MAKING APPLESAUCE

Today dawned cold, rainy and very windy.  The thermometer stood at +2C, or about +35ºF.  But this was the day to pick apples and make applesauce.  The apples on the tree by greenhouse #1 were ready.  There was nothing else on the schedule, other than the usual chores.  So S. came over and together we picked two large pails of apples.  Not so many as usual, but enough for now.

She helped me wash and cut up the apples.  From there they went into two big stockpots to cook down to sauce.  I took a break while they cooked, had a cup of coffee and read for a while.  Latest book: Alice Hoffman's The Dovekeepers.  Around 12 I started putting the soft cooked apples through the food mill, spooning them into 1 pint jars and putting them into the hot water bath in the canner.

I was really thankful that I had a frozen lasagne, Basilli's Best, in the freezer, the right size for just the two of us.  I'm not very good at making lasagne, it's a lot of work, and this grocery store freezer lasagne is actually very good.  That saved me making dinner at the same time that I was making applesauce.

By 1:50 p.m. the applesauce was finished.  Ten pint jars (actually slightly more content, as they are metric) and three 4 cup containers.  All the jars sealed!!!  I used to have at least 2 out of 7 jars that didn't seal.  S. clued me into the fact that the boiling water needs to be about 2" ABOVE the tops of the jars.  Somehow I never knew that, although I've done lots and lots of canning over the years.  So I was VERY happy that all 10 jars sealed themselves.  This tree, which I call the "Greenhouse Apple Tree"--we don't know what variety it is--makes lovely pink applesauce that needs no sugar.  We use lots of this applesauce, both with dinners and on our breakfast pancakes.

A very satisfying accomplishment on a cold, cloudy, windy Monday.

QUILTY FUN

At our planning meeting last May the Pieceful Stitchers, the in-town quilt club, decided that we would all make a Jacob's Ladder quilt this year and submit them as a group to the Red Deer Quilt Show.  The idea is to demonstrate how one pattern can be interpreted in so many different ways.  I wanted to get started on that project so I looked in my stash and found two fabrics that looked good together, the batik print on the left and the purple print in the middle.  I took them to the Fabric Nook and found this gold that looked good with them.  I thought I was all set.

I looked up and printed a Jacob's Ladder quilt block from the internet.  Using that I calculated how much fabric I would need to make a 12 block quilt, 12" per block.  According to my figures I had just enough of the batik and plenty of the purple.  I bought .6 of a meter of the gold, figuring that was plenty.

I checked my calculations several times, and, to my dismay, ended up with different figures each time.  I'm not very perceptive about math, so I was a bit worried.  Finally I decided to take the fabrics to the Fabric Nook and find replacements for the batik and the purple.  You'll see them later.  But back home again and after another attempt to figure out how many inches of each fabric I needed, I thought my originals might possibly do.  So I simply started cutting and sewing, figuring, "I'll see how it turns out."

I made the squares for one block and put them up on the design wall.  This is the second try.  I discovered something funny: I had figured things out wrong and what was supposed to be the background became the ladder.  Oh well, if it looks different, maybe that's a good thing!

That was yesterday afternoon.  Today I made all the squares for all of the blocks.  THERE WAS PRECISELY JUST ENOUGH FABRIC!  If I had needed one more block it wouldn't have worked.  How many times does THAT happen?

The squares needed for each of the 12 blocks are in neat little stacks on the cutting board.  When I get the blocks made I'll play around a bit with the placement.  It's an ongoing adventure!  

HELLO AGAIN

The Thursday after my last blog post our dear daughter and two grands arrived for a visit. That's always such a pleasure because not one of our four kids and no grands live closer than a 10 hour drive.  This is being just a great summer because three of the kids and three of the grands either have been here or are still planning to come.  And we hope to see some of them around the turn of the year again!

That Saturday the garden harvest took off.  This is what S. and I picked that day:

She helped me with the snipping and preparing.  The carrots are all washed and in the fridge for present eating.  The beans were processed and yielded 15 pints.  That's plenty to have on shelves downstairs.

 

 There has been lots more from the garden.  We are eating most of it fresh.  I've been making a "vegetable stew" from Fava Beans, onions, zucchini, tomatoes and bell peppers. That's a nice filling meal that we've had several times in the last few weeks.

Our t.v., which we've had since 1986, started doing strange things.  After we turned it off, it would turn itself back on, display static and emit and VERY LOUD static sound.  I was afraid it would explode!  So this Monday I went to Red Deer and asked a lot of questions at London Drug.  Mike patiently answered them all and guided me to what would be a good choice for us.  A Samsung 43" 1080P LED Smart t.v. came home with me.  It's all hooked up and we are really enjoying it.  I'm the techie here, and not much of a one, but I did manage to get it set up.  The funny thing is that we need to use the new remote to turn it on, control the volume or mute it.  To change channels we need to use the remote that came with the HD Bell Express Vu satellite box.  If we knew a bit more about these things, we might be able to do better, but this works for us.  It's a much bigger, brighter picture than the old RCA.

And today I finally was able to get at the latest quilting project.  This sample Pinwheel quilt top is now finished.  It will go to the IDA as an unfinished top, i.e., not "sandwiched" and quilted.  That will allow those interested to examine the back and see how the seams are pressed.  There is already a completely finished Pinwheel quilt there, meant to interest quilters in a "Demo Day" in September when I will demonstrate my method of making Pinwheel Blocks.  When I have the directions all printed out I will post them on the blog.

 

FIXING HOLES

The Dear One always said No when I asked if he'd like a pair of hand knit socks.  I thought that maybe it was because he thought the colour would be too bright.  Finally in 2015 I simply knit him a pair of hand knit socks in Patons Kroy Sock Yarn, my favourite for socks (75% washable wool for warmth and comfort and 25% nylon for strength) in this colour, Flax.  I gave them to him for Christmas.  He put them on and had an epiphany: hand knit woolen socks felt GREAT!!!  Turns out he always thought they wouldn't  feel good.  Since then I've knit him six pairs of socks.

Because it takes a lot of time and effort to knit a pair of socks, and because they tend to get holes under the heel and ball of the foot while the rest of the sock is still in prime condition, it is very worthwhile to repair these holes.  Here's a small hole and a very thin area in a pair of socks I knit for him in February of 2017.  And here's how I fix holes in socks.  First with a very thin double point (dp) needle I pick up the stitches in a row below the hole.

Then I begin knitting these picked up stitches with the regular size sock needles.  At the beginning of each knit row I pick up a stitch from the sole of the sock, in the same vertical column of stitches but the second row up.  I slide that stitch onto the needle ahead of the first stitch and knit the two stitches together.

                       
I knit to the end of that row of stitches.  Before the last stitch I pick up a stitch from the sole in the same vertical column of stitches as the last stitch on the needle and knit those two stitches together.

Turn the knitting and purl back to the beginning.  Repeat until the hole and thin area are covered with the new knitting.

When you are a good long way past the hole and worn out spot cut the yarn quite a distance from the last stitch at the end of a purl row.  (The picture shows the working yarn at the beginning of a purl row.  Don't let that confuse you.)

Thread the end of yarn through a yarn needle.  Thread the yarn needle through a stitch in the sole, bring it up purl-wise through the first stitch on the needle.  Pass the yarn under the needle tip, pass it under the point of the "v" of the corresponding stitch in the sole.  (Sorry, no picture.)  Now pass it under the point of the needle and through the first stitch knit-wise.  Slide that stitch off the needle.  Repeat with the next stitch--first passing the yarn through that stitch purl-wise.  This is a modified version of the Kitchener stitch which is used to connect two pieces of knitting invisibly, by creating a hand-needled row between the top and the bottom of two pieces of knitting.

Sorry about no picture.  The next time I do this procedure I'll take and post pictures.

Here are the mended socks:  The left sock looks a little different.  It's just a change of yarn after a few inches on mend on that sock.  Just started the mend with the wrong yarn, but who will notice on the sole of the sock?

This repair will extend the life of these socks considerably.  This pair is one of my favourites because of the cable design on the top of the foot and on the legs.  Several of his pairs of socks are this same Flax colour, but I make each one somewhat differently so that when they come out of the wash I can match them to their mates.

There was another pair with even bigger holes in my mending basket, but I thought I'd try something different.  The Dear One only recently told me that the reason he likes hand knit socks so much is because they are softer and cushion his feet more than bought socks.  He has Peripheral Neuropathy in both feet and legs which makes them feel "pins and needles" much of time.  These socks help with that by cushioning his feet somewhat.

Well, that gave me an idea for the next "hole repair" session.  I picked up and knit a whole other sole with this difference: I stuffed bits of roving between the "holey" sole and the new sole, thinking: this will really give him a good cushion.

This pair had been mended earlier--you can see the mend  on the heel at right, but now the mend had a hole in it and beside it where it joined the sole.

This time I started at the toe and picked up extra stitches along the side of the toe.  When I got to the side of the sole I used the method described above.  As I went along I stuffed the cavity between the new and old soles with cut up roving (roving is unspun yarn).  The majority of time yesterday was devoted to this project.  I finished by 9 p.m. (having taken out time to have a hair cut, buy groceries and go out for lunch).  

It looks like a sock with a foot in it!

When he tried it on he asked, Will it compact a bit?  Probably, with some wearing and washing.  But what a lovely new sole for this sock!

Next week I'll try to do up the other sock of this pair.  It's still a LOT less effort and time compared to knitting a whole new pair!

A BOOK, A RECIPE & RASPBERRY JAM

This morning I finished reading a very interesting book:

Published in 2013 Deep South tells the story of Paul Theroux's year of travel in the U.S. South.  Travelling alone by car he explored the back roads and small towns of the south, meeting locals and learning how they lived, most of them in dire poverty.  

Many of the small towns had been prosperous in the first half of the 1900's.  Then came the violent times of civil rights unrest and the devastation wrought by the departure of most industries to countries with cheaper labour and fewer taxes.  He also discovered, to his surprise and chagrin that although the U.S. sends millions and millions of aid dollars overseas, the poor in the south struggle without that kind of aid.  Most of the people he spoke with, many of whom became his friends, were poor blacks.  What shines through his writing is his empathy with all sorts of people.  What a good book!  I highly recommend it.

Sunday suppers here are not like the main meal on weekdays.  They are much "lighter."  Quite often we just have a bun with salmon salad.  Another frequent meal is homemade pizza.  This week I used an old recipe from way back when, Salmon Biscuit Ring.  I don't know where this recipe came from, but haven't made this for years.  I'm thinking of making this when DD #2 and her two kids are here in August so thought it would be a good thing to have a run through now.  It turned out terrific:

                        

It calls for biscuit mix (Bisquick, I guess) which I didn't have so I made some.  That recipe came from the net and was simple to make.

SALMON BISCUIT RING
Combine:
1 large or 2 small cans of salmon, drained
1 egg
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup chopped parsley.
 
With a fork, stir together:
2 1/2 cups buttermilk baking mix
2/3 cup milk  (I used Kefir, very much like buttermilk)
Form a soft dough.
On a floured board knead 12 to 15 times.
Roll into a 10" x 15" rectangle.

Spread the salmon mixture on the dough.
Roll the dough up (like cinnamon rolls).
Moisten the edge with water.  Seal the ends together.
Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Make 12 cuts, 2/3 of the way through the ring.
Turn each piece on its side.
Brush the dough with a beaten egg.
Bake at 375º for 25 to 30 minutes.

I halved this recipe and still got a big enough ring that we ate only half.  The other half is in the freezer for some other meal.

This morning S. picked raspberries and got this mounded gallon pail.  I made 4 four cup freezer containers of raspberry freezer jam.  Last year we put 16 of these containers in the freezer and just this morning I took the last one out to thaw.  The date on the top of that container was 31/7/17.  So--just enough raspberry freezer jam to last one year.  We also used the cherry jelly I made last summer, and for most of our time in Arizona I bought jam at the supermarket.  Only Smucker's raspberry or strawberry jam seemed good enough.

How to make raspberry freezer jam:

Start with four cups of mashed fresh raspberries.  Mix 1 1/2 cups of sugar with one package of Bernardin Freezer Jam Gelling Powder.  Mix the sugar/jelling powder into the crushed fruit and stir for three minutes.  Pack into freezer containers.  I use plastic four cup square containers, as they stack very nicely in the freezer.  

Do try this, even if you have to buy some raspberries -- or strawberries.  It works equally well with either fruit.  I tried it once with some pitted, crushed cherries, but for some obscure reason, that did not turn out well.

ANOTHER NEW MACHINE!!!

Last week I had the joy of buying another new sewing machine.  The excuse this time is that I plan to take my Janome 7700 to Arizona this fall and leave it there, in case we switch from driving back and forth to flying back and forth.

This new machine is a Janome 9400 and it has tons of new features.  It will take me a long time to explore all of its capabilities. This is not a wonderful picture because of the bright sun trying to shine around the window shade, but it gives you an idea of what the machine looks like.  It has pretty much the same "footprint" of my 7700. 

                      

I started today with my basic quilt piecing.  This will be what I do most often on this machine, and already I think it's super.  It has a setting for 1/4" seams that works like a charm.  I made a few blocks in the "Practically Perfect Pinwheels" design that I will be demonstrating at IDA, the local drug store which includes a very good quilting fabric and accessories department.  They already have a finished Pinwheel quilt to let quilters know about the "demo day" and I've started another from strips of fabric I had set aside for that pattern.

There are enough strips cut to make two large lap quilts which I will take to AZ to donate there.  Or maybe, donate one here and one there.

A VISIT

Last Saturday we had the pleasure of welcoming DS #2 and his #2 daughter for a visit.  All our children and grandchildren live far away from us, so a visit is a great treat!!!  We worked together and relaxed together.

One important task was rolling out the 150' long plastic sheet for new covering for the #1 and #2 greenhouses:

This is a terrifically heavy roll of plastic, very high quality, rated for 4 years' wear on the greenhouses.  The greenhouses are 70' long, so the plastic must be cut into two pieces before being installed.  Installation will happen either later this summer, or perhaps next summer.  It's not easy to get together a crew for that job.

After work is done it's time to relax.  We are all avid readers of books, magazines and internet devices.  Here we are sitting in the solar space enjoying some leisure time.

 

The week flew by and yesterday it was time for them to go back home to B.C.  Parting always makes me teary-eyed.  

Jim talked with Geoffrey today as we wanted to be sure they had reached home safely.  They flew from the Calgary airport, but take-off was delayed by two hours because of stormy weather.

In August DD#2 and her two children are coming for a visit.  Nicely spaced from this visit.  It will give me time to wash the towels and sheets and prepare some food ahead.  We look forward to spending time with them!