71. Zip

I did two things for the first time yesterday. I used a zipper foot on my sewing machine. I replaced the zipper in a sleeping bag. So I suppose it's only really one thing, in two parts. But I spent a long time sewing yesterday.

Mike's aunt's mother-in-law has a robe, an old terrycloth robe, very simple construction, and it is her favorite. No other robes equal this one. They either don't lie flat enough along the neck, or the pockets aren't square pockets. So I was handed a robe and minky dot fabric and asked to make another just like the first. And I did. I hate tissue paper patterns, so I laid out the fabric and the robe folded to specific pieces in order to get the diagonals correct. I made 4 pairs of pajama pants this way already for Christmas, and I don't think I'll use a tissue paper pattern again. Bleah.

So anyway, I made the robe while Jake's uncle Johnny sat in the living room dropping not so subtle reminders of his political bent. I was glad for the task.

I finished it quickly--about two hours including a short break for dinner. I had brought one other project to accomplish this break. The sleeping bag zipper. Fiona and Daisy each have sleeping bags that I found at a resale shop on separate occasions. They are flowered and vintagey looking on the outside and lined with a thin flannel. Fiona's is blue and pink; Daisy's is red and green. I love them. They look like something my grade school friend Nicole would have had at her house for sleepovers. They are not cold weather sleeping bags, but they are cute and lovely. I had one, not with the flowers, but in a wine-red-brown, that was very much like these. And so I like them. I've always been a bit wabi-sabi about things. Things that are old and a bit shabby but still functional? Keep them and love them.

But this blue and pink sleeping bag's zipper was in bad shape. First, it stopped threading well and so I made a stopper with a zigzag stitch. Then the zipper, an old metal one on a stiff fabric tape, began to disintegrate. The teeth fell off in chunks (like my worst dental nightmare). Fiona brought it to me and asked what we could do.

I worked in a fabric store and I knew sleeping bag zippers existed, but I'd never replaced a zipper. I sat down next to Jake's brother Kevin and his wife Liz, playing scrabble on my mother-in-law's new Nook tablet. The couch is such that you kind of sink towards the middle. Anyway, I clung to the side of the couch, half-watched Thor that was playing on the TV, and ripped out the old zipper.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I have this old zipper foot in my sewing box. I think it is probably from my grandmother. I gave it a try. I broke three needles in the process but the third one stayed intact and it worked. It did. I got the zipper sewed on and then rebound it with the original matching bias binding. The zipper is black, where the original was white and metal, but it works. It zips so nicely.

So now all the projects are completed and it's time to think about next year. Because as God is my witness, I swear on the grave of my scary great-great-great grandmother Jenny, may she haunt me persistently if I fail to fulfill my promise, that I will start Christmas sewing in February this year.

69. Salsa Verde Original Recipe and Changes

Here is the salsa verde recipe from Farmgirl:

Makes about 3 pints
Recipe may be doubled; increase cooking time by 10-15 minutes

2 lb. green tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 lb. white or yellow onions, chopped
3/4 lb. sweet red peppers, cored and chopped
1/2 lb. tart cooking apples, such as 'Granny Smith', cored and chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt
4 jalapeno peppers, cored, seeded if desired, and finely chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)

Combine the tomatoes, onions, peppers, apples, garlic, vinegar, and salt in a large,nonreactive saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about an hour.

Stir in the jalapenos, cilantro, and cumin and simmer for 5 more minutes. Carefully puree the mixture using a stick blender until still somewhat chunky.

If canning, return the pureed relish to a boil, then ladle the hot mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Store in a cool, dark place.


And this is what I do if I'm not canning:

1. Throw all the green tomatoes in a huge pot.
2. Add enough vinegar and water to get them simmering.
3. Add whatever onions you have lying around. Garlic, maybe a handful of cloves? A few green apples. The tarter the better.
4. Chop a sweet pepper if you have one.
5. Dump in about 6 seeded and cored, chopped jalapenos. Maybe more?
6. When everything is mushy, stick-blender it (or pour it into the blender in batches).
7. Bring to a boil again, add lots and lots of cumin. Some salt. Some chili powder, maybe.
8. Simmer a while. Let it cool down. Pour it into freezer containers and hoard it away!

66. Learning to Can

Melinda came over yesterday. I don't know Melinda--she is a friend of Jen's across the street. They know each other from craft shows. Melinda wanted to learn how to can, how to "put up". She is part of a community organization for sustainable food and growing your own and all that. I told her to come on over.

Raspberries were cheap, the cheapest I've ever seen. I picked up plenty to make raspberry jam, something I would normally not waste raspberries on, frankly, because they get hoovered up at my house at an alarming rate. I pick them myself when I am able (the fall crop is coming in out at the farm where I usually pick, so Leo and I might head out early sometime this week).

She came over Sunday morning, and about 10 minutes before she was due to arrive, I realized I had no pectin. I always cheat. Always. Every jam I make has pectin in it. So much work goes into it, I don't want it to fail. So I had a mini panic, realizing I couldn't run to the store in time, and Mike was camping with the girls so I couldn't have him run out for me. By the time Melinda arrived I had shifted gears. Raspberry sauce, I told her. She was thrilled I was going to do a demonstration and not just a lecture.

Cut to the end: I used a Ball recipe for raspberry jam, warning her it probably wouldn't set. But it did. I followed Ball's recipe exactly and it set fine. It's definitely a homemade variety, it is runnier than store-bought, but it isn't just a sauce. It is jam.

But anyway, I went through the process with her and I realized that wow, I've been doing this for 12 years. Once again, not a novice anymore. And while the internet is probably not the best source for information, pretty much across the board, I'm going to do a few lessons about canning. Maybe it would be better to call them tips. It'll be a few days. I didn't take pictures of the whole process yesterday. I'll need to can something else. Salsa verde perhaps. Hmm.

60. Daylilies

I fried daylilies last night. I picked a bunch of blossoms and a few unopened buds. I dipped them in a tempura batter:

1 c flour
1 c water
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt

And I fried them. I didn't have enough canola, and so I had to resort to some olive oil, and therefore they weren't as crispy as I would have liked, but they were yummy. So weird.

The buds were the best. I may try them again in other ways. And I hear the tubers are potato-esque. The daylilies in my alleyway are weeds. I like to eat weeds.

52. Mended Porch Pillow

It got chewed up in the dryer. And normally I would have simply tossed it--we have a whole crate of chair cushions and pillows and so forth for the backyard. But I looked at it again and though, "I could fix this in 15 minutes."

And I did.

45. Drop Spindle

This is wool:

This is a drop-spindle:

I made the drop-spindle from a dowel, a wooden model-car wheel, and a cup hook drilled in at the top. Drop-spindles are ancient devices, starting in the Neolithic Era and not being replaced by the spinning wheel until the late Middle Ages. It is hand work, it is slow, but it is cheap, portable, and does the trick.
Here I have it threaded with a leader cord (a piece of single ply bulky yarn). I split the leader cord in order to start feeding in the wool fluff (roving). The wool I'm using here is still a bit greasy from being on a sheep, which is what I want for this project. I bought a huge box of roving and mill-ends from a woman who gets them from a yarn mill and sorts through them by type, quality, and color, and resells them online. Perfect--I'm teaching Fiona's class how to spin with drop-spindles and that's perfect.
I catch the roving into the leader cord and start spinning the spindle, like a top, but letting it hang from the yarn as it twists. I catch it again and again, checking for how much twist is present. Fluff becomes a string, here below. Awkward photograph: I lay the camera on the ground and set the timer. So you're looking straight up at my hand holding the drafted (stretched) roving.
It isn't the most economical way to have mittens on your kids' hands come November (that would be $1 mittens at Target on clearance), but this yarn will ply into a bulky weight yarn and then will knit up tight into a warm wool mitten that, due to the lanolin content, will felt a bit and be somewhat waterproof. You can't buy that for $1 at Target. I'm thinking that the amount of roving I'll use for a pair of mittens will be about $2, and then there's just my time. But I like it. So there. I like being able to create something beautiful and useful out of what is essentially someone else's discards. That always makes me happy.

26. St. Patrick's Day Potatoes

The old wives tale is to get your potatoes in the ground by St. Patrick's Day. That, of course, is a week away, so I'm hurrying outside to get things ready. I'm going to grow them in containers this year, and since potatoes grown in containers are not the prettiest creatures, I'm planting them back by the compost heap.

This sounds like a good plan, except that due to various factors (babies, hypothyroidism being the biggest two), my yard has totally gone to seed. Literally. My trifecta of weeds is: (1) wild violets, (2) morning glory, and (3) Indian (wild) strawberry. An "also ran" in that race would be English Ivy, although when I'm diligent, I can keep that in check and it isn't as ugly as the other three.

My compost heap is in the back corner of my yard. To make this make some sense, here is a quick drawing. The top of the drawing is north. Our house is south. Don't ask me why the former owners built the parking pad this way with the two skinny strips of land on each side. One side is closed in like a chicken yard, which is where we grow crops that squirrels desire (mostly tomatoes). The other skinny strip of land is fallow. At the end is our compost heap. Just north of it was this huge 100 year old mulberry tree that we took down Fall '08. Now it is a 4 foot tall stump, but it's on the other side of the fence.

ANYWAY. That whole strip of land was all English ivy and morning glory vines. Plus some other unidentified weeds and compost bits that the girls didn't get to the compost heap all the way (our compost heap is open, and is made of a 4x4 and 2x4 frame with chicken wire holding it in).

So I spent two hours this morning clearing out that crap. Then I put down all the containers that will become potatoes. After lunch, I'm going back out to fill the pots.

I have high hopes for my yard. I am a different person than three years ago when I stopped paying attention because I felt too bad. I'm planting greens today, too, in the closed in garden. So here's hoping for a good growing summer and that all goes well enough for me and the kids to pay attention.

21. Old Thread

I use old thread when it's not going to show--mostly to piece blocks together. I don't use just any old thread, however. When I pick it up at an antique/junk shop or at Leftovers (which is/was a recycling store that sold by the grocery bag--great for cheap teaching supplies and I got all my metal knitting needles from there), I test the thread first to see if it's worthwhile.

If it snaps in my hand, for instance, under little stress, then it's no good. If it smells like mildew or musty in any way, I don't bring it home. One time I found a bunch of spools that all had tiny puncture wounds, and I figured out it was cat bite marks. The saliva, I am guessing, rotted that thread completely.

But if it's strong and on a wooden spool, it almost always comes home with me. Even if it's too thick to use in a sewing machine I know I'll put it to some use. And sometimes? If it's a wooden spool and has a nice label, I might still bring it home because I'm kind of silly that way. But not with cat bite marks. Bleah.