Putting it by {part 3}: Raspberries

If you've been around these parts for more than a year, you'll recall that we have extremely generous landladies who planted a whole slew of raspberries in the backyard, and have pretty much declared them to be the property of the tenants (not to mention that our landladies have been living in Costa Rica for the past two years, so even if they wanted any raspberries, it'd be a bit of a trek!).

I've taken on the role of raspberry caretaker, and have made the executive decision not to cut them back, or discourage their takeover of the yard and driveway at all. Of course, this has led us to be known among all the neighborhood kids as the free, local, pick-your-own. Yeah, I had to have a little chat with one little girl who kept showing up with a bowl (I just told her not to take too many, but that she could still have some- just so you don't think I'm a total bitch).

Anyways, in previous years, my way of preserving the raspberries--because there are far too many to eat them all fresh--has been making jam, and freezing them (which I've already done a little bit of, though I'm sure there will be more of both over the next few weeks). This year, I'm also going to try some raspberry syrup (for those sodas I talked about) and raspberry vinegar. I've been reading a little about the health benefits of vinegar, and think I want to try to incorporate it into our diets some more. I've got some chive blossom vinegar brewing at the moment and am excited to use that for salad dressings.

Do any of you have any more suggestions for how to preserve raspberries? I'm all ears!

PS: after my last post, many of you over on flickr expressed an interest in learning how to make jam- it's embarrassingly easy. Really! This is my standard raspberry jam recipe. I was thinking if there was any interest, I could put together some kind of tutorial, or a short list of good books on preserving. Let me know!

a manifesto for summer

In looking back at last year's manifesto, I realized that I didn't do so many of the things I had hoped to. You may recall that Jared ended up spending almost the entire summer in California working, and this really put a damper on my summer as I was not nearly as motivated to get out and do things on my own as I wish I had been. In contrast, this summer has already been a major improvement over last year. But I'm still not feeling like I want to make such concrete goals anymore. Have you all read Andrea's manifesto? No? Well get over there right now and read it. It makes me want to fly. Really, go on. I'll be here when you get back.

Okay, welcome back. Wasn't that amazing? Sometimes I wish I was that good of a writer. But I'm not. Back in the spring, when Jared got a new job, a job that's allowing him to be here this summer, and to have regular, working person hours, and be home at night and on the weekends, and to not be broke, a job that, despite all it's benefits, kind of thwarted some incredibly exciting plans that we had started to make. Back then, I declared this to be the summer o' fun. I think I'm doing a pretty decent job so far.

We're taking walks with the dog. I'm biking almost everyday. We're eating dinner outside. I'm getting my hands dirty in the garden. And am starting to eat the fruits of those hands in the dirt. I'm preserving food for the winter. I'm visiting new parks and exploring the city and going on plant walks. We will watch movies outside in the park. We will go camping and hiking. We will swim in the Ocean (that's right, the Ocean) while on our two trips to Maine, and in the lakes, while at home. We will bike to our friends' houses and just hang out in the backyard with the dogs and some beers. We will research getting a bike trailer for the dog. We will look at houses. We will have quiet nights at home with early dinners and music on the stereo and working on projects.

This summer, I will make a dent in my polaroid stash. I will lay on a blanket in the backyard and read a book. And write letters. Drinking rhubarb soda. Eating raspberries straight off the bush. This summer, we will enjoy the life we have. Because we have it. And that's reason enough to celebrate.

shop update

I know that I wrote a few weeks ago about having a shop update. Well, life just seem to have gotten the better of me. In a good way (don't worry!). Well, here we are, finally updating the little old shop.

I've posted a few summer patchwork scarves that are perfect for those summer nights with just a hint of a chill (or more than a hint if you're around these parts- or New England!). This small collection features a lot more vintage fabric than the previous batches of fall and winter scarves, as I discovered a little pile of vintage patterns stuffed away in my stash as I was making these. It's always fun to have those discoveries!

I've also posted a number of notecards. I find that summertime is so great for letter writing (have you seen Heather's summer is series over at echoes? It's so great) and hopefully some of these little cards will inspire you do write a little note to someone far away. As always, you can buy four cards, and get a fifth one for free!

So head on over to the shop, hopefully you'll find a little something you like. Don't forget that I still have a number of items in the sale section. And, in celebration of summer (though it doesn't feel all that summery at the moment, I might have to throw on one of those scarves!), if you type in "summer09" in the notes to seller section when you make your purchase, I'll take 10% any purchases from now until July 13. (I'll either refund the difference through paypal, or you can wait for a revised invoice).

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Also, hop on over to Abby's space to read some exciting news. If any of you have a few extra dollars to spare, consider helping Abby get to Second Storie in the fall! I know she and Shanna will make a great team. {To be honest, her news has gotten me all looking up trains to Rochester too!}. I'll be back tomorrow with my summer manifesto, finally!

Putting it by {part 2}: Rhubarb

So what did I do with the rhubarb? I boiled it down (along with some water and sugar) into Rhubarb Syrup, for rhubarb soda of course. Over the last year or so, Jared and I have gotten really into drinking sparkling water. He claims that he drinks less beer when we have sparkling water around, but I just like it. I don't know, it just seems more exciting than plain water. We don't drink soda or juice so it's nice to have a little variety.

In any case, after the last time we were at my parents house, I remembered that when I was a kid, they used to have these soda siphons for making seltzer. I was pretty sure that they weren't using them anymore, but still had them (kind of like that ice cream maker, I'm noticing a trend here. I wonder what else they have stashed away...). So my mom sent them to me. We managed to explode one of them (I still have no idea how that happened), but we've been using the other one regularly.

And now we can have all kinds of homemade sodas. So far we've tried ginger ale and rhubarb soda. And we're going to do raspberry soon too. All you have to do is make a syrup and add it to sparkling water. I find the word "syrup" to be a little misleading since it's not very syrupy, it's really more liquidy, but it's so sweet that a little bit really does go a long way. I don't like things too sweet so I would say that I probably put 1 teaspoon of the rhubarb syrup in with a whole glass of sparkling water. The raspberry harvest has already begun for the year and I'm hoping to make some raspberry syrup for soda too. And maybe Molly's mint syrup too (I never did get around to making that last year). I'm wondering what other kinds of sodas I can make this summer...

I put the syrup into half-pint jars (I quadrupled the recipe- for six cups of rhubarb) and processed them along with the strawberry jam. This way, I can enjoy rhubarb syrup year round (since rhubarb is really hard to find out of season) and give them as gifts.

Be sure to check out homesteading to see what I did with that spinach...

I know that summer has arrived and that this header needs a little refreshing. I'm working on it. Along with a summer manifesto. It's high time.

Putting it by {part 1}: Strawberries

Hi Friends! I'm not entirely sure where the past seven days have gone. In fact, it was quite a surprise to realize that so much time had passed since my last post. The truth is, I've been really busy. Doing all sorts of things. But somehow, I'm at a loss for what to write about in this space. So I made a list, what else would I do? And first on the list, is to tell you about my dweekend.

What did I do this weekend? Saturday morning started out with the farmer's market. Which dictated most of my activities for the rest of the weekend. I bought half a flat of strawberries (much more manageable than the whole flat I was buried under last summer), two pounds of spinach, and two bunches of rhubarb. Along with the usual eggs, honey, and potatoes.

The flat of strawberries turned into three quarts of frozen whole strawberries, seven half-pint jars of jam, one batch of strawberry rhubarb muffins and two quarts left for eating or more baking. One tip for freezing berries is to spread them out on a baking tray and freeze them this way, and once they're frozen, put them into bags (or other containers). That way they won't all stick together when they're frozen and get all juicy. You can just grab a handful of frozen berries if you don't want to defrost the entire bag. For the jam, I used the same recipe as last year from Putting Food By (equal parts berries and sugar) but I ended up cooking it down for almost an hour. I ended up being right last year with my concern that the jam was too liquidy. It did still taste good, but was more sauce-y than jam-y. This year I made sure to cook it down more so it's much thicker.

I still have a bunch of berries left, so I may venture a new strawberry bread recipe (I'm thinking strawberry-banana bread) for freezing....

It feels so good to get back into preserving for the slower months. Last year I still hadn't gotten away from primarily making jams and other sweet things that were primarily for gift-giving. I certainly love making the jams other gifts (you all know how much I appreciate that come December!), but I have some real plans for doing a better job this year at actually preserving foods that we'll eat ourselves. I'm planning on tomato sauces and canned tomatoes, pickles, frozen zucchini (not just for baking), dried herbs, and maybe even some dried beans. What do you preserve?

garden update: June 22

Frankly, it's too hot to do anything productive right now. They're predicting that we might hit 100 degrees today, and I'm just not ready. I don't really feel like I have all that much to share here because for the past two days I've pretty much been a lump on the couch, which is conveniently located directly below our ceiling fan, doing nothing much besides consuming as many iced beverages as possible. I'm hoping I can muster the energy to make some more sorbet tonight because we're almost out of the rhubarb.

Meanwhile, the garden is progressing nicely, so I figured I could share that with you. Please ignore the insane amounts of weeds in these photos. When I walked over there this morning I was actually shocked to see them all since I feel like I just weeded. Oh well, maybe by 9pm tonight it'll be cool enough to head out there for a little bit.

I'm happy to report that so far we've harvested 13 strawberries. And we're just about to harvest our first couple of orange cherry tomatoes! Sadly, the spinach bolted before I could harvest any, but I think I'm going to pull that out and plant another tomato or two (I mean, who am I to refuse a free tomato plant?). So far, though, the spinach has been my only disappointment this season, which is way better than I fared last year. And I'm going to plant some more later in the summer for fall spinach. I know it's because it's already too hot for it- I thought I had planted it early enough (May 1) this year, but I guess I need to go even earlier to beat the heat. I'll try that next year. Luckily, I've been getting loads of delicious spinach at the farmers market, so that makes up for it!

I made a tulip skirt

So, I checked the archives. It turns out that the last time I sewed a garment was in August. Almost a year ago! I kind of find that hard to believe, but the archives don't lie (this is one of the many reasons why I love this blog- I never would have remembered this). Anyways, I have to admit, that I cut the fabric out for this skirt over a month ago. And it's just been sitting there. Seriously. I was hoping to have this done to take with me to San Francisco, but clearly that wasn't happening. And then when I got back, I kicked it into high gear getting ready for Johnstock.

The truth is, though, I was kind of putting this one off. You see, I've never been very good at making buttonholes. They always look sloppy and uneven and it really bugs me. The teacher at my recent sewing class told me it was probably a result of my machine (I do not have any kind of fancy machine), which made me feel a little bit less bad about myself, but then again, I'm not planning on getting a new sewing machine anytime soon, so it didn't really help the situation. And the buttons (and therefore, the buttonholes) are so front and center on this design that I really wanted them to look good. I finally got over myself and just went for it. You know what sometimes helps? Reading the manual again. I know, you'd never guess it. I had read the manual when I first got the machine, but apparently I'd never read the page about how to "balance" the buttonholes (like, how to fix it when the stitches aren't close enough on one side of the hole, which was the main problem I'd been having). Well that helped a ton, and I think these buttonholes came out looking pretty damn good.

So what did I make? It's the Tulip Skirt designed by the amazing Jenny Gordy of Wiksten. This pattern was published in the first issue of Stitch Magazine, a wonderful new sewing magazine from our friends at Interweave Press. First, a couple of words about the magazine as a whole. I originally bought it because of the cover pattern-- the Asymmetrical Skirt designed by Martha (though, I'm definitely scared to make that one!), but by the time I read through the whole thing, I had bookmarked at least five patterns to make. I haven't gotten around to buying the second issue yet, but I know there's some good patterns in that one as well, so I'd better get on it before it's off the stands!

Aside from my buttonhole-phobia, this pattern was really a breeze. I've never managed to snag a piece of clothing from her shop, so I'm so excited to have something Jenny designed (even if I did make it myself!). She did a wonderful job with the instructions, they were very clear and easy to follow (be sure to check out the errata here, they are important!). There is a fair amount of hand-sewing involved in this, though I actually really enjoyed that (I'm mentally preparing myself for a project from The Alabama Stitch Book). I'm also really glad I checked out the flickr group for this pattern, I never would have thought to make this in a patterned fabric. In fact, I had some plain blueish-greyish chambray all picked out for this. But then, when I saw this one, and this one, I knew I had to try a pattern. And this thrifted Laura Ashley cotton was perfect. The buttons were thrifted (or maybe from my mom...) as well.

The only think I think I would change if I make this again (which I really think I will- I can totally see this in a fine wale corduroy for the fall...), is that I would add some in-seam pockets on the sides. I think that would be awesome, but then again, I pretty much always think pockets are awesome. Oh yeah, and if you're planning on riding your bike in this skirt, it's probably a good idea to wear something underneath it. I learned that the hard way today! In fact, I think I should just stock up on spandex shorts, just to be safe for the rest of the summer...