Saturday 22 August 2009

Busy Doing

Well I keep thinking of posting here but then finding another thing to do instead (not that the thing I find to do isn't often a version of time wasting if I'm completely honest, but I'm starting to feel more productive again which is wonderful).

I've managed some sewing recently which tends to be the most difficult thing to fit in. I made a new skirt for myself from a thrifted sheet which I have not managed to get a good picture of. I used some of the same sheet to make a skirt for my daughter which she picked out to wear the other week to the farmers market so I took a picture of her balancing along the edge of a flower bed to capture it. You can't tell that there's a band of pink at the top of the skirt because on this particular day my girl decided to pair the skirt with a yellow with little black polka dots dress that I made back in March and never blogged about (it's from a nice simple and free pattern at BurdaStyle, can't find it now since they've redesigned but it's called the Vivienne I think if you find a project made from it you might be able to download the pattern there). That's my girl, that outfit made me feel so happy!

The thing that I've been doing a lot in the evenings (which is the time I use for blogging when I manage it) is canning. Mostly I've made several kinds of jams, the most recent being the Apple/Blueberry/Blackcurrant jam last night.

Now that we have a ridiculous amount of jam I thought maybe I should try something else and have made my first attempts at pickles. So far I've made a few jars each of pickled green beans and cucumbers (I added some red onion and carrot to the cucumbers as I didn't have as many as I'd thought I would and needed extra in the jars). I had some cucumbers that weren't going to work for the kind of pickles my husband and daughter usually eat so I looked around at some recipes online (cucumber relishes and some Branston style sandwich pickles) and came up with my own version. (I won't post the recipe until such time as we've found out what it tastes like and determined whether it's edible!)

There has also been some knitting but I don't have photos to share of that, and also I need to be asleep in bed, so goodnight all!