A Little Canning

It was cold this weekend so the hubs and I did a bit of canning to stock the shelves and clean out the freezer.

First I made some homemade bread crumbs. Both of us dislike the heels of bread so I dried them and stored them until I had a good supply then I put them in the food processor and pulsed until I got the crumb size I wanted then vacuum sealed them with my Food Saver and the regular mouth jar sealer attachment.

Two Quarts of Bread Crumbs, cost $0 since they would have been thrown out or given to the birds. 

I never bought bread crumbs from the store for recipes and would have to improvise by toasting bread now I always have them on hand.

Next I made Brown Sugar.

Just 5 cups of white sugar and Molasses to taste. Into the Kitchen Aid it goes and just let it go adding molasses until well mixed. Takes about 15 to 20 minutes and your done. More cost effective than the store especially if you already buy your sugar by the 25 pound bag.  

 I store mine in a vintage Ball canning jar.

We finished the evening by getting all the frozen tomatoes we had juiced in 2016, 5 gallon zip locks worth, along with onion, bell pepper and celery plus two #10 cans of tomato sauce and one #10 can of tomato paste and made ......

21 quarts of Spaghetti Sauce. In our opinion, so much better than store bought.

The Bell Pepper, Tomatoes, Parsley and Oregano we used all came from our garden, I'll have to start more herbs this year to keep up our supply.

That's it for now, so until next post .......

Take Care Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

2018 Smalls SAL Update

Here are the two finishes I have for the 2018 Smalls SAL. 

If you want to join in you can click the highlighted link above or click the link on my sidebar, either one will get you there and have all the information you need to get started.

First up .......

"January Snows"

Designed by: Me

Stitched: 10 January 2018 Finished: 26 January 2018

Stitched on Charles Craft 28 count Monaco using DMC threads, Mill Hill Petite Seed Beads and a plastic crystal snowflake. Handmade cording for the edges and a ribbon attached to the back so it can be tied on to a basket or small wreath finish it off. 

I'm going to try and do one for each month and fill a basket with items that represent that month and it's holidays or just the theme of the stitched piece. May have to do some shopping to pull it off though.

Next finish .......

 "Winter Soltice"

Designed by: Me

Stitched: 10 January 2018 Finished: 24 January 2018

Stitched on Charles Craft 28 count Monaco in white using DMC threads and Needle Necessities 150 and Mill Hill Petite Seed Beads. Hand Made cording from DMC threads and a Snowflake Button. The snowflakes stand out more up close and personal, but I wanted them to be subtle. This will count as my Christmas ornament for 2017.

This is the piece that caused me to have so many orts on my January 17th post, I stitched and then frogged the boarder twice before I found the colors that "spoke to me". Tried the blues that I designed it with in the freebie I posted here then I tried dusty purples and neither one worked for me, but Christmas colors won the day. I guess the saying "Third times the charm" was true for this piece. 

Of course I reworked the design removing the back stitched inner boarders and bringing in the cross stitched boarder with two solid colored bands of DMC 500 and 814 and the center band in Needle Necessities.

Tomorrow is "supply the cabin" day or more commonly grocery shopping, think I'll try and talk the hubs into Hardee's so I don't have to cook. 

Well, that's it for today all, so until next post .......

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy

Gotta Love Montana

Thought I'd share some morning beauty with everyone.

 

This was my view when I opened the curtains at 7:25 this morning. 

Such a beautiful Sunrise. 

Of course this is the part I don't love so much. 

This is what happens when it rains before the temps drop at night, melted the snow on the road then froze it right up. I'm pretty sure it's thick enough to skate on.

This is the road out in front of the cabin. Since the sun is so much weaker during this time of year and because of trees this section gets very little sun during the day, so will stay pretty much like this for months.

We'll be buying a couple bags of ice melter just for the area around the vehicles this weekend for sure.

Until next time .......

Take Care, Be Safe & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy

Valentine Gift From Me to You

Hello All; It is just plain cold outside made worse by all the wind we're getting. The thermometer might say mid 30's but the wind says upper 20's. Mother Nature decided not to be cruel this weekend and kept the snow away, but it's only January and we tend to get snow until April or May.

Hope everyone else is keeping warm in the winter wonderland areas.

Decided to get out the bread maker and use up a couple of boxes of bread mix this weekend, Saturday was Hawaiian Sweet bread and tonight is Sour Dough to go along with Crock pot BBQ ribs, smashed potatoes and corn. Easy dinner is my favorite kind.

Now on to the Valentines Gift.

So here is what I came up with.......

Should be a fairly quick stitch to finish before Valentines Day.

"Love & Hearts"

 

 "Love & Hearts"

 

Stitch the whole design or only stitch half the design. Change the colors to fit your idea of Valentines Day. There are so many options to choose from for finishes and colors.

I used to post charts this way, so lets see if I got it right and this still works, if not I'll go back to the easier way that I used on the last two. 

As always, if you stitch up this or any of my other free designs I'd love to see a picture. And if you do happen to post a picture of your finished piece it would be appreciated if you could link back to my post so other's know where the design came from.

Well that's it for now, so until I post again.......

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy

A Couple of 2018 Stitchy Finishes

Hello Everyone, hope your staying warm if it's winter in your neck of the woods. We still have some snow on the ground here, but warmer temps this week and rain today has melted a fair bit id it. Of course, since Mother Nature has a sick sense of humor, we are supposed to get more snow next week. Y'all know how happy that makes me, but I won't complain about the temps being the 40's and upper 30's. 

   Like I promised, here are the two older pieces that I just had to add a few stitches to so I could have completed stitchy finishes.

"Quaker Snowflake"

 

I started this back in I have no idea when and only needed to add part of the center border to finish it off after I figured out which thread I had used.

I have a nightstand with a drawer next to my side of the sofa and was cleaning out the drawer when I found it at the bottom folded in half and dirty.

I have the pins in it trying to figure out just how big of an ornament I want to make it in to. I know it will be a diamond shape with cording trim when I'm done.

"Welcome To Our Cabin"

 

I designed this piece in June or July of 2015, I started stitching it in August 2015 while on a camping trip to the Big Horn Mountains and did a bit after we got home from the trip. 

All that was left to stitch was our names and the Est. date and finish the area under the trees. It started out with white under part of the trees, but I didn't like the look so that was the first frogging I did this year and replaced it with a combo of two greens and a brown to look like grass and pine needles or dirt.

I want to turn this piece into either a pillow or a wall hanging with fabric strip border.

Well that's it for this post, so until next time........

Take Care & Happy Stitchin' Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

Stitchin' In The New Year

Yep stitcher's, you heard right, I have started stitchin' in JANUARY of 2018. I finished off two smaller pieces and stitched new two other small's all of which I designed.

But for today I have my TUSAL update for January. 

You can click the TUSAL link above or the link on my sidebar to join in the fun.

 Threads in the jar.

Threads in all their glory. 

It's surprising how many threads one can accumulate when you try to stitch a piece three different times and hate it on the first two tries. 

I'll post two of my finishes in the next couple of days, but am saving the new finishes for my 2018 Smalls update later in the month. 

So until next post......

Take Care & Happy Stitchin' Everyone

Hugs, Sandy