Chlorophyta sock 5

Chlorophyta sock 5, originally uploaded by valutree.

playtime auggie

playtime auggie, originally uploaded by valutree.

Here is he little Auggie. He's 3 months old on saturday and such a ham. I'm so glad he finally fits into his little sweater I knit for him.

Makin Jam

Yesterday was one of those niceish days of late summer where it's warm but my no means hot. So my friend and I decided it would be perfect timing to make up some Jam. After several failed attempts to find jars (why do employees at safeway find it impossible to believe that people can really make their own food?) we ended up at PCC who had just what we needed.

We choose 5 different sorts of preserved all from my new awesome book to make and set about chopping everything up. You know I was really surprised that it only took 4 hours to make all five kinds of Jam. I had always thought these things take forever and three days but apparently it is easier then we were lead to believe.

In the end we made 19 jars of jam and one jar of spirited nectarines mmm. I'm not sure how I'll eat it all but I'll give it my best shot. Here is a list of the final products so you can see our handy work.

• spiced pear butter (6)
• straight up raspberry (7)
• raspberry mango (6)
• Jalapeños Jelly (2)
• spirited nectarine (3)

Oh and a few words about pepper jelly. I was all excited to make this since I had grown the peppers all by myself. I was all sorts of careful and everything while making them knowing full well that the peppers wouldn't hesitate to burn my skin, all was well until I put them in the pot and added heat. The first time I stirred the pot all the pepper gas was released, all at once, burning my face and hands ouch!! Lesson learned. And just so you know milk will kill the burn if you leave it on for a while.

LYS 2007 loot

LYS 2007 loot, originally uploaded by valutree.

It's a Go!

So after many attempts to start this blog and many failures it is finally here. Let me introduce myself. I am a cytogeneticist by day (fancy huh?) and an avid crafter and knitter by night. I have a shop over at www.valutree.etsy.com where I sell my knitting bags and my new hand painted yarns and soon to be hand painted fibers!

I love knitting and yarns, costuming and sewing, movies and reading. I will be blogging mostly my finished pieces here both yarns and costumes like my soon to be complete pirate costume for the pirate festival this year.