MIA

I feel like I have been missing in action. Certainly there hasn't been much sewing action but summer usually brings a whole other set of activities that historically (as in my history) tend to take precedence.......

There's the tennis for a start, so the TV is on for many more hours than is usual. It's also a time for catching up with family and friends and usually a short trip away to the Snowy Mountains. (This time with lots of photos of eucalyptus trees and leaves for one of my upcoming projects.....

For me this trip signals Christmas is over and I can put my feet up with a good book or two.....(see 'Happy New Year' post), notably these.....and start to plan new projects.

.......very different but I enjoyed both.    

There have been some houseguests, with more due soon..........

......and two batches of crabapple jelly, the second one twice cooked as it didn't properly set the first time - which has intensified both the glorious colour and the flavour.

We have been to three very different but highly rated movies - 'The Book Thief', The Railway Man' and 'Saving Mr Banks'............

.........and another batch of greyscale fabric dyeing (which needs its own post).

Add to that a couple of swims and a few walks and it has been a busy but pleasureable time - just not much blogging......

I am making a concerted effort to get back on track before my head bursts - it is so full of ideas - and it's time for some action instead of thinking and reading.

Hopefully back soon,

Sue xxxx

Good Ideas

Some ideas prove to be quite good, for example........

.......these seemed to hit the spot with a family lunch on Sunday.......

On the other hand, this might be debateable. Coming home from our fishing trip we passed trees on the roadside loaded (or should that be 'laden'?) with crabapples. As it's now 2 years since we (I) made crabapple jelly we thought it was time to make some more. (The first batch was eaten and gifted very quickly.....)

So, ten minutes later we had this......

I'm not quite sure what possessed us to pick two bags full - particularly as we said we wouldn't take many......was it because they were free or maybe a safety net in case the fruit was damaged or riddled with insects - but no, it was in excellent condition.....We weren't positive they were true crabapples - but they were certainly inedible raw....

Yesterday the process began with weighing and washing the fruit, .....

Cutting it up roughly - fairly quick as it was in good condition -

...and cooking it down. 

Then into a bag to drain overnight......

.....and today continued with adding the sugar (and sugar and sugar) to the juice and boiling it up til it jelled.

Til finally we (I) ended up with this........

Looks right, tastes right, but I still have one bag full of crabapples and several tubs of applesauce in the freezer....and I'm not sure I have the stamina to process anymore because when we arrived home I found these in the mail......

.......and lessons one and two for this class in my email inbox.......

So it's time to get out of the kitchen for a while because as I'm sure you can appreciate I'm very keen (dying even) to get back to dyeing (with an 'e', as always) and trying my hand at designing with the fabrics created......

Til next time,

Sue xxxx