Making things (food and sewing)

Making things.

I have felt a distinct need to make things recently, perhaps because it is getting distinctly colder and I feel Autumn is coming on.

My father has brought round so many bags of redcurrants it's untrue so I have got round to finally using some of it up. I have made two jars of jelly and one of (less sweet) ice-cream topping.

It's really easy to make jelly, just cook through the redcurrants and add the same weight of sugar. Boil it up until the mix in the pan starts to get syrupy and then drip some on a cold plate. If you gently push the   blob of jam and it wrinkles slightly it's ready, if not it needs a few more minutes before testing again.

Then, sieve your lava-hot mix into sterilised jars and (using oven gloves) screw on the tops. If you're recycling jars the 'pop up' bit of the lid will suck itself back in.

The evidence........

The redcurrant jelly has been great in yoghurt, on pancakes, on ice cream and on cold meat. In fact, one jar has gone already and two jars have been sent off to my parents!

I have also been creating things for the pregnant ladies that seem to be popping up all over the place at the moment in my life. I've done two pairs of baby trousers following the tutorial over at 'Made by Rae'  it's a really easy go-to pattern which fits 0-3 month (and slim 6-12 month) babies really well (or so I am told by the recipients of the previous versions. I'm not posting this lot yet as they have not been given away yet - but they are like the previous versions I've blogged about the new ones are a little fancier with ribbon and contrast panels, but it's the same idea. I have also made a number of crochet baby blankets, no tutorial required, one is using a granny-square stitch.

The other two are stripey variations using double crochet chain one and treble crochet chain one. The first is red and white stripes and the second is baby pastel purple. Lovely!

I also attempted the 'sprocket' cushion from this tutorial  over at Cluck Cluck Sew. The tutorial was great, and I got right to the very end of its creation, only for the upholstery fabric I was using to fray mercilessly when being turned the right way round (cue lots of holes on the seams and maybe a little cursing). It looks good, but I can never use it - sniff! I am now in the long, long process of unpicking the backing so I can at least re-use that. Definitely project - FAIL.