Pickling...

Well, hello again.  

It's me.

Yes, I am alive and kicking.

In fact, I've had a conversation recently with Hub, where I've told him, if I kick the bucket before he does, he must come on here and inform my beloved readers.  I tell you that, just so you know... when I disappear, and you don't hear anything, I'm probably still breathing.

Truth is, I don't know that I have any good reason why I sometimes disappear for weeks at a time, but it happens and I'm always so grateful to find I have generous visitors who haven't yet given up on me.  I hope that's still true.

Life has been good. 

The weather has markedly improved since I last complained about it.  August went out like it was the beginning of an October Indian Summer.  And the week ahead looks like another cool down.  Summer weather like this is a gift.  I don't imagine we'd appreciate it nearly as much as we do if we didn't have to suffer through a fair amount of hot and humid misery. 

As the summer winds down, my days are a mix of things.  One of these days I plan to write a summary of all the good things this summer, but at the moment I'm a bit preoccupied with pickle making and canning beans.  It's a lot of work, but it is so satisfying to see shiny jars of food filled with things I've grown and preserved.

It's been three years since I've canned pickles and made sweet relish.  I couldn't find the recipes I used in 2022, so I ended up experimenting again with tested recipes.

The heat we had earlier turned a lot of my cucumbers awfully bitter, and unfortunately I had to throw out the first batches of relish and pickles I made a few weeks ago.  

With better temperatures, the cukes are now decent, and I finally accumulated enough, and got up the gumption to make some more relish.

By the time I got to the onions, I was lamenting that I don't own a food processor.  I had a food processor many years ago, and every time I used it I found I hated cleaning it.  So much so that I ended up getting rid of it.  And generally speaking, I haven't missed it. But chopping up all those veggies for sweet relish this time around - especially the onions, had me online pricing what a food processor costs these days.  My hands have lost some stamina, and my crying eyes were begging for relief.

But I persevered, and finally had everything chopped, salted, put under water and into the fridge for 24 hours.  Good thing the recipe called for this long of a salting time. I needed the break.

The next day, I was ready to try out a new-to-me recipe that uses lemon juice instead of vinegar.  I had chopped so many veggies, I was able to make three relish batches, tweaking each one with ingredients to determine what my favorite might be.  

Below is a video I followed (and tweaked) making a lemon juice based sweet relish:

Checking it against a Ball recipe, I am confident that the acidity of the recipe used in the video matches (or exceeds) the tested vinegar-based recipe.

I can't wait to have a taste test with someone(s) to help determine what combination of spices are preferred, and whether there is much difference between using lemon juice or vinegar.  I tasted as I went, but after a while I lost the ability to distinguish much difference between them. I hope to get enough cucumbers still to make at least one more batch of this relish, and try it with less sugar.  

A few jars at a time, I'm also making dill pickles. 

 

The last time I made dill pickles (in 2022), they lasted me two years.  I have no idea how many pints that was, but last night I finished canning my 17th jar.

I'm the only dill pickle eater here, but I can easily go through a pint jar of dill slices every two or three weeks.  Hopefully, what I've canned is good.  You never truly know until you pop a jar open...

Green beans are pressure canned in small batches too, as that is how they are coming on.  And one of these days, I want to try making a sweet onion relish.  I had some store bought vadalia onion relish a few weeks ago at a pitch-in, and ever since, I've been thinking about making some.

Truth is, I'm not a big sweet relish eater, but I find it fun to make, and when I'm successful with it, I love to give it to people who like it more than me.  It's also good to use in some recipes, so I tend to have a jar in the fridge for those occasions.

So, I'm curious who of my readers are pickle eaters?  Do you like sweet or sour?  Or something in between like bread and butter pickles?  I'm also curious if any of you have experience fermenting pickles?  I'm not sure I'm up for the days-long fermenting process, but my interest has been recently piqued.

A new embroidery project...

Wanting a break from my Manx squares, but still desiring to work with fabric and floss, I decided to give in to the desire to embroider something.  

Perusing library books lately, I've come across some fun embroidery ideas.  Embroider Your Life is more of an inspiration than it is a project book.  But it also provides some fun designs the reader can use.

Seeing a whimsical fox pillow in the above book, I decided that's what I'd do.  

I had to enlarge the small pattern in the book by about 250% before it was large enough for even a small pillow.

Taped to a window, I was able to trace the outline and some directional markings onto a natural colored homespun fabric.  

And, of course, before tracing with a heat-erasable pen, I didn't take into consideration that I'd want this whole thing to be stabilized in some way. The obvious choice (to me) would have been fusible (iron-on) interfacing or stabilizer, but I did not want a hot iron erasing all the tracing I'd just done!  

Sigh.  Okay...  what to do?

Looking through my stash of materials I found some nice felt I'd purchased for a different kind of embroidery. 

Hmmm...  well, why not? I'd bought it for embroidery backing.  I didn't imagine using it for such a large piece.  But it should work. 

Right? 

For something that will be sewn into a pillow?  You think?

I decided to go for it.

So, I machine-basted the homespun to the felt.  While the thickness of the felt causes it to be a little more effort to pull the needle and floss through, I'm thinking it's going to make a nice smooth finish to this piece when I sew it all together and stuff it into a pillow.

Finally, with that decision made, I was ready to start stitching!  

In the book, the whole fox image was filled with running stitches on a white fabric, but because I'm using beige fabric, I thought it would look better if I embroidered the fox's white chin, throat and belly with long and short filling stiches that would cover the space better than a simple running stitch does.  And it's kind of fun that it looks a bit like fur...

That said... in retrospect, it seems a bit silly that I thought creating a filled-in effect was important to do on the underside of the fox, while the rest of his fur is depicted with running stitches.  But I'm going to finish what I began - even if it takes two or three times as long to fill the fox's underside as it would have if I'd simply done the whole thing in running stitches.  Who knows... maybe I'll find the two different ways of filling open space in the design adds to the whimsical factor.

Hopefully, we'll find out soon that it does!

The Dog Days of Summer...

Did you know that there is an official time frame assigned to the Dog Days of Summer?  I had no idea the saying was based on an annual astronomical event that occurs after the summer solstice when the star, Sirius (aka, the Dog Star), rises and sets with the sun.  Behind the sun, from the view of earth, Sirius was thought by ancient astronomers to add to or increase the heat that the sun produced.  In the northern hemisphere, the official time frame for all this is July 3 - August 11.

So... the dog days of summer are officially past, but it still feels miserably hot and humid - I'm assuming throughout most of the US, at least.  I know you folks in the southwest and west experience plenty of heat, but I imagine you chuckle at us mid-westerners, (and I expect mid- and south-easterners) who complain about wilting when the humidity coincides with pretty much anything above 80 degrees.  

Having written all that, though, I've noticed in recent days that neither our temps, nor our humidity in central Indiana have actually been terribly high, but it feels oppressive outside for some reason. I've also noticed on my weather app that the air quality during the daytime hours has been poor here in recent days.  Maybe our atmosphere has been affected by the Canadian forest fires more than the eye could prove?  Whether it is or not, it has to be mild compared to what our northern neighbors are experiencing.  

Cicadas are riotous (day and evening), so much so they almost drown out my ever present tinnitus - that sounds remarkably like cicadas on a still summer evening.  I find their translucent exoskeletons scattered throughout the garden plants.  It's a little unsettling to push the leaves aside as I hunt for green beans and be greeted by the dried up shape of fat cicadas.  I don't know how many times I've reached for one thinking it's a dried leaf that needs to be plucked only to realize at the last minute it's cicada skin.  Ick.

I wish this was a better picture, but you can perhaps see how in my peripheral vision, I sometimes start to pluck these cicada skins off thinking they're dead leaves.

And sweat bees or hoverflies (I cannot tell which they are) have become an ever-present nuisance in recent weeks.  Everywhere - even in town.  After coming in from the garden, I still twitch and itch imaging I'm feeling them buzzing around or crawling on me. 

Heat and humidity and insects aside, it has been a good summer for us.  More on that in another post.  Still experiencing wonky internet service, I am going to try to catch up with my fellow bloggers while the signals are flowing.

Practicing Making Manx Squares....

I know this week's pictures don't look much different from last week's, but I have been practicing making a few different sizes of Manx squares.  For the record... not that anyone's keeping a record, but last week's finished hotpad was about 10 inches square.  

Wanting to make some different sizes, I cut more 2 1/2 inch strips.

With the goal of making a larger square than the first one, I kept stitching until I finally ran out of room with my backing fabric.  I finished when it got to about 13 inches square, but sewn into something it will likely end up being around 12 inches square.

I have no idea what to do with it.  When I first set out to make a larger square, I though maybe I'd make a blanket of them.  But about half-way through, I began to have serious doubts I had it in me to hand-sew a whole blanket of Manx squares.  At a minimum, I'd need to make twenty squares, and that would only make something the size of a throw, not an actual blanket. 

It's not padded enough to be another hotpad, and it's kind of small for a pillow. I could possibly add one more round and get it to almost 14 inches square, but for now, I've set aside and I'm counting it as learning experience.

Still wanting to make enough to sew some together, I decided I would make four smaller squares.

One 8-inch square finished.  Three more to go...

Meanwhile, I have the itch to cut up some more colorful fabrics in my stash and make more hotpads - in fun colors - maybe to give as gifts?  

Or... another totally respectable choice is to just move onto something else.

~~~~~

On the weather front, it's been gorgeous since late last week, and I managed to do a massive weeding of the strawberry bed.  Once again, I failed to take a before picture, but trust me, it was incredible - grass up to my waist, dandelions with roots the size of carrots, one stealth thistle that I really should have had leather gloves for (ouch!), and a particularly pernicious viney ground cover weed that entangled itself with the strawberry plants.  It required that I dig up the strawberry plants and separate them from this awful invader.  There were a number of strawberry plant casualties by the time I was finished filling over two industrial-sized garbage bags with the weeds I pulled out.  

Last autumn, I prepped the two back sections (above) and mulched them with straw while I left the first (front) section of this strawberry bed to fend for itself all winter.  It did pretty well, but the weeding I had to do this spring was crazy.  I told myself to not let the weeds get that out of control again.  I had such good intentions in April and May, but with temps in the 90's for weeks, and humidity often in the 90's, for most of June and all of July, the strawberry bed sat out there doing its thing - on the other side of the detached garage - somewhat out of sight, I happily put it out of my mind.

Until it turned beautiful on Thursday - and looked like it was going to be like that through the weekend.  Knowing we wouldn't likely have temps like that again until September or October, I got out there on Thursday and Friday, and whipped it into shape. I still need to thin out and transplant some of the plants in the back two beds, then put straw down for weed control, but after that (hopefully) all I'll need to do come November or December is to cover it all with more straw, and tuck it in for its long winter's nap.  

Oh, yes! And I hope to plant some garlic in there, too.  By thinning out the strawberry plants, there is plenty of room for garlic to grow, and be dug out by the time the strawberry plants want to start spreading.  At least that's how I'm picturing it working.

And lastly...  I leave you with a picture of the cutest little watermelon: 

Or maybe I'm partial since it's a first for me.  I hope it is successful at growing into a big delicious watermelon and I can tell you all about it in a few weeks.  :)

Have a great week, everyone!

Manx Quilt Square...

I've been itching to stitch up something with fabric for weeks.  As I was dragging my feet with the Celtic knots, I came across the Manx quilt block.

The Manx block is very similar to the Log Cabin quilt pattern in construction and its final look, and it also has some similarities to Kawandi stitching.  Having a bunch of coordinating blue fabrics that I brought home from my mother-in-law's home (five years ago, now!) I decided this would be the responsible choice for making something Manx.  

Unlike the Kawandi, that starts on the outside and goes around in a spiral toward the center, the Manx square starts in the center and fabric is laid in a spiral toward the outside edges:

Normally a Manx square is not made with batting of any sort, but not sure if I'd make more than one, I decided to make this as a hot pad, so I pieced together some leftover batting (of my late MIL's) and set to work.

Similar to making a Kawandi, the stitching is traditionally done by hand, stitching one piece of fabric on top of another, all stitched directly to a backing fabric - creating a quilt-as-you-go construction.  But that's where the similarity to Kawandi ends.  In a Manx square, the strips are stitched on with the front sides of each fabric strip facing, and after stitching, the fabric strip is folded up to create a pleat.  For anyone interested in more detail or greater clarity, I will provide some links to tutorials at the end of this post.  This is not a tutorial.

Other than the fact that I needed to stop and think about everything as I made this first Manx block, it was actually pretty quick work.  

Unfortunately, and I don't know why, the stitched-on pieces started going wonky.

I could tell it was happening by the second round of strips, but I didn't know just how badly it wonked until I was finished.  Fortunately, I started with a larger-than-needed backing fabric, so I could trim it more or less square (if not on grain).

And still with enough backing fabric left, I was able to fold forward the backing and create a binding for the square.  For ease and precision, I machine-stitched the binding.

It's actually not completely square, but you can't tell from the picture, and I doubt you'd notice it right off if you were looking directly at it.  I have to admit, even though it isn't perfect, I am pretty pleased with my first hand-stitched, (except for the binding) Manx square.  

While the fabric strips are stitched on in the same order as a Log Cabin square, you can see that this Manx block actually forms pleats, instead of the flat piece of fabric that is created with traditionally pieced together strips of fabric for a Log Cabin.

The dimension created by the pleats is what makes the Manx square special.

And like the Kawandi, when you're done stitching the block, your quilting is also done.

With the square finished, but not being sure how those pleats would come through machine laundering, I washed and dried it with jeans, thinking that would provide plenty of agitation, and opportunity for the pleats to get messed up.

I'm happy to say, it came through the machines perfectly crinkled and wavy like any other cotton quilt comes through the wash.  Most importantly, the pleats were not mangled:

Before washing & drying ↑

↓ After washing & drying 

Before ↑

↓ After 

Before ↑

↓ After 

Before ↑

↓ After

Yep, I'm sold.  It's a fun pattern to stitch, it's a great use of scrap fabric, and it comes through machine laundering like any other cotton quilt.

So I've set myself to making another block - this time, more in keeping with a traditional Manx square with no batting between the layers.

Time will tell how many more I'll make.  A wall-hanging's worth?  A blanket's worth?  We'll see.  And when I start joining them, I'll be back to show pictures of that.

Meanwhile, if you're interested in checking out some resources I found helpful, here you go:

Jackie Loos - JunkGal63Studio (video) :  

How to Make a Modern Manx Quilt Block with Fabric Scraps

k3nclothtales (video):

Manx Quilting - Making Blocks

Ice Bear Quilts (Blog)

Manx Log Cabin - A Special Technique

Diary of a Quilter (Blog)

How to Make A Manx Quilt Block

There are other resources online. I only posted a few of the ones I visited (and revisted) before and after I started stitching.

Now - off to make more Manx squares!