Puppet Progress

 

I've made five puppets. My plan is to make five more before Friday. I think that's doable, assuming there are not too many interruptions. 

Changing Gear

 

 It amazes me how ponderous it is to change from one craft to another. When I was making a lot of bath puppets, I was pretty slick and could whizz them out. But after a few months of not making them, the felt was stored in two different places, the pencil had gone to write grocery lists and I couldn't remember what settings to use on the sewing machine ! Anyway, I gathered everything together again, read the notes I'd written on machine settings and here we are, a crocodile. 

Time Off

 It's a long weekend here. I haven't done much crafting, barely made a start on the sock I dyed wool for during the week. We watched some sport - rugby on a big screen and horse jumping for real. On Saturday I helped man a stall at a market to raise funds to support seniors in the community. We didn't sell much but it was good publicity. The raffle was very successful. Looks like a good route to people's pockets! I read a library book on Sunday, Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. Anne Tyler is one of my favourite authors. I was really lazy on Sunday because we had a braai in the afternoon and Jack did all the cooking. Yesterday I cooked up tomatoes with onion for the freezer. Today I've made date loaf and coffee biscuits to fill the tins. But this afternoon I must get back to my sewing machine and make some bath puppets. The next market is on the 20th. I have no puppets in stock and need to make 10 or so before then. 

What's a post without pictures?  This is the date loaf, cooling after coming out of the oven. 

Melon And Ginger Jam

 

 A friend asked me to get her a melon to make jam with. I bought two and thought I'd have a go myself at making jam. The size and hardness of the skin were a bit daunting, but Jack offered to cut it up for me. Yesterday he cut half of it up. That seemed like enough to start with! I left it all overnight and cooked it this morning.

I hope I've reached the magic jell point. It took quite a while, so I may just have  reached the '...that'll do" point. 

When I was at boarding school, a long time ago, we called melon and ginger jam 'chameleon's guts'! We had all sorts of names for our food, from frogs' eggs to Zambezi mud. My jam looks a little less lumpy than the jam I remember. Perhaps I should have put more of the inner rind of the melon in. 

Dyeing For Socks

 

I've just spun a double batch of wool, ten skeins altogether. I've left most of it unwashed until I know what it's going to become. I just washed and dyed these skeins - two full skeins and two half skeins - for socks. The sun is shining, so they should dry pretty quickly. 

I'm busy preparing cards and envelopes for the craft group to decorate on Friday. I was a bit shocked at how I'd forgotten how to make the envelopes! I had to consult Pinterest again. Admittedly, I did grasp the details much quicker than when I made them a couple of months ago. 

Pink

 

I finished another pair of fingerless gloves yesterday, to replace gloves I sold at the market. I managed to buy some pink wool dye locally. It's not the same brand as the dye I usually use, so I wasn't sure I could use it together with my usual dye. But it worked fine. I read the label carefully and learnt that the acid and spreader are already mixed with the dye. So I added vinegar and dishwashing liquid to the blue dye as usual, but just added water to the pink. I set the dye in oven as usual, ignoring the instructions for boiling on the pink label! A customer at the last market asked if I had anything in pink. Now I can say yes. 

From The Garden

 

We got the first egg yesterday.  Hopefully it'll be the first of many from our five little hens. 

The pansies that I bought at the market a couple of months ago are flowering beautifully. They turn out to be difficult to photograph, but here are a few attempts:

The petunias are still flowering madly too. 

Jack has a good crop of cherry tomatoes. I wasn't sure what to do with them, other than put them in salads, so I had a look on Pinterest. I found several recipes for roasted cherry tomatoes that are bottled in oil. I read all the recipes and took bits from them to create my own. 

There was a bit more than one jar, so I put the excess onto toast for lunch. The roasting really concentrates the flavour of the tomatoes - delicious. 

I made gooseberry jam this morning, using Cape gooseberries from the garden. It is still hot, so I haven't yet labelled the jars. 

And we had strawberries on our porridge for breakfast.