Friday fragments

in which our plucky heroine realises that springtime does in fact involve pollen...

Every year, for a few days or more, the sweet scented ornamental plum trees put on a spectacular show in my front yard

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Each year I somehow hope that my springtime allergies will not arrive. Each year I am disappointed. For all my young life, springtime simply meant flowers, and no more snow... Then I moved to the PNW, the land where pollen falls like rain*, or sometimes is washed into the street by the rain, leaving the puddles with a vivid yellow rim. Time to go see if the drug store still sells my preferred remedy... sigh... the one that works really well, but takes two to three weeks of daily use to become effective...
* last years giant pollen balls

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between other tasks today, I have started a batch of blood orange marmalade... these have already been boiled for several hours, and are in the process of being cut into narrow strips. They then get mixed with sugar and lemon juice, and cooked into marmalade.

Citrus has enough pectin in the white parts to create a gel sans adding anything extra. It will be yummy. I try every year to make enough marmalade of different varieties to last through til next citrus season, although it seems that no matter how much I prepare, it never is actually enough. Uses for tasty marmalade expand to fill however much is in the pantry!

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Maybe I am too tired to do any sewing for me tonight, but it has been a productive day: The chicken house is cleaned out, and has nice fresh wood shavings... All the people I needed to contact about enameling and metalwork have received emails and/or drawings... Dishes have been washed, laundry has been done and put away... Some time spent on stitching trim to the current sewing commission... All the new blockprinting and textile paint has been put away... The studio is tidy for the work tomorrow, when I start teaching metalworking. This is a new endeavor, with a private student. I have been teaching enameling for a number of years, but never the basics of metalworking. I began learning metalworking decades ago as a young teen, long enough ago that it all seems mostly second nature to me now. Will be interesting to start at the beginning again for someone else...

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	grey pinafore	green onions planted	paper recycle bin
2	2 stencils	bike tires and tubes	yard waste bin
3	black/cream knit top	bicycle brakes	dead bike tires
4	grey/blue knit top	chicken house cleaned	x
5	peg people playset	x	x
6	needlefelted sheep	x	x
7	Seville marmalade	x	x
8	Mandarin Dream jelly	x	x
9	blood orange marmalade	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x

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p.s. sadly, my little virtual hamster in the sidebar, after running on the wheel and eating chow pellets for the last ten years, has succumbed to a lack of internet support and started falling apart into bits, so I let them go across the electronic rainbow bridge. Bye bye little hamster...

Mandarin Dream and other delightful things

in which our plucky heroine sees a rainbow, and has a productive day...

This afternoon there was a long and very low rainbow, which cut across all the sky between the houses to the east...

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My effort for the Food in Jars Mastery Challenge this month was Mandarin Dream jelly... The leftover mandarins (tangerines) from KASB were juiced, and were augmented with the juice of two lemons and a splash of vanilla. The skins and seeds boiled up for two hours in an effort to extract their natural pectins... then strained out skins and seeds, mixed all back together, added 2½ c sugar, and boiled it all down until it was concentrated enough to jell.

I ended up with seven 4 oz jars, which filled the canning kettle, and an additional 6 oz to put in the fridge and use right away. It should be an excellent treat to dollop a spoonful over a bit of Greek yoghurt. But, as always, the effort to create a clear-er end result and call it jelly seems excessive, since I personally prefer the slightly more textural jams, marmalade, and preserves. The flavor is reminiscent of lemon drop candy, and the color is a spectacular transparent gold. It is lovely, assuming it actually does set overnight as it cools, but will not be joining the short roster of pantry preserves that get made in rotation every year.

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This bowl was rather an afterthought but I particularly like how the blue underglaze spots dripped onto the dark center, and am quite eager to see how it will look next week (when our glazed and fired pieces are returned at the final class).

These experimental buttons, now underglazed half brown/black and half blue, will hopefully end up as functional and decorative fasteners on a handmade cardigan:

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	grey pinafore	green onions planted	paper recycle bin
2	2 stencils	bike tires and tubes	yard waste bin
3	black/cream knit top	bicycle brakes	dead bike tires
4	grey/blue knit top	x	x
5	peg people playset	x	x
6	needlefelted sheep	x	x
7	Seville marmalade	x	x
8	Mandarin Dream jelly	x	x
9	-	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x

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Tuesday tidbits

in which our plucky heroine acquires some greenery...

It had been my original intention to have some spider plants here, as they are durable resilient house plants that remind me of my younger days as well as adding a bit of life to the interior decor

I decided after the kind response to my request last week for spider plant babies, that it would be a real treat to have a small collection of future spider plants from various friends of mine.

These two arrived this weekend from Karen Eccles and Elizabeth Mead, and are settling in to their new home. Soon the larger of the two will be potted into a hanging pot, and the smaller green and white stripey one will be potted into a windowsill pot

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Started in on making marmalade for the year, whilst there are still an abundance of citrus in the shops. Made very small batch of Seville orange marmalade to start, and acquired some blood oranges for a second small batch. Since there are quite a few tangerines leftover from KASB, making "tangerine dream" jelly (combining tangerine with vanilla) seems like it would be fun, and a better-late-than-never response for the current monthly Mastery Challenge over on Food In Jars.

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	grey pinafore	green onions planted	paper recycle bin
2	2 stencils	bike tires and tubes	yard waste bin
3	black/cream knit top	bicycle brakes	dead bike tires
4	grey/blue knit top	x	x
5	peg people playset	x	x
6	needlefelted sheep	x	x
7	Seville marmalade	x	x
8	-	x	x
9	-	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x

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