Pretty Peaches

The Extravacanza continues! (Did you see what I did there? Ha!) Just look at these pretty peaches:

Now look at them:

Pity the peaches. They went under the knife and became peach chutney. So yummy. My yield was 8 half-pints, although I only processed 7 of them. The other one went straight into the refrigerator, and I've been eating it by the spoonful. I've made chutneys from green tomatoes, cranberries, blueberries, plums, and cherries, but the peach is my favorite. 

It was because of this recipe for Sauteed Sausages and Cabbage with Apricot-Mango Chutney that I first got interested in making peach chutney. I know, the recipe is for Apricot-Mango Chutney. I wasn't sure if it was safe for canning, and so with some difficulty, I tracked down someone who could tell me (long story). As it turned out, it wasn't safe as is, but I was given another recipe that was. I can't recall when it evolved into a peach chutney, but it did. Now, when I make the sauteed sausages and cabbage, I don't bother with the apricot-mango chutney. I just use my own home-made peach. You can find my recipe right here.

The peaches were very juicy this time around, and it took quite some time to boil them down. That meant I was spending a lot of time stirring, and not much time sewing. Nevertheless, I did get my highest priority item completed: this label for Joseph's Quilt. This one will go to Valerie on Saturday.

Then, I had about an hour before I needed to get started on dinner, and so I pulled out the next project on my list for the month, my Let's Book It project.

My project for the month is from this book by Karen Linduska:

There are several cute projects in the book. All require some sort of embellishment, and I'm short on that kind of stuff unless it involves hot fix crystals or hot fix nailheads. I do have some ribbons I've collected over time though, so I'll substitute a couple of ribbons for the yarns she used in her project. Anyway...this is the one I selected.

It's called (appropriately enough) Spiky Flower. It'll be about 10-1/2 inches square when it's finished. She serged the edges of hers, but I don't have a serger. I'll probably just finish it "envelope style".

So I read over the instructions and tips at the beginning of the book, and then I gathered my fabrics and supplies.

Hopefully, I'll have some time to get going on it by the end of the day. 

Today I'm taking a break from canning since the tomatoes and plums still need to ripen a little bit. As long as I can't do any canning, I figure it's a good day for grocery shopping. I have another appointment to keep as well, and so it's hard to know how much time I'll have left for sewing.

But before I go, I have to tell you about Smitty's bad morning yesterday. I was sitting at my desk when I thought I heard cat grrrrrrring. I looked out and didn't see anything, but within a few minutes, Smitty was on my desk huffing and puffing and clearly put-out about something going on in the yard. We ran into the bedroom and looked out the window there. What do you suppose we saw?

It's that drat cat Uno. Oh, we hate that cat more than we hate the vet. And it brings out our killer instinct, even if we do have to run to the highest reaches of the house to peer out surreptitiously. It gives us the blood lust, I tell you. We're barely in control, and so we have to wait for that cat to move along to avoid killing something. Or maybe we'll go out and kill a mouse or something later. One never knows.