Coins Quilt - Progress

Some "let's sew" mojo came to call and there was progress made on the Coins Quilt. 
This will be one section that will be quilted and then joined to the other sections once they are all three quilted. For me, quilting this way makes it much more manageable.  Even though this is a long strip (and it still needs top and bottom borders added - oops,) it will be easier to move through the domestic machine as there will be less weight and less drag.

So, now to add those black top and bottom borders.  Then I will work on the center section which will consist of a gray strip, a coin strips, a green and gray strip, a coin strip and another gray strip.

Meanwhile, I am also working diligently on my Spanish lessons as well as working not as diligently on my ukulele playing. Life is busy, but full and happy for me.

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. However at this time Blogger is not notifying me of comments. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

A Bit More Canning

Today I thought I would take pictures of some of the canning process and share them with you.  I feel very accomplished because I had six jars in the boiling water bath before 9:15 a.m. (And that included taking photos.)

The very first thing I did was pull the prewashed, cut up figs out of the freezer and put them in the microwave for a minute and a half so that they break apart easily.  I always prep them and then freeze them unless I am using them that day. Some of these are from last week and some from yesterday's picking.  I have frozen figs for a year and used them  whenever I wanted to make more preserves.

Once semi-thawed, I put the figs, water and sugar into the cooking pot. (You can find the full recipe here - FYI: I guesstimate the amount of figs.) Then I stir that up and get it heating on high.

Then, if I haven't already, I choose the jello flavor(s) I will use. Today I chose to make a mix of Raspberry and Lemon.  I am thinking "Raspberry Lemonade" as the flavor.

You may find large six ounce packages and you can use just one of those.   This is poured on top of the ingredients in the pot.

 I dripped some of the juice on the lemon jello so you could tell it wasn't the sugar.   Then this is stirred into the ingredients in the pot.
Next up you need a lemon or a lime.  I really prefer a lime as sometimes they are seedless.

I slice the lime in half and use that wooden reamer to get the juice and pulp into the pot next.  Yes, I use the entire lime. I LOVE the wooden reamer as it does a beautiful job and washes up quickly and easily.
Everything is stirred well and it looks something like this.

You can see that it is very chunky.  For  a jam-like preserve that just won't work. So, I grab out another tool that I find indispensable in my kitchen - The stick blender!

I can put it right into the hot pot of cooking figs or for that matter, any other thing I wanted to puree.
Using the high speed and keeping the head submerged, I blend away until it is nice and smooth.

What a difference, huh?  As you can see it is starting to bubble away. I have the water and my jars in my canner pot and it is starting to boil also.  After the fig mixture reaches a full boil, I turn it to medium and let it cook for about 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, the jars in the canner are sterilized so I take them out and sit them on a folded towel on the table where I will fill them as soon as the 20 minutes have passed.

Because I am working alone and things get "fast" after the figs are cooked, there are no pictures here.  The jars are filled, rims cleaned, lids and rings put on and they go into the boiling water bath for 10-15 minutes.  I don't skimp on canning/boiling time because I did work in Public Health and worked with some food borne disease investigations.
Once out of the boiling bath the jars go back on the  folded towel to cool - and the lovely sound of "plink plink" as the lids seal.   Some of them seal before I even get the last one out of the bath.  Almost always, mine are sealed within an hour.
The finished product?

Isn't that a lovely red?  Surprisingly the red overpowers the yellow coloring in the jello, so they are a brilliant red and not an orange.  From this batch I got six 8 ounce jars.  That brings my total to twenty-eight jars at this point.  The fig tree is still producing - there are lots of green figs on it. There are more figs in my freezer from last year too.   What flavor will I do next?

Here are some possibilities:
The classic where I learned about this method is Strawberry, but I did a batch of that yesterday.
How about Spiced peach - peach jello and spices like you would put in pickled peaches.
Another favorite is chocolate covered cherry - Cherry Jello and add cocoa to taste.  (yuummmmy) Lemon and ginger
Zesty orange (add spices like the old tang tea mix stuff: cinnamon and clove.)
Grape and lime jello mixed is good - but it looks like axel grease - just so you know. I have also made plain grape - and it is wonderful on a PBJ.
The fun part is exploring the jello/gelatin desserts and thinking "what could I add to this?"
I think I need some pineapple jello - and do they even make a mango flavor????

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. However at this time Blogger is not notifying me of comments. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

A Different Project

As you may know,  I don't ever just stick to one project until it is finished.  So today - and probably a couple of days next week - I am working on my special summer project.  Back in 2011, I made this project for the first time.   Today as I have done every year since, I made fig preserves.  After making the first batch or two using the strawberry jello trick, I realized that I could use pretty much any flavor of jello and even add spices if I wanted to do so. 

Today's jars are already sealed. They sealed within minutes of removal from the boiling water bath.

Did you count them?  Yes!  There are seven - plus I had about a quarter cup left for tomorrow's breakfast. Excellent. 

I know that you can not tell by looking at the pictures just what flavor I decided to use this time.  But one flavor that I have used and don't have to add any spices to "jazz up" is this one.

It is also really nice when I want to make a PBJ for lunch.  One thought I had as I was cooking it down was this: "Some real grape juice added to this might punch it up a bit."
As you may have noticed I like to play with my food when I am cooking/canning/baking.  That creative spirit always loves to play.  I think that is how my best recipes evolve. 

I have done a little bit on the coins quilt but not really photo worthy at this point. I will get back to it soon though.

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. However at this time Blogger is not notifying me of comments. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Stripping and Stacking Up My Coins

I want you to know that stripping is a lot of work.  Wait, WAIT!  Calm Down! I didn't take my clothes off.  LOL.
I have been tearing the long strips for the coin quilt today.  After an email chat with A Left-Handed Quilter about tearing the strips, I decided to tear the strips instead of having to try to cut on grain for longer strips.  On my own, I decided to use the length of the fabric -not selvage to selvage - for the strips since they would already be longer - so less piecing.  The added bonus is that the lengthwise grain doesn't stretch as it is the "warp" threads of the fabric. (Sorry - geeky weaving reference.)

Also several more groups of coin sections were constructed.

While looking for additional fabrics to add in with the jelly roll strips, I found an abandoned project. I had sewn a "jelly roll race" quilt top and really didn't like it. So I had cut it into 12 1/2" squares. A few of those got cut up and used as parts of the coin sections. Extra bonuses: pre-sewn strips and there are some angled pieces in the mix.

The picture of the strips is not nearly as exciting. But it does show that I used some organizational skills.

The green strips are cut to the correct lengths and are all ready to go.  The two longest gray strips are cut to length and labeled. The other gray strips are just torn and ironed.
Still this is some nice progress on the coin quilt.
Although I don't have a photo, there is also one looo----ooong strip of coins with the gray joining pieces and ends sewn.  Now I can add the long gray and green strip to the side of it Monday and really feel accomplished.

A side note:  When I created the quilt in Electric Quilt 7, I didn't think about the lengths of the strips perhaps needing to be in standard measurements.  I used the ruler tool to guesstimate lengths that I then wrote on my printout of the quilt image. I may think about sizing more carefully in the future. Ha ha.  But as in business math, numbers can be rounded up or down.  Then I can just make it work. I can always trim off bits as necessary.
Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. However at this time Blogger is not notifying me of comments. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.