MIllions of peaches

Well actually there is only the one jar but that's not how the song goes :o)

I am canning for the first time this year. I'd love to say it;s my own produce but I am sadly lacking a peach/nectarine/plum/apricot tree. So a trip to the market later I have a kitchen full of fruit. We are in soft fruit season here in Europe which is my favourite. Our policy of not buying stuff from further away than Italy if we can help it means that in winter I miss all my favourite fruits. So I am trying to put some up.

So far I have 4 small jars of strawberries, 3 large jars of nectarines, 1 large & 1 small jar of peaches, 3 large jars of plums and 2 small jars of apricots. Hopefully If I've done it right these babies will see me through til next summer. The only one I am worries about is the peaches as I didn't get as much syrup in there as I would have liked due to them being so darn juicy!

Today I have also made 2 jars of green tomato chutney, 1 jar of picked cucumber, 2 jars of pickled onions, 2 jar of raspberry jam and half a jar (yeah that really bugged me) of strawberry jam. Oh and baked 2 laves of bread. Yeah it's been a busy day in the kitchen for me. I would love to show you a pic of this vast sea of jars but I am bushed. So I'll check back in with a pic tomorrow :o)

Revelations tops

Another one of the to do list, woot!

Today I have for your perusing pleasure the Revelations tops. I used the revolutions dress pattern I had already as a base and drafted these 2 tops for Spadgersdottier. The purple material is from a duvet cover, the pink is from curtains. Both were charity shop finds.




Now I'm not sure what went wrong with the first one but there was no overlap left for buttonholes. So a bit of creativity later a flaw was turned into a cute design feature



I used my new bias tape makers to make matching bias for the armholes



and also for the hong kong finishes I did on the seams.



As you can see the tension is a bit wonky on my machine. I really need to sort that! The pink one is exactly the same pattern.



This time the overlap was there (really what happened on the other one? How can an inch or more of material just disappear?!) I have made 2 bound button holes here. They're not the neatest things ever but they're not bad.



Both sets of buttons were chosen by Spadgersdottier herself. She has good taste that girl. Not quite got my button obsession but I'm working on it :o)

Sugar and spice

We've been baking this week, Spadgersdottier and I. We have made gooseberry tart. It was going to be a pie but there wasn't enough gooseberries. I made profiteroles for the first time after much pestering from Spadger


We made little chocolate sponge buns and we baked and decorated cookies. Me, her and pretty much everything in the house are covered in edible glitter. Much to Spadger's disgust hehehehe



This one is my favourite, made for me by my wonderful stepdaughter :oD

Self Stitched September

'I, Affienia, sign up as a participant of Self-Stitched-September. I endeavour to wear at least one handmade or refashioned item of clothing or accessories/jewelry every day for the duration of September 2010'.

I heard about Me Made May run by So Zo well into May. Didn't really seem worth it at that point. However I think I am up to the challenge of Self Stitched September. The to do list seems to be egging me along nicely so I thought, why not add another little push? I've allowed myself plenty of room in my statement as I've included refashioning and accessories/jewellery. I reckon I can manage it :o)

Sunday's Sparrow

On Sunday when in the garden we heard a sparrow cheeping. This is not unusual as they are nesting in our roof but this one sounded really close. I'd just seen the momma sparrow fly off so we had a look around and sure enough there was a baby sparrow on the floor.

All the advice we could find said to put it back in the nest if you could (not possible), leave it somewhere safe for the momma to look after it (not likely with all the cats round here) or as a last resort take it in. So we did. We put him in a punnet full of rabbit bedding and went out to do a bit of shopping including buying meal worms for him. When we got home he had made his way off the table and into the kitchen. Man this bird had a death wish.



We put him and his punnet in the big crate we use for taking the rabbits to the vets as he couldn't get out of that one. With the aid of my sewing tweezers, a cocktail stick and my thumbnail me and Spadger managed to feed him a couple of worms over the next few hours. Unfortunately he didn't make it. But at least he wasn't mauled by cats on his way out. To complete the circle of life Spadger took his little body over to the wild area across from us. He will either be a meal or compost.

It's sad when the things you try to save don't survive.

Flora and fauna

Good morning folks. Currently I am on holiday, nowhere special just at home. So you can expect my posts to be even more sporadic than normal and very picture heavy. Who doesn't like a nice picture of a flower though, right? Here is some of the flora and fauna in my garden at the moment.

bugs

As an accompaniment to the flowers I though we should look at bugs. I adore bugs. They are just so well put together and even the ugly ones are cute. Now you will notice that the first pic is not a bug. But neither is he a flower so I thought he could go in this post. He is my favourite animal so I am sure you will forgive him :o)

I would love to say that the rest of the pics were taken in my garden but, although we are very wildlife heavy here, it's not quite hat good. We explored a part of the farm we had not been to before in a search for wild cherries and came across quite a meadow. That's where all these critters were. The fellow in the second pic was most kind and stayed sill long enough for me to get this wonderful shot. I really recommend clicking on them to enlarge. I think he looks like he has a big buck toothed grin :o)