Mending

My younger brother asked me if I could patch his jeans, which were slowly falling apart all over the place.  Like all projects, this one was slow to come to completion for many reasons, including no time and lack of inspiration.  I lucked out when my sister snagged me two fabric sample books from the side of the street and flew with them half way across the country.  Inside one of the books were a bunch of elegant dark fabrics, which I knew would be perfect to patch the jeans.  I wanted use fabric that my brother wouldn't hate, so that he would actually wear them.  I thing my choice worked out well.


I've included this second photo to show that you don't need a fancy work area.  This was the long and narrow kitchen/dining room in the apartment I stayed at during my rural rotation.  It had this fabulous window that let in lots of light and faced the mountains.  It was usually where I ended up when I was eating, reading, writing letters and working on projects.  You can see my houseplants that came on the rural rotation with me since I couldn't find a plantsitter.

Natural beauty

I took the photo below at a neat grocery store in Nelson, BC.  It was inside an old warehouse, and still had the exposed brick, wooden beams and even a large floor mounted scale.  I love squash and really liked the way they were displayed here in the wooden crate, with their beautiful colours contrasted against the brick walls.

The second photo is from Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park, on the coast of Vancouver Island.  I was walking there one morning and saw logs along the edge of the beach.  This one struck my eye because of the intricate texture.  I have so many photos like this, of natural objects with complex and intricate colour and texture.  I take the photos and would like to do something more with them, but I haven't figured out what.

Felt ipod case

When I first got my ipod two years ago I wanted a case, but I was living in a community where I didn't have access to ipod accessory stores.  So I made one instead!  It has served me well over the years, but the felt is getting fuzzy and a bit ugly.  Time to make a new one.  My first design had a strap that came over the top to hold the ipod in the case, with a snap, but I never closed it.  Once the headphone cords were wrapped around the case, it didn't go anywhere.  This second redesign no longer has the strap.  I found a cool black felt with glitter (who doesn't like glitter?) and used a charcoal felt for the inside.  Felt is so fun to sew with since you don't have to worry about unsightly edges.  Here they are, old and new:

Jostaberry Jelly

During a stop at the local fruit stand I noticed jostaberries in the fridge.  I'd never heard of them.  Turns out (according to Wikipedia and other internet sites I found), they are a cross between currants and gooseberries.  I bought some to make jam or jelly out of.  Unfortunately, the pectin package didn't have a recipe, but I was able to find a recipe online for blackcurrant jelly and basically made it up as I went since the amounts and pectin were different than in the recipe.  Here are the jostaberries:

I mashed them up with a potato masher I picked up at a local second hand store.

They had little twigs attached but I figured since I was straining them, it wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of  things and left them in.

After a couple false starts, I was ready to tackle the actual jelly.  More and more when I do canning I'm trying to use jars I have around, since they often work just as well as commercial jam jars, they are free, and then it doesn't break your heart when no one reuses them or returns them.  Isn't it a motley collection?  Sure, they don't look as pretty as commercial jam jars, but I'm not selling the jelly!

Every time I make blackberry jam, I think 'wow, the stuff has such a beautiful colour' and keep meaning to try dyeing with it.  I even found a website that had some helpful tips to dyeing with blackberries.  This time I just went for it.  I grabbed a white T-shirt that was starting to look grubby, put it in a pot with the berry remnants, some salt and brought it to a boil.  It turned a lovely fuschia colour, but more importantly, where there were those horrible yellow armpit stains (like I said, the T-shirt was grubby), the dye was a blue colour.  That prompted me to recall that alum is used as a mordant.  I grabbed my stick of antiperspirant and slathered some on randomly across the bunched up fabric in the pot.  The dye in those areas turned a blue-purple colour.  I've since washed the T-shirt and it has remained a faint blue-purple-grey, with darker areas where the antiperspirant was applied.  Neat!

Above is the front of the T, and below is the back :