Finally!!

Yes, I'm finally blogging. I realize it's been awhile so I'll try to update you all on what we've been doing lately. I'm sure I'll forget half of what I had planned on blogging about since I never write anything down.

This week we went to a local fruit farm and picked a bunch (ha, ha, get it?) of concord grapes. Ellie and Kara had their own clippers and Darin and Natalie helped me pick some. We picked 42 pounds of grapes. Aren't they beautiful?

My original plan was to make 2 batches of grape jelly and to make the rest into juice. I've got a great canning cookbook with wonderful recipes. I started with the first batch of jelly. What a pain!! First you have to cook the grapes, strain them and then strain them again--using cheesecloth. It takes forever!!! Then you have to strain them a few more times. It seemed way too labor-intensive and wasteful (you throw the pulp away) so I only made one batch of jelly and one batch of jam. Turns out, I prefer the taste of the jam anyway.

Since I figured out that using cheesecloth to strain the grapes was too much work, I decided that the original recipe I was going to use for the juice was also way too much work (same process, just save the juice instead of adding sugar for jam). There was another recipe in that cookbook and a friend of mine had used a similar recipe so I decided to try that. Plus it would make a whole lot more jam.

Here's the recipe:
Wash 1 1/2 cups grapes. Place in clean, hot quart jar. Add 2 T sugar. Fill with boiling water leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes. Let cure for 3-4 months before drinking. Strain before drinking.

I got 57 quart of juice.
In other news I recently got my own sewing machine. I'd been borrowing (mostly keeping) a friend's and recently gave it back. Dan figured it was about time I got my own so we stopped by Sears and picked up one that was pretty similar to the one I'd been borrowing. We can't afford a really, really good one with all sorts of fancy options so since I was familiar with this machine and I'd not had any problems with it, we picked this one up. I sewed a couple of things on it and then it went kaput!! No matter how much I monkeyed with it it would not sew correctly. It kept pulling on the spool of thread and I'd have huge piles of thread bunching up under the fabric. Needless to say the seam on the underside was a mess. So I gave up and sent Dan back to Sears with it. Normally there is a 15% restocking fee but since it wasn't working right they didn't make us pay that. Had they tried Dan would've gotten them to reconsider. He's good about things like that.

Before Dan took back the sewing machine I thought I'd check Craigslist to see if there was a used one since my mom and my sister have recently gotten some really good deals through there. And there was!! It was the same brand I've been using but an upgrade. And it cost less. Plus it came with the quilting feet including a free form foot which I hope to use soon to make some coasters.

So here is what I've made so far:
Some burp rags I made for a friend who is expecting her first baby:
AWANA bags for Darin and Kara (Ellie's isn't done yet):
I've got a few more bags I want get made and then I hope to get some coasters done.