Slowly back in the groove

 Wow, this has been a really busy week.  My DH had back surgery on Wednesday, everything went well.  He went into the surgery thinking that he would have to have a fusion, thankfully he didn't have to have a fusion.  Overall he is doing well.  I took three days off to help him out, and he really hasn't needed that much help which meant that I could get a few things done that I wanted to.  I did some wool dyeing.  Love the reds that I came up with.  I also had time to get  my etsy shop up and running, I only have a couple of items on it, but check it out, Pig in a Blanket Wools.

Also did some mustards, or golds.  Love the plaid one!!

I have also started working on a penny rug, this is my first penny rug.  I was inspired by seeing the one that Sarah was making last week at Thimbles and I thought I can do that.  I have plenty of little wool pieces and I really like doing this.  I think I might make some coasters like this later.  I really just like putting all of the wool together and seeing what color combinations I can come up with.  This is a Primitive Gatherings pattern, don't remember the name of it but you could find it on their website. 

Great New Reads

Now that school is back in session, I have to be honest, not a  lot is getting done at my house.  This year is really different for me, as a media specialist my job (until this year) consisted of running the media center and all that entails.  However, this year I am teaching 4 specials (classes) a day, ranging from kindergarten to 3 grade.  It is definitely an adjustment!!!  I am exhausted everyday when I get home, hopefully that will change soon as a I get adjusted to this schedule.  One thing I have been doing is some reading and I have discovered a new author that I really like, Emily March.  Her books are very similar to Robin Carr in a way, the first in the series is Angel's Rest.  These stories take place in the fictional town of Eternity Springs in Colorado with quite a cast of characters.  I  found this entirely by accident when scanning the shelves at the library a few weeks ago.  Luckily the first two of the series were available, the second title is Hummingbird Lake.  I enjoyed these two so much that I purchased the third one for my Nook.


Second in the series, Hummingbird Lake.
 

Another great book that I just finished is The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café.  What made me pick this one up was this  "if you like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society you will like this one".  Since I liked that book I had to try this one out.  It is really one of those feel good books, the setting is small town Beacon, Maine.  The main character, Ellen travels there to deliver a letter from her recently deceased grandmother to  her first love.  You just know that this is not going to be a simple delivery when on the first page Ellen almost drowns and is rescued by the first love's grandson (although she doesn't know it at the time).  This is just the first of  many encounters Ellen has with Roy while looking for his grandfather and discovering what she really wants out of her life.  A very quick and feel good read.

New Acquisition

Just got a new quilt for my collection.  Not sure what the pattern is, I will have to do some research on it.  I really like this pattern!  The fabrics are so pretty and soft.  It is probably from the mid to late 1800's.  The fabrics are really soft and pretty, everything is in shades of blues, tans and reds. Some of the tans were probably green when the quilt was first made and have faded over time.  The only problem is that the binding is starting to fray but not badly.

Inner order of red and white triangles.  Love the little baby triangle shown above.

Close up of one of the blocks.

Canning Queen

After getting back to school last week, I was looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend doing some sewing and things that would make be forget about school.  I should have known better than to plan on something like that.  I was the canning queen this weekend.  First I made some Blueberry Jam from blueberries that we picked last weekend while we were up in Blueridge.  This was my first time making blueberry jam, hope it turned out ok.  It tasted ok going into the jars.

Then I canned 5 quarts of tomatoes.  Our garden has been awful this year. We have had so much rain that everything just washed away.  By this time of the year I usually have about 20-25 quarts of tomatoes, but this year I have only had 10.  Luckily we had some left from last year so we will have enough to see us through.

The next project was figs.  The figs have also been disappointing this year.  I managed to pick enough to make one batch of preserves.  I made fig/raspberry preserves using raspberry jello, I had 6 jars of this.  It should last DH for a while, it is one of his favorites. 

Then we had the jalapenos.  I only had enough to make two quarts of pepper sauce.  Kind of disappointing after the banner pepper crop we had last year!

By this time I was tired of canning, all that was left was a few blueberries and  jalapenos.  I decided to mix them together and make some blueberry pepper jell, kind of different but it tasted pretty good as it was going into the jar.  Can't wait to try it with some cream cheese.

 

Maybe next weekend I will be able to  sit down at the sewing machine and do some sewing.