New Cabinet




My birthday cabinet! Normally I'd ask for a cabinet etc., for my studio this time it's for my canned goods. It is in a weird location butted up against the side of another cabinet. We had just enough space for a bit more canning storage.


This cabinet if for my jams and jellies, all of those half and quarter pint jars that take up valuable shelf space that a quart jar needs and when left in boxes go uneaten.

Canned Butter


We finally tried a jar of the home canned butter and it was actually pretty good. It was missing something and I'd have to say that it is the salt since I canned the unsalted butter. It was creamy just like stick butter.

I used a double boiler to melt my butter, I've heard tales of it being gritty but they didn't have a double boiler which leaves me to believe heat is the culprit. Shelf life is about 3 years, I'd say that's stretching it a bit, more like a year and a half to two years. Ours won't last that long so it's not a problem.

Christmas Pickles

The recipe made 9 pints total, just enough to get me through the witner. I'm hoping we will a larger cucumber harvest next year.


Beautiful red color! Sweet and sour and somewhat hot cinnamon flavor will be most welcomed this winter.

I forgot to take pictures of the process! Here are the cucumbers cored and soaking in lime water. Christmas pickles are very similar to Lime Pickles except you leave out the spices, except the cinnamon, and add a bag of red hots to the syrup they are soak in overnight. I will try to get a picture of the finished pickles later today.

What's that Smell!

I spent the better part of yesterday trying to find what had died in the laundry room. It started when I emptied the dehumidfier into the floor drain and persisted through the evening. I poured water down the floor drain again and every time I did so the odor got worse.

I finally found the problem - dead tree frog! No kidding. A few weeks ago I found myself trying to track down the weird sounding cricket in the laundry room, partly thinking it sounded a LOT like a tree frog. Well said tree frog must have come in with the bushels of apples because there is no other reason for a tree frog to want to come into my house! It was either looking for a way out of the house or for water, anyway it is no more poor little fella.

Logwood dyed Jacob Fleece

Two different colors here Above: a grape color using logwood purple. Below: Dark Violet using logwood purple, the bottom fleece is the black AND the white areas of the fleece dyed and bundled together. It would be TOO much work to seperate out the black from the white in the fleece below, it would make a wonderfully mottled or varigated yarn. Available in my Etsy Boutique

Lock lenght is approximately 3 - 3.5 inches.


There are probably some double cuts left in this fleece, there shouldn't be much though I think the person doing the shearing might have been tired by the time he got to this ram, number 30 in the flock. There is also vegetable matter in this fleece which will come out during the carding process. Available in my Etsy Boutique

I've kept a portion of this fleece for myself and have carded it up already on my drum carder it is divine!

New Can Goods Cubbard


One of the down sides to living in a very old victorian home is the lack of storage. John built a cubbard for our canned goods, I should say the food we've been canning ourselves! There are some blank spaces but they should be filled by the end of the week.


I have peach chutney to make tomorrow, more butter that needs to be canned and more pickles than one could ever imagine having - the christmas pickles are the ones I'm most excited about very similar to lime pickles but you add red hots and cinnamon to the pickles just before you process them!

More Wool

The first batt blended, I love this cloud grey color it's the kind of color you see here on the prairie in late October into early December as the cold fronts slowly make their way here.

My first batt with this colorway. Greyish blues and greens with hints of lavender and sage.

I forget what this critter was, it was a sheep - maybe columbia I don't know I've had the wool on hand for close to ten years now. The staple was still of excellent quality and the luster - well yum! So I'm blending it with mohair and silk bombyx on my drum carder for art batts.