My Nanna Blanket is finished at last! :-)

Since the weather has been stinking hot this weekend (39C Sat, 42C Sun and meant to be 39C again tomorrow) I have spent most of the weekend indoors trying to avoid the heat. So although I hate this kind of heat, it does have benefits as I could do some craft without feeling like I should be up and doing something else! So I finally finished the last square of my Nanna blanket, and stitched all the rows together and wove in the loose ends :-) I'm very happy with it even though it's way to hot to use it at the moment apart from taking a quick photo!



I also finally decided to unravel my 'woodland' jelly roll of quilt fabric (see pic). I'm thinking of making my first quilt as a practise run, and if that is successful then I will plan to make a king sized quilt using different colours for the new bed that my partner and I have just ordered. I've got a great book "Jelly Roll Quilts" by Pam & Nicky Lintott, and I'm thinking of trying the 'bars of gold' quilt first.

Homemade spiced apricot jam

I have never tried to make jam before, but last week my partner's mum brought over a heap of very ripe fresh organic apricots from one of her friends trees and there was just no way we could eat them all before they spoiled. The apricots were just so delicious and juicy, and I couldnt bare to waste them so I decided to make some jam. All I knew was that you put approx. equal amounts of sugar to fruit (my partner's mum gave me this ratio, she makes jam all the time). I googled a few recipes (including some yummy sounding ones on 'Food for Thought' blog) and learnt that apricots don't have much pectin (the setting agent), but citrus fruits apparently do...so I experimented a bit and this was the resulting recipe:

1.75 kg Roughly chopped fresh apricots (discard stones, but don’t bother peeling skin off the apricots.

1.5 kg Sugar (I used 1 kg caster sugar, 0.5 kg brown sugar)

Juice from 1 lemon

Juice from 1 lime

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 teaspoon ginger powder

Put in saucepan and heat, stirring. After quite a while it starts thickening and looking like jam. To check if it really is set, get a china plate, put it in the fridge or freezer for a couple of minutes to chill, take it out and put a spoonful of the hot jam on the cold plate. Leave for a minute or so then run the spoon through the jam. If it goes all wrinkly and looks set then it is ready to bottle! :-)

And it really tastes delicious ;-) (even if i say so myself) I made 7 jars, and gave 4 away to friends and my partner started to get worried that I was giving it all away and there wouldnt be enough left for him hahaha. I'll put some photos up soon.

New Years Resolution in progress....

So, it's the end of the first week of the new year and so far I've managed to keep my new years resolution and have found time to do craft :-) I made one skirt with some beachy floral fabric that has been in my fabric stash for over a year, I finished hemming a multicoloured multipaneled skirt that I started last year, and I have cut out the fabric to make a third skirt from some red-wine coloured material from my stash. I'm surprisingly happy with the multipanneled skirt - I designed it based on my regular skirt pattern, and didnt really expect it to work as prevously I havent had much success at modifying or making my own patterns. I love the pink and green colours together.



On the knitting front I've been making some progress with the baby rug - only have 1 and a half strips to go now before I can start assembling it :-)
Some new clear plastic stamps that I bought on ebay arrived this week too ("Mindscapes" by Inkadinkado), so I sat down an made a small stash of 7 cards for various birthdays etc in the next few weeks. So all in all I'm very happy with my crafty efforts for the new year, let's see if I can keep it up :-)