go through. erk, I'm insane.

Rag Rug Tutorial... Not really

So... that tutorial I promised. Still in the works. Taking instructional photos by yourself is harder than anticipated with out a tripod. Equipment! We don't need no stinking equipment.

Brain 1: You can hold the camera in your teeth.

Brain 2: But then what will I use to rip the fabric?

Brain 1: Oh right..