Of course I saw this on Ravelry, the original poster posted about it, and also displayed a knitted QR code!
When you print it out it’s like a chart. Make each block a four stitches (2 high 2 wide) and you are set. I was amazed when it actually worked. Had to share it with my Raverly community.
Thanks for the knitted QR tip Lisa! Naturally I find this appealing, and am thinking of ways to add it to a few of my knitting (and other crafts too). Oh by the way, you can make your own free QR code at Kaywa QR Code. It’ll be cool to see what some crafty folks make, so I’m off to check out the Ravelry thread.
In other news…
Soccer season has started for my daughter. They’ve had several practices, and her team has their first game tomorrow. It’s about to get busier around these parts…
I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw Bentley with his knitted amigurumi snake. It seems they’re getting along famously right?
Would you look at that face? I can almost hear him saying… Mine!
It looks like I had nothing to worry about, his old snake has been replaced.
Don’t even think about taking my snake!
This amigurumi snake pattern can be found in the book, Knitted Wild Animals by Sarah Keene. This is my first knitted amigurumi project. I’ve made several crochet amigurumi. All the knitted amigurumi projects within the book are knitted flat, and then seamed. I worked this amigurumi snake on my circular needles. If I use this pattern again, I’ll convert it to a circular pattern using my DPNs. Yes, yes, I know I can use magic loop, yes I know how to do them, but I much prefer doing small circular work with my DPNs. For larger circular projects, I’m all about using my Knit Picks circular needles.
The downloadable pattern is called Hawaiian Lacy Fern Throw. I must say it was a bit confusing because although there was a errata page it’s labeled as a Lacy Fern afghan. After a few moments of digging, I learned that Hawaiian Lacy Fern Throw and the Lacy Fern Afghan, are the same pattern,they just have different names. If you’re looking for updated pattern information for the Hawaiian Lacy Fern Throw or the Lacy Fern Afghan, check out the errata page.
Initially I was planning on casting on another afghan from the book Gorgeous Knitted Afghans, but I couldn’t find an errata page. The afghan I loved had a lot of errors. While I still enjoy looking at the gorgeous afghans within that book, I’m a bit disappointed that the errata page isn’t easily found.
But back to my lovely afghan that I’m knitting…
This pattern consists of 12 rows, repeated 17 times. I’m just starting on repeat #6. I still have the humongous center panel to complete, and the right panel. Yep, this will take a while, but I’m enjoying this project immensely. It’s simple and relaxing a perfect project to knit, while hanging with my daughter.
I was finally able to cut the grass (we’ve been getting rain all week). We pulled weeds in our garden, and old plants were dug up and carted to the mulch pile. We also added more fall plants to our garden…
The fruit comes from our fig tree and grape vine that grow in our garden. Our grape vine produces a grape that’s not overly sweet and it’s tart too. We love them, and the grape jelly tastes the same way.
Canning: How long does it take jelly to set?
If you’re new to jelly making, don’t get discouraged if your jelly doesn’t set immediately. Sometimes it will take a while. 🙂 As a rule, I don’t gift anyone with the jelly until a few days later… simply for that reason. It’s perfectly edible before it sets, but I want it to be an actual jelly before I gift it to someone.
Yesterday it took about six hours for our grape jelly to set. There’s been occasions where our jelly has set almost immediately. This morning, almost 24 hours later, the grape jelly has become even more firm. The information included on the fruit-pectin packet, says it can take up to five days.
If you’re using a fruit pectin, such as Sure-Jell, make sure you follow the recommended suggestions. And although I rarely follow a recipe, when it comes to fruit pectin, I always use the recommended suggestions.
Since we had a lot of figs, there was plenty that was set aside for fig jam.
With the fig jam, I added orange and vanilla bean to my recipe and loved how it’s turned out. I’m not much of a sweet eater, but I’ll be sure to sample that fig jam again.
Fig jam being canned in a water bath. Hot water bath canning also called water-bath canning, is generally the method used to can high acid foods.
I use a smooth top stove, but have had not trouble canning. If you have a smooth top stove, make sure the surface of your pot is flat. If it isn’t you can always add a small metal cooling rack. I have a stainless steel cooling rack that I place onto the burner, and then I place some of my pots on that. I have a few pots that don’t have a flat surface.
Here’s all the preserves I’ve canned thus far this year… fig jam, peach jam, and grape jelly!
We now have 25 jars of jam and jelly. Of course some will be given away as gifts, the rest will be stored away to spread on freshly baked bread, or perhaps added to thumbprint cookies, jelly rolls, jelly cakes, etc., oh I could ramble for a while about the variety of ways I could use my preserves.
What will I be canning next?
Hot pepper jelly
Mint Jelly
Pickles
Salsa
And although I don’t measure, yes that carries over into canning too, I’ll be sure to make an exception or two and post some of the recipes here at Celebrate Life.
We didn’t can in the morning like I’d originally planned. I was much too busy for that. Also, we only canned one type of jam but, but we still had a lot of fun. Yesterday morning we had to rush to the store to purchase canning jars. I completely forgotten that I’d given all my small “jam and jelly” jars away to a friend who didn’t have any canning jars. And so… off to the store we went to purchase canning jars.
Here in the USA, it seems that many people use Ball or Korr jars for canning. They’re also referred to as ‘Mason jars’. A case of Ball canning jars contains twelve jars. We bought three cases. Two of the eight ounce canning jars, and one four ounce. I spent less than $8 per case.
I asked my daughter what she wanted to make, and her quick reply was peach jam. Fortunately, our peaches were picked and processed the day before (Wednesday). They were washed, cut and added to storage bags. Since our two peach trees are producing a lot of fruit, we had several bags to be put into the freezer.
Peaches from our garden. They’re getting ready to be turned into peach jam
When we returned home, I pulled out two bags of peaches from our storage freezer.
Before canning, you need to sterilize the canning jars. My daughter is pouring water over the jars that will be sterilized.
My daughter enjoyed sterilizing the canning jars. When cooking, she knows to be careful, and of course I’m right there to supervise everything she does.
She’s already a knowledgeable/experimental cook. Which is an awesome accomplishment for a nine-year old — in this age at least. She’s so much fun in the kitchen.
The water and the sterilized Ball jars look so pretty, but it’s look but don’t touch since the water is scalding hot.
Have you heard the expression, “A watched pot never boils?” Which really is a way of saying, when we’re impatiently waiting on something, the time spent waiting can seem to take forever.
We did watch this stockpot, and yes it finally started boiling… Yippee!
It’s always smart to set your freshly sterilized canning jars on something like a towel, setting them on a cool surface could cause them to crack.
Sugar, spices and few squeezes of lemon were added to peaches, and the end result was peach jam had been created!
Yeah, it’s time to add the peach jam to the canning jars…
A few spills were made, whoops! But most of the delicious jam ended up in the sterilized Ball jars.
Once the sterilized jars were filled with peach jam, I wiped each jars rim with a paper towel that I’d ran under warm water. I then screwed on the two piece lid.
And then added the peach jam into the stockpot, and made sure the jars were covered with about 2″ of water. It’s time for their hot water bath.
Hooray, all of our canned jars of peach jam have sealed!
The canned jars of peach jam were set aside on the towel seal. I spaced them about 2″ apart. I told my daughter not to touch them, since they needed to cool down from their boiling bath. The types of lids we purchase, allows you to hear the canned jars seal. They make a popping noise. 🙂 For me, that sounds never gets old. It still makes me smile.
Later today we’ll be canning fig jam, and perhaps some salsa too. We won’t be doing that until this evening. My morning is busy, and this afternoon, my daughter has soccer practice.We’ll be making grape jelly tomorrow.
Here’s a picture of our grapevine. The grapes are sweet, tangy, and delicious!
If it were only me, I’d have started canning at my normal wake up time of 3:30 (my internal alarm usually wakes me around this time) but , since my daughter really wants to help can I’m waiting…
Since I knew I’d have to wait on her to awaken, I decided to wait until this morning to pick grapes from our grapevine.
Our Chestnut tree….
Around 6:00 am you could find me headed toward our grapevine…
On the way, I was pleased to see our chestnut tree loaded with delicious chestnuts that were hidden beneath their prickly shells. Chestnuts shells are needle sharp, and quite painful if you get them stuck in your feet. The spines are so sharp, they’ll even piece thin soled shoes. I make sure the ground under the chestnut tree stays clean, to avoid any accidents. Did you know chestnuts are the only “nuts” that contain vitamin C?
My morning companion
While picking grapes, I did uncover a very disgruntled toad, he wasn’t pleased that his hide out (under a lawnmower) was removed. I imagine it was cooler under there, and was a perfect spot to stay hidden and feast on an array of insects who also called that location home.
This bucket is larger than it appears. I have enough to can several jars of grape jelly, and there’s still more grapes on the vine.
I was pleased with the amount of grapes harvested from our grape vine and I cannot wait to use some of them when I can later this morning.
It looks like I’ll need to pick some field peas, here’s a few hanging outside the fence. We have about one acre of garden, enclosed in a fence.
My daughter and I are looking forward to canning jams and jellies today; As I mentioned in yesterdays post we’ll be using figs, grapes, and peaches… all of them grow in our garden.
So much work was done yesterday..
