Just seem to have been busy

with harvesting and preserving our lovely crops.

The garden has been a great success and we have harvested pounds and pounds of tomatoes with which we made chutney, ketchup, relish and have some cooked down plain for the freezer to use with breakfasts or add to soups and stews later in the year.  I've been SO pleased with these.

We had a good harvest of runner beands, albeit they started to crop late and the cucumers thrived as well.

Our raspberries have also cropped late but we've a plentiful supply which have been frozen down for dealing with later.  I plan to make some wine, some cordial and some raspberry vinegar with them.

The elderberries, which grow wild, were harvested too and we've got 15 gallson of wine fermenting - such a shame it takes 18 months before it's drinkable but I think it will be worth the wait!

The apples have been blown about a lot by the strong winds but we've managed to salvage enough to start off some cider and make some apple juice in the next few weeks.  Our trees are still only babies really but they seem to be cropping well - I just hope they don't get blown over in the gales!

I Won!

Cardmaking Paradise (formerly Time for Crafting) holds prize draws via their VIP membership area.  It really is well worth joining and getting all the on line magazines, templates, product reviews and prize draws as well as swaps to join.

I won one of these and I'm totally thrilled.  The prizes are always really worth having.

As well as that, we entered a slide mailer swap.  Each entrant got a Crafty Individuals stamp.  We then made 'smiles' (like an ATC but round and sent as a RAK) using our new, free stamp. 

 Here's my entry.

London!

My daughter took me to London to see the show War Horse which was totally amazing.  We stayed overnight and the following day we went to the Tate Britain art gallery and had lunch there where I met Marion who is also a member ot the Cardmaking Paradise forum.  She'd made this lovely slide mailer for me as a gift - very topical and beautiful - as always, the picture doesn't do it justice.  Thank you Marion, it was lovely to meet you.

Knitting and Crochet

I've also been busy with my yarns, making bits for two baby baskets which I will give to my friends who are to be grandmas for the first time in the next few months.  They are both SO excited and I know from experience they will love being a grandma.

Here are a couple of the bits I've done so far.

This one needs pressing and buttons before it goes in the basket.  It's actually blue so I've no idea why the colour has morphed!!!!

I got this pattern from here.  I'm not toally happy with it but I think it was more my crochet than a fault with the pattern.  She has some nice, original, designs on her site.  The shawl is white but again the colour on the image has morphed - don't know what's going on here!

The Craft Club members made lots of lovely pieces to sell for charity.  The nominated charity was the RSPCA, to which we sent £60.00.  The sales went quite well bearing in mind it was a gala day and the tables and stalls were very mixed - not specific to crafts.  We did take a lot of stuff back which was a shame but the stall looked lovely.  Lindsey, Melanie, Dorothy and Amy did a lovely job in dressing the table and making the display.

Our apple juice sold quite well, with the help of Barbara who touted brilliantly and didn't let any prospective customers go by.  The apple juice funds were not donated to charity tho'!

As well as the other items shown in previous posts, I'd made some tissue box covers (none sold on the day unfortunately but I was quite pleased with them).

The craft table

Our apple juice and some of my knitting (the knitting didn't attract any interest).

Karen's jewellery seemed to be going well.

There was a lady demonstrating spinning - she spun seal fur (collected when the pups shed their baby coats), dog's wool. alpaca wool and ordinary sheep's wool.  Fascinating.

The cake stall seemed to do a roaring trade.

Gift box

This is a wee pillow  box I made to put a gift in for one of my friend's birthdays.

My red wines, raspberry and redcurrant, should have been ready to drink at Christmas according to the recipe.  However, on tasting, they were far too sweet and syrupy.   We left them for a further period and racked them off this week end, they are now much nicer - albeit still in the sweet category.

The elderflower didn't clear but tastes ok (I don't have a picture of that).

Because they are so sweet I think there may be a possibility of them developing some fizz (which would be nice) so, to be on the safe side, we've put them in champagne bottles.  We'll see how they develop.  I've got to get some foils to put over the tops now.

Craft Club

Jenny did the project last month (thanks Jenny).  We did this pop out/stepper card.

Tag

I got this lovely tag from  Louise it's gorgeous - lots of texture and the butterfly is made of feather and is very realistic.  Thanks Louise.

Birthday cards

Here are a couple of birthday cards I made for one of my nieces to give to her FIL.

Knitting

I was asked to knit a bolero for a friend's granddaughter.  It looked like a very simple pattern but the yarn was textured and I had a bit of a problem seeing well enough to cound the rows and stitches to begin with.  To get my head round the pattern, I knitted one in a plain yarn first (the white one).

Altered Art

On Sara's Time for Crafting forum we did a tag swap (theme birds) and an altered CD swap.  Here's what I made.  You can see all the CD's here.

Here's the CD I sent for the swap.  Pasta frame coloured with acrylic paint and gesso and brushed over with Lumiere paints.  CD colourd with Alcohol inks and the words printed on Letraset.

Here's my spare one.

Well, no, not the bills but I got this today.

Sara who runs the Time for Crafting forum organised a mystery swap.

Firstly, we were sent a large jigsaw piece which had to be done to a SEA theme (in, on or beside the sea).

Then we got a piece of board which had to be done in the same theme.

After that, we were asked to make a tag for which the template was provided for the theme of friendship.

Sara put all these together so that all the participants got back a different piece from different people.  She's made a beautiful spiral bound notebook with the pieces - thank you Sara.

The work's gorgeous and the scan really doesn't show it up properly.

You can see all the pieces here.

Here's what I got.

Jigsaw piece by Colleen - I love how she's made the sun in the sky and the texture's gorgeous.

The background is by Eileen Scott.  Again, gorgeous texture and it's really pearly and glittery with fronds as if it's under the sea.

The friendshop tag's got a lovely soft feel to it and the background is all pearly too.  It's been made by Fudgebabge.

Here are the pieces I made.  The background is paper piecing (each colour is cut out of a different piece of paper).

I couldn't make my mind up about the tags - so I sent two.

Apples, apples and more apples!

The first run of apple juice completed over the last couple of days.

Washed apples ready for chopping.

Chopped (just to make sure there are no 'creatures' inside!)

Minced in the machine.

Pour onto the 'cheese' (the cloth).

Flatten ready for wrapping.

Wrap first layer.

Add the next rack (the wooden slatted platform through which the juice runs).

Adding the former (the frame) to make the next layer - this helps keep its shape until wrapped in the cheese (the cloth).

Adding next cheese (cloth).

and so on until.............all the layers are on and then add the block ready to press!

This is what's left after all the juice has been pressed out (pity we haven't got a pig to fatten).

After the juice has been extracted, it's bottled and pasteurised and this is what you get.

Well I don't seem to have been very productive since my last posting but here's the little I have done.

Preserving

Our harvest of crab apples looked a bit sad because there were lots of marks on the apples.  However, as we planned to make jelly and not jam, this wasn't a problem.  The apples are boiled down in water until soft and mushy and then put through a straining bag so that the juice drains out and that's what is used to make the jelly.  We haven't enough jars just now so the juice has been frozen.  We got 19 pints of juice!  It should be clear but as I'm very mean and didn't want to waste any, I squeezed the straining bag to get the last of the juice, hence it's cloudy but that won't make any difference to how it tastes, it just won't look clear in the jar.

We were given this lovely bunch of tomatoes from a friend's greenhouse so they became soup!  It was yummy!

A gift

Thanks Karen for this lovely gift - she's given up scrapbooks and moved on to her lovely jewellery.  I'm not a 'pink' girl but I can soon decorate the front and the lovely little box with all the different shapes will last for aaaaaaaaaages!

Cards

Yes, I did manage to make a couple.  Firstly one for my Cousin's birthday.

and one for my reserve box using Dufex decoupage

Art Group

This week was button art.  I had to Google as I'd no idea what button art was but there are some lovely and complex examples on line.  I opted for a simpler approach and used a mask which came from Wilko's and was quite cheap.  I didn't have enough buttons of the same colour to do all the panels in buttons so I added the other bits when I got home but I think it's come out quite well.  I used Lumiere paints, glitter, sequins and a peacock feather to finish it off.  I've taken three photos from different angles but I don't think the full effect comes out on the photos.

It all comes at once of course so it's into production with the jams, chutneys and wines.

We don't have many blackcurrant bushes so this was the total of our crop for the year.  It's made a yummy batch of blackcurrant jelly!  Lovely on home made bread.

We've had a terrific yield from the redcurrants (despite the blackbirds).  They all sported hairnets a la Ena Sharples (the bushes that is - not the blackbirds).  So redcurrant jelly, redcurrant wine and redcurrant muffins were the order of the day.  I did try a redcurrant syrup but I boiled it a bit too long - I'll do better next time.  However, the first, thick, lot will be great for on pancakes or icecream.

Yeah, ok, they DO look a bit agricultural but they taste great!  I'm not good at making sponges but my friend gave me this muffin recipe and it works brilliantly (even for me).

The gooseberries suffered this year and were badly marked.  We removed the skins by straining them through a muslin and they made a nice batch of gooseberry jelly.  IWe also made some gooseberry and elderflower cordial jelly (yes, we did make the cordial ourselves).

Not sure how this will turn out but it's working away well at the moment.  Elderflower wine and redcurrant wine. 

Craft Club

Cindy did the project this week and I was so chuffed with it - I made three cards on the night and plan to keep this style for a some of my Christmas cards.

 Two are done with bits from recycled shop cards and the one with the bow is made using images from Crafty Individuals miniature Christmas themed book.  These little books are such good value and very versatile.

Apple Juice

Here's our first bottling of apple juice.  It's been pasteurised and will keep - although I don't think that will prove to be a problem!  I'm very pleased with it - it's had nothing added.

More birthday stuff

I had a bonanza package from Anne who does these amazing zentangles (and she's sent me a full set of green ones)!  She's also sent me two post card art cards - lovely work and I?m tempted to have a go at postcards myself now.  Thank you Anne!