Marmalade

I have no idea what possessed me to make marmalade. But I did. And, like most things homemade, it tastes amazing.

Pictured (from L - R) are the star ingredients - a tangerine of forgotten origins, a Cara Cara orange, a blood orange, and the inside bits of a second Cara Cara. Plus the saved, julienned rind of another orange (Cara Cara? Navel? IDK) 

A quick Pinterest search pulled up a daunting list of recipes. Without wanting to bore you, dear reader, with stories of my youth connected to orange marmalade, or where I first had it, here is the recipe. Important notes will follow. 

Ingredients:

4 oranges (I used three different kinds to impact the flavor profile)

The julienned rind of four oranges

Juice of half a lemon, plus julienned rind if you feel like it. 

2 cups of white sugar

2 cups (16 oz) of water

1 tbsp vanilla

Materials

Large spoon

Microplane or v. sharp paring knife 

Medium saucepan

V. Sharp paring knife

An immersion blender (optional)

Bowl for peel, fruit pieces 

Citrus mauler or juicer

Candy or another food thermometer (optional)

Timer or favorite time keeping device- I’m a huge fan of Hulu or Netflix (one 45 minute episode is about how much time it will take for the jelly to cook)

Clean Glass jar/jars to store product!

Any necessary canning equipment, such as water bath, canning funnel, et cetera, if you plan to preserve some of this goodness for later. If so, wash jars and bands/ glass lids in hot soapy water, and sterilize. I wash, then throw everything into the canning pot, and let it come to and boil as I prep and cook the ingredients. Bringing the water bath to boil and boiling for 15 minutes usually takes the same amount of time it takes to prep and cook. Also, boiling jars more than 15 minutes never killed anyone. 

*this recipe makes exactly 7 (seven) of the tiny, 1/4 pint Ball jars (that’s like 4oz per jar?)*

Method

*if you are planning to preserve the fruit of your labor, set the water bath up now, with the jars and lids inside with enough water to cover them by two inches, and for heavens sakes, don’t forget to turn the burner on 😉)*

Wash citrus in warm water to help remove any wax (it’s food safe but still. Eww). With a paring knife or Microplane, remove as much of outer rind without white pith as you can. The pith will make your marmalade bitter, so adjust to your own taste. Chop rinds into small segments if you have ribbons, about 1-2 inches long. 

Peel citrus, removing as much of the white pith as you can. Break apart the fruit into its individual petals. Chop fruit into smaller pieces, about 1 inch. Citrus does not need to be separated from the membrane, just remove white pith and seeds. Cut the lemon in half, zest outer rind and add to the orange rind, juice lemon, removing seeds.

Put fruit and water into a saucepan on medium heat. Incorporate sugar one cup at a time, stirring until dissolved. (Or throw it in all at once, but make sure you stir!); add vanilla.

***

At this time, it is important to remember that basically what you are making is a jelly. This takes more time than you might think if you haven’t done it before.

This is where setting a timer or Netflix comes in handy. Set a 45-minute timer or put on a 45-minute episode of something you wouldn't mind watching again and are fairly familiar with already. For me, this could be an episode of Star Trek, Firefly, the early seasons of NCIS or the BBC's Father Brown or Death in Paradise [crime drama much?]. The length of the show [45 minutes] is about how long it's going to take for the sugars and fruit to gel, maybe a little longer, and if you're anything like me, standing and stirring molten sugar water for 45 minutes gets boring. The thermometer is also handy, as jelly happens at 220* F. The jelly needs to be stirred or it will scorch, hence the familiar story.

Once the marmalade has reached 220*, it's ready! If not canning, funnel into a quart-size glass jar and cap. Let cool before refrigerating. [why glass? it doesn't leech chemicals when exposed to heat, unlike plastic]

If canning, ladle into glass jars one at a time; wipe rim, place lid and secure ring, replacing in water bath. Process for 15 minutes. Remove jars and listen for that magical pop sound; check that lids have sealed by examining the lid's dimple. If it's down, you're good. Anything that did not seal will have to be reprocessed or put in the refrigerator.  I didn't have 7 containers, I planned for 6, so I hastily cleaned a small glass jar that had pesto in it, and funneled the last bits of the marmalade into it. Paddington Bear would be proud.

If you're still confused, check out Alton Brown's marmalade instructions - his recipe will make more than mine, but he actually teaches you to cook, and tells you what to look for.

South Marysburgh Slippers

So... it looks like I have readership? Or maybe just trawling robots, who knows. I haven't figured out what's wrong with my comments section, and since no one really comments... I'ma go with trawling robots are reading my blog.

No matter.

Ravelry [which, if you haven't been or don't know about, you should go] isn't letting me update pictures to my project library. That said.

I made these slippers as an alternative to my shearling moccasins. I had just made slippers in a chunky weight yarn for Christmas, and was happy with the idea of the slippers, and the way the projects came out using the chunky weight yarn, but not happy with the particular pattern I used. I went back and searched Ravelry's free knitting patterns for slippers, and was attracted to this pattern.


What I didn't find attractive was knitting a heel flap in a worsted weight yarn. Frankly I don't like knitting heel flaps at all. With left over chunky weight yarn, I decided to do some tinkering, and I came up with a thicker version of the original worsted weight that more or less fit my feet.

For the stitch counters out there, the orange band around the top is a 1xKP rib over about 42 stitches, and it was a whopping three rounds before a stretchy bind off. 
I now have three other pairs in wool blend chunky weight yarn because they are so comfortable, and they wash easily. They look nice with two contrasting solid colors, or done with a variegated and a complimentary solid.

In case you are not on Ravelry, here are my notes on making these slippers with a chunky weight:

*Please note, this is not my original pattern, but an adaptation of a free, original pattern to suit an alternative yarn weight.*

Materials:

two skeins of chunky [6] weight yarn, or amounts to total 12 grams/ 240 yards
Set of US 7 DPNs 
stitch marker of preference; it's there to mark where the row begins. 
Tapestry needle or crochet hook to weave in ends.

Suitable yarns:
Easy care:
Buttercream Luxe Craft Alpaca [Joann's - 20% alpaca, 80% acrylic]
Wool Ease Thick and Quick [Lion Brand - 20% wool, 80% acrylic]

Malabrigo Rasta [malabrigo, 100% superwash Peruvian merino wool] - this one retails for  ~$22 a skein, but it is cloud soft and comes in multitudinous color varieties.Did I mention it's soft? I mean AMAZING soft?

*A skein each of the main color and contrasting color are sufficient to make two pairs. 

Method:

*I need to knit another one of these to make sure that these instructions are correct. Proceed with caution*

• C/O 9 sts using a long tail cast on.
  Slipping first stitch, knit 1x1 KP rib for eight rows.
• begin turning heel using short rows.
• Knit across 7sts, turn. 
• Slip working stitch, Purl across 4 sts, turn
• Slip working stitch, knit across 4 sts, K2Tog, turn
• Slip working stitch, p across 5 sts, turn
• Slip working st, k across 6 sts, K2tog, turn

Continue in this manner until all stitches have been worked and there is a tiny cup for the heel; end on a k/p side, it doesn't matter. You will have to pick up stitches along the side of the heel flap either way. Ending on a  K side is generally preferred.

• Pick up 8 sts along the side of the heel flap Knit wise
• Turn and, if sts picked up on purl side, knit down side of flap and across heel. 
• Pick up 8 sts on opposite side of heel flap. Turn.
• Work in garter stitch for 8-10 rows, depending on how deep you want the opening for your foot, ending on a K side.  
• C/O 10 sts at the end of the row to bridge the gap of the foot and create the top of the slipper. When joining to opposite side, slip first stitch of work and PSSO the 10th cast on stitch [this will help secure the join]. Place marker. 
• Continue knitting until slipper comes to the base of the intended wearer's big toe
  [mine go 14 rounds]
• BEGIN DECREASE 
• if you haven't already divided your stitches evenly between two dpns, now is the time to do it. Make certain that the slipper is oriented on the needles to that as the toe is decreased, it's decreasing in the right direction for a toe [Don't ask me how I know this...] You should have 28 stitches, so 14 on each needle
• Beginning at the start of a row, K1, K2Tog, K across to last 3 sts, SSK, K last stitch. 
• Repeat on opposite side. You now have 12 sts on each needle. 
• Continue decreasing in this manner until there are 4 total sts, 2 on each needle.
• Cut working yarn so that there is a 3 inch tail. Pull tail through last 4 sts to bind off. Flip slipper inside out and weave in ends

Huzzah! you now have ONE finished slipper! Do it all again to make a second!

For contrasting band

With contrasting color, pick up 42-44 sts around opening of the foot. If your opening is bigger, you will need to account for this, but make sure there are an even number of stitches. Once all sts have been picked up, place marker. Work in 1x1 rib for 3 rounds. Bind off with a stretchy cast off of choosing; I chose to knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches as I was PSSOing. There's a name for this cast off, and I don't remember what it is. 
It should go with out saying, but do this for both slippers. 
If you want a taller cuff, continue working the 1x1 rib until it reaches desired length; still use a stretchy c/o. 

Additional Notes:

This whole project [a finished pair of slippers with the tails woven in] knit up in the time it took to watch three Die Hard movies 1, 4, 2

Here was an additional note from my Ravelry project page regarding the toe decrease:

02-02-2019

So, no joke, I love these so much that I’ve made four pairs now. If I purchase two different colors, it’s usually enough for a pair of slippers in each color, plus a little bit left over from each to create the cuff for the opposite pair; I am a US size 8 1/2 wide.

I tend to forget that when knitting the body of the foot that I don’t need to decrease until the body of the foot comes to the base of my big toe, and even then as I haven’t used an all wool bulky yarn for this project yet, that I could probably go another round or two before the decrease, which I do every row, starting with the stitches split equally on two DPN’s, usually looking at the top of the foot, and begin a K2 decrease after knitting the first stitch, K across to last three sts, then SSK, K last stitch. Flip to bottom, repeat. The decrease goes fast.

Make Mead and Be Merry

My first foray into mead making was almost two years ago. I have no idea why I threw it together, but I did after reading the forum about Joe’s Ancient Mead over at homebrewtalk.com, having discovered I had all the ingredients on hand.

It turned out amazing. After aging for over a year.

Needing to wait a year was not my intention- I imagined brewing something up in December, then carting along a finished product to share with friends at a Reenactment about six months later.

My family was inspired by my efforts... after tasting the aged product. So for Christmas this year, I got several pounds of honey, and a wink wink nudge nudge.
To that end, there is a second batch of Ancient mead now aging in a hermetically sealed pickle jar in the basement, and an apricot vanilla mead just getting started on the counter.

Won't you be my neighbor?

Hello friends in the blogisphere!

As I'm looking at my stats, it says that I first published this blog on June 1st, 2007 [I've been at this 10 years, and I missed my own blogiversary... geesh.]

It seems that someone out there reads my blog, mostly the United States, but shout out to the Germans, French, British and Canadian friends also checking in. So... if you enjoy reading about my mishaps and exploits, would you consider following me? I'm not sure exactly how this works, so I'm afraid I can't explain it to you, but if you are a Real Person and not a robot, I'd love to find out about your blog, too, if you have one.

Thank you for putting up with my long absence, and all the spelling errors. I broke my back February, and I found out I have Lyme disease in March, which really took the strength and energy out of me. I have had Lyme since at least 2013. No bulls eye rash, no sore knees, no fever [I don't get fevers] none of the 'classic' symptoms, and a negative Western Blot, which is fairly common since the test is only 29-40% accurate. I did have flu like symptoms; I couldn't regulate my body temperature to the point I would be wearing a wool sweater, sweatpants and long sleeves in 90F weather, severe fatigue, sleeping 16- 18 hours a day [maybe it's narcolepsy they said] and a stiff, sore neck that caused migraine headaches. Since I have been on antibiotics for the Lyme, I have felt like a new person, like my old self again, ready to take on the world. Of course, sometimes I'm overzealous and over do it and need a nap, but my doctor is pleased with the progress I'm making. [Can we pause for a moment and talk about how hard it is to find a doctor who will even treat Lyme disease?].

I was finally diagnosed by taking a course of antibiotics and paying out of pocket for a urine analysis that was sent to Igenex labs in Palo Alto, California. Best $250 I've ever spent.

So... Lyme disease

Six months ago, I broke two vertebrae in my back. The next month, I found out part of the reason my neck was sore all the time and causing headaches, the constant fatigue, brain fog, sleeping and sore joints were all related to Lyme disease. 

I had to find a doctor who would even test me for the disease, but once that happened, the turn around has been nothing short of amazing. 

Blow out egg-stravaganza

Lent continues, and so does Pysanka making! We have a stash of hollow eggs, but I recently got a dozen fresh duck eggs and a fresh goose egg, and we need to eat them before they go bad. Perfect opportunity to talk about blowing out eggs!

We have four different tools to use for a blow out. The goose neck thing on the far left I know nothing about. I think it can be used with the black globe on the far right? The yellow bellows is from Germany; it's called Blas-fix. We purchased it from the Ukrainian Gift Shop years ago. It came with a hand drill - you can see them in the box, they have green handles. Once upon a time we had two, but we learned that it doesn't hold up well in a high stress environment like a class. The black bulb is also from the Ukrainian Gift Shop. It's called Aunt Marge's Egg blower. I believe it is an in shop developed product, as its packaging matches some of the other things we have purchased that they themselves have put together. I did say we had four things for blowing out eggs; the last and probably least obvious from the picture is the time honored method of hand, mouth blown. 

My favorite tool of the lot is the yellow Blas-fix. It came with a nice little hand drill that makes even holes without cracks around them every time, and the Blas-fix does not create so much pressure inside the egg that it will pop apart. The tool also only requires you to drill one hole to blow out the egg, so there is no planning a design around two blow holes. If there is more than one person blowing out eggs and/or they feel like going the traditional route, the hand drill can obviously be used to drill uniform holes in both ends of an egg.

The traditional method of blowing eggs out requires that you poke two holes in either end of the egg [carefully] and then with gentle pressure, blow air through one of the holes, expelling the egg membrane through the other end.
With the Blas-fix, air is forced through the hole at the bottom of the egg through the bellows by the narrow straw; pressure in the egg forces the membrane out through the hole. Nice and neat. Unless you go crazy with either method and force too much air into the egg, in which case it will pop open.

Pysanky: prepping and making dye

It's Lent again! =D that means it's time to make pysanky! Or pysanke [I've seen it spelled that way, too], or in layman's English, Ukrainian Easter eggs. Whether or not it is Lent, any time is a good time to make a pysanke, it just happens to be one of my favorite things to do at this time of the year. There are a number of reasons why pysanke are made during the season of Lent, but I won't get into that. One of them was the availability of eggs.

I'm starting with white eggs this year; as you can see, some of these are already written on with wax.

At this point, some of the eggs are ready to take the first dye bath, but I don't have any fresh dye made. With this in mind, I thought I'd write up a quick semi-tutorial about setting up dyes using a premeasured dye package.

Materials:
packages of dye in desired color[s]. We order ours from The Ukrainian Gift Shop
glass jars and tight fitting lids - I use wide mouth Mason jars [more on this later]
scisors
a tablespoon measuring spoon
a quart size sauce pan, tea kettle or electric kettle for boiling water
a bottle of white vinegar 

a gallon of distilled* water

A tempered glass measuring cup such as Pyrex are very helpful but not necessary. We have a 16oz and 8 oz size; I used both of them.
A baking sheet or other tray such as melamine, that you are not fond of, with a lip is also helpful, but not necessary.
Nitrile gloves, or another exam style glove to keep your hands dye free, if you'd like. You could use dish washing gloves, but I find them cumbersome.
an apron to keep your clothes clean, or wear your painting clothes. This is dye, after all.

*Many dye companies, not just for dying eggs, reccomend using distilled water. What this means is that any particulates such as iron, lead or calcium have been processed out leaving pure water. Depending on the quality of the water in your area, using distilled water as a vehicle for you dye will yield the best end results. A gallon is typically the unit by which distilled water is sold.

Process:
Since I had saved last year's dye, the jars and lids needed to be cleaned. Best practice is beginning with clean, fresh materials. As I said, I use wide mouth Mason jars, specifically pint size. The wide mouth is easy to get an egg into and out of, especially if you find you have to fish one out with your fingers. The pint also holds the 10 oz of water needed to make the dye without spilling over when an egg is put in. I have not tried a goose egg in a pint size jar, but duck eggs still do not displace too much dye to spill over. When purchasing a 12 pack brand new, the cardboard box is an excellent  place to store the jars in. The plastic lids, whether they are Ball or aftermarket, hold fast. Permanent marker does not rub off of them. The plastic lids also do not corrode the way the metal gasket lids will [don't ask how I know...].  

I was planning on making at least four different colors to start, so I filled my sauce pan with the equivilent of two pints of water [I used a clean pint mason jar as my measure] and set the stove top to medium, so the water would heat while I set up my materials.

As the water is heating, clean and dry jars and lids. Set aside to dry 

Assemble other materials - tray, lids, jars, measuring cups, dye, scissors, tablespoon and white vinegar. Rather than try to pour out into the spoon, fill the smaller of the cups with white vinegar and dip out the spoon. It's much easier this way. Any left over can be poured back into the bottle. Set the vinegar with the measuring spoon aside for later.

I highly suggest either making your dye in a sink, or on the tray if you are a more confident DIYer, and remove any materials that could be stained. Your hands will probably be stained, unless you wear gloves. I personally don't care, and it won't harm you.

To keep myself straight, I presorted my dyes from lightest to darkest, and made sure each jar had a lid that was labled. Once they come out of the packet, the powder forms don't necessarily look like the color listed. Furthermore, once water is added and the color develops, it is easy to confuse some of the colors.  These dyes have an outer paper packet with instructions, and an inner foil packet of dye that must be cut open with scissors. It has been my experience that for best results, shaking the packet a bit forces the color powder to collect at one end, with less chance of powder ending up where it shouldn't be [for example, on you, or your clothes].

It is very important to follow the instructions on the packet!  

Ingredients go into the jar in this order:

1. color powder

2. boiling water

[3. vinegar]

The lightest color of dye available from the Ukrainian gift shop [and that I have on hand] is yellow, so my first jar got a packet of yellow color powder [I should note that it doesn't look yellow]. Next jar gold, light green, and turquoise.

 By this time, the water I put on the stove was just boiling. To keep the water from boiling off, I turned off the heat, but kept the sauce pan on the burner. Each jar [I double checked the instructions on each packet] gets 1 and 1/4 cups of boiling water, or 10floz. This is why the 16oz measuring cup is handy; it has a line for 10oz.

Each jar gets 1 and 1/4 cup [or 10 floz] of boiling water. I had enough water on hand to make one more jar of dye, so I grabbed a packet of pink. Dye powder first, then water. You can see in the first picture that some of the dye powder got stuck on the side of the jar, and the steam developed the color.

After the water, add vinegar. Double check the packets. Most of the colors take vinegar, which is a mordent, or color setting agent. A few of them, however, don't. To keep myself from accidentally putting vinegar where it doesn't belong, I covered the no vinegar jar with it's paper packet.
 Each jar gets 1 tablespoon of white vinegar, unless the packet says otherwise.

With the vinegar added [or not], the plastic lids go on and the jars of dye are set aside to cool down to room temperature. Yet another reason the plastic lids are so nice is that unlike the metal lids and bands, the plastic lids don't pose a burn hazard, nor will they seal during the cool down the way a gasket lid will. Our back porch was 35 degrees today, so the jars went to chill out there. This is a melamine caffeteria tray we use when dying eggs, and it's permanently dyed in places.

With such cool temperatures, the dyes are probably ready for use in four hours or so!

Confessions of a broken back

[this post contains no affiliate links, just pictures to help get my point across]
I'm three weeks out from the small miracle of breaking my back in such a way as to be laid up but not paralyzed, have no concern about surgery and like as not to have no further complications. All that is required of me is to recouperate in the next three to four weeks and okay, possibly some physical therapy from doing no bending and twisting. 

If I wasn't living at home with my parents, I'd be sunk. I'm not allowed to bend or twist. I'm not allowed to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. 

Getting dressed. That was the first new adventure. Everything I have been wearing has an elasic waist band so it comes on and off easily. I can't get my own socks on- no bending allowed. 

The tasks of independence I didn't expect to fall to the wayside weren't revealed until much later. It wasn't so much the knocked over pens and pencils that I couldn't reach for myself next to the recliner I had encamped in during the day, but larger tasks. Having my laundry put away, so that there was an empty basket for dirty clothes to go into. Having my bed stripped of it's linens on the two week rotation I keep, rotating the blankets and switching the duvet. Being able to wash my own clothing, or at least the specific pieces that have been the most comforting, that were now piling up in front of the closed closet door, creating a safety hazard to someone who already had difficulty walking (read:me). 

When people asked "What can I do?", I had no idea what I was in for. Is asking for a load of laundry too much? Stripping the bed? My foregone conclusion was yes, especially given what a wreck my own bedroom looked like before I got hurt (trying having a cat who thinks he's a trapeze artist bounce around every night and get back to me). Breaking my back in the midst of purging childhood ephemera was not what I had in mind. But there you have it. 

If I lived alone, there would be no question. I would have had to either return to my parents to recouperate to stay at a care facility. Or find someone to stay with me. 

As I read back on this, it sounds as though my parents aren't taking care of my needs - not true. They are however, adults with their own lives, and they have rearranged their schedules to accommodate this hiccough. 

The further out from this I am, I really wish someone would have told me [sooner] that I'd really want to be taking a stool softener AND a laxative. I could barely sit, let alone think about passing gas.

That I could make my own sock-putter-on-er with a pop bottle and a bit of rope - because no one sent me home with adaptive equipment the way they do when you have a knee replaced.

That I would really, really want a shower chair. We have a hand held shower sprayer, but having one with an adjustable bar would have answered the "Now where do I put this so it doesn't soak the bathroom?" question

That there are better places to buy a back brace than Volde-mart... its just a matter of how long do you want to wait for it to come in the mail since, again, one was not provided.

That it could take six months - a full six months - to feel like myself again, even though the bones had healed.

A little canvas house

I very much enjoy reenacting, but this summer has been a bad one for migraines. There is an event 20 minutes from my house that wiped me out to set up a (brand new!) tent for, but for which I'm grateful to be able to have a tent to be laying down in. If any of that makes sense. 

I had a migraine and a rebound last week, leaving me in a brain fog and completely wiped out this week. I'm finally feeling like I can do things again, but I have to take frequent breaks. Especially in the heat. There are a lot of people here this weekend, and I am tired out after a few social interactions. It's like being at school, but worse, because there's *really* no break. there's no set start or set end. No schedule. No lunch break, no pee break, no one agreeing with you that someone was out of line, no boundaries. Total free for all. People letting their dogs jump on you. People poking their head inside your tent when you are trying to take a nap, even when it is tied shut. 

I'm laying down trying to catch my breath before the heat of the day. Stashed with me is my chair that someone sat in and broke- instead not sitting in, or picking it up to move it so they could see what they wanted to look at, they sat down and torqued it into the ground as hey twisted it to the side, snapping the top rail in half. Thanks. This is why we can't have nice things. This is why baby bison die. Its not yours. Don't touch it. Or maybe ask first...? 

Oh, little bed: a miniature

I've been looking on Etsy and eBey for replacement pieces for my dollhouse and have been coming up empty handed for some pieces. The time period I am trying to achieve is 1800something, and I am not sticking hard and fast to the Federal or Antebellum or any other time in American history; rather, I'm trying to make the house look like a mash of times. 

The bed that I made is a little folk art, a little... I'm not certain. It is based on extant pieces that I have seen at historical sites and antiques I have seen online, and would have been meant for a child or the 'help'.

This looks like a mess, but after discovering that the C clamps and quick grip clamps I had were too strong for the wood I was using and that rubber bands alone were warping and contorting the form in all directions, I turned to a favorite childhood toy for some support. My bed was slightly too big for the clamp, making the finished project slightly distorted - not as distorted as it could have been! Next time I am going to draw the concept, build the clamp, dry clamp then glue and rubber band it up.

Out of the clamp after 14 of drying time [brick for scale purposes]

To help hide some of the imperfections, such as one of the headboard posts blowing out and needing wood filler, I painted the piece with Federal blue milk paint, completely VOC free and child/animal safe.

Then it occured to me that I needed to cut in some bed rails. Derp. 

While I was cutting rail slots with my 1/4" Irwin chisle, I started sewing a mattress and bedding - more on that later.The wood is nothing fancy, a combination of bass an balsa available in a multi-pack from an average craft store.