A Canning We Will Go

When I finished canning for the summer season (well over 200 jars this year), I'll admit I hoped never to lay eyes on a Ball jar again. But here we are a few weeks later, and I'm ready to fire up the kettle and run with it. This weekend I'll be making cranberry pepper jelly, pickled beets, and pickled brussels sprouts. The cranberry pepper jelly will be a new recipe. The pickled beets will be my old stand-by recipe. Matthew loves them and snags a jar every time he comes for a visit. Honestly, I'm not sure we'd see him if it weren't for the pickled carrots and pickled beets. Whatever works if it means I get to see my kiddos.

As for the pickled brussels sprouts, I'm still looking for the perfect recipe. I made them one year, and they were so sour they nearly turned our faces inside out. Here are those puckery suckers now:

Yeah, I posted that picture back in 2015, and I wasn't able to taste them until the following week, and so...never mind. They look good though. I tried them again another time, using a recipe that included more sugar. Those turned out too sweet. This time, I'm trying a recipe with about a 1:2 sugar to vinegar ratio and some spices to give them a little kick. We'll see if that produces the perfect pickled sprout. Of course, I will report back on all of it as soon as I test it all out.

Sue and I walked yesterday morning for the first time in many weeks. We walked the Fanno Creek Trail. We found one place that was impassable because of water, but we were able to cross the road above the flooded trail. Beyond that, it was smooth walking until we came to a place where some habitat restoration work has been going on for the past year or so. The sidewalk was closed there and so we turned around and headed back. Along the way, we saw this pretty tree.

Our showy leaves are waning in the rest of the metro area. I expect they'll be gone within another week or two.

When I got home, I had every intention of getting back to quilting Wind in the Whiskers. Mike came home early, as he often does on Fridays. He was napping upstairs where the mid-arm is located, and so I decided instead to head into the basement sewing room and get started on November's block for Tuxedo's Tales.

This is a Bonnie Sullivan pattern, and it was originally done in wool. I've been doing the blocks from my own cotton stash, and this is what I came up with.

Everything is fused down now. The button eyes are not yet sewn on, but I've drawn in the lines for machine and hand embroidery. I'd rather wait for Big Bertha to return before doing the top-stitching. Pfelicity does all the stitches I need, but she lacks Big Bertha's knee lift for the presser foot...a feature I find particularly nice when I'm doing machine top-stitching and machine embroidery. If it takes too long, I'll finish it off with Pfelicity. My fingers are tightly crossed about Big Bertha.

So that's about it from yesterday. I expect today's activities will be canning from start to finish. If there's time, I'll get back to quilting Wind in the Whiskers. I expect you'll find me in the kitchen all day, so look there first.