Green

February is a busy month for me. I'm not sure exactly why but for some reason February gets crazy every year. And this year is no exception. In fact if my kids did not have a rare 4 day weekend, I'm not sure I'd have the time to write this today.

I have been knitting though--I finished the first of the screaming green socks:


Pattern is Wanida from Sock Innovation the yarn is from ThreadBEar in lansing--some of their handdyed. It really is VERY green. My problem is that I'm kind of being handicapped by my indecision. YOu see I finished this sock over a week ago and I haven't started the second. Not because I don't like the pattern or the yarn, but because I'm not sure this sock isn't way too big.



See when I knit my gauge swatch, I decided that the pattern gauge wasn't as important as the fact that the sock had to actually fit me. So I tried on my swatch and discovered it was a little snug. So I ripped out and went up from a size 1 to a size 1.5. But all along the knitting I felt like this sock was just HUGE. Except every time I put it on it fit. It isn't snug like some socks I've knitted are, but I am afraid that by the end of a day of wearing them it will feel all baggy and loose and I'll hate that. So I've put off starting the second sock. Although honestly I could make a second sock on the smaller needles and see what happens.

In the meantime, I've decided to knit something else for a while:


I seem to be on a green kick.

red and gold

You would think that a snow day (or two) would make for some knitting results. But alas, I still have about an inch more on my screaming green socks and then I'll start the toe--which makes me feel like I have HUGE feet (the better to walk through the snow with).

But then I remembered, I made this:


As a birthday present for a friend, I went and bought red and gold beads special as these seem to be the colors she wears the most. I still have yet to finish one for me. Better get on that!

jinx

I'm not sure what happened to me but for some reason I've been having problems getting excited about my knitting. Maybe I felt like I was making too many mistakes and getting worried about starting new things in case my knitting had been jinxed or something.
One project that I had had sitting for far too long was this pair of baby socks:



I had the second one ready to kitchner and I realized they were not the same size and somewhere along the line I had made an error or something. So in an effort to exorcise the knitting jinx, I finally ripped back and finished the second one properly. Now I just need to get them mailed to where they need to go.

Jinx fixed, I started a pair of socks for me. The pattern is from Sock innovation and the yarn is a hand dyed (not by me) called appropriately enough: screaming green. I'm pretty sure they are going to be too big, but they do go over my foot.



I think it might be residual jinx feeling. But I am prepared to rip this one out, if indeed when it is done it is too big--and restart it on smaller needles. I am.

In the meantime, I'm psyching myself up to start a new central park hoodie. I looked back at Ravelry and found that ARGH the one I made that is very very snug when I close it is a 40 (supposedly) so this one will probably be a 44. That SHOULD be 8 inches of ease normally, but I'm just hoping to get 4. Hmm maybe I should make the 48.

Oh, I was also asked how the girls liked their doll hats. They were received with glee, but then demands were made for coats. knitted coats. SIGH.

Winding and swatching

Ten days into 2011 and I'm just getting around to writing. Bad me. Of course you'd think I'd have some huge finished project to show too. Sadly, despite having travelled 12 hours in the car over the holidays, I have nothing really to show. I ended up taking a pair of baby socks, and I do have those sort of finished but when I was showing them off I noticed one was a bit smaller than the other, so since I haven't finished off the toe, I'm going to unravel it a bit and make it match. So I don't want to photograph them until I have that fixed.

You think I might even have a resolution, but sadly no on that either. I thought about making a list of things I'd like to knit in 2011, but that seemed a little too much like work, where I make goals and objectives all the time.

So far though 2011 has been about getting ready to knit.

I received from my mother in law, who sticks to the lists people give her, enough Lark in the color Leek to make a sweater. I think that another central Park Hoodie is in my future. So right now I'm swatching. I actually felted my first swatch because I didn't realize that even my washer on delicate would be too rough. So the second swatch got hand washed, we'll see--unwashed I get gauge pretty easily.

I also bought a new pair of shoes to replace my beloved loafers that I usually wear to work with my hand knit socks. These shoes are more a mary jane style and show off way more sock than my loafers did, which has me wanting more socks. Only not plain socks. I want socks with interest! Socks with a detail on the foot! I'm thinking Wanida from the book Sock innovations And I have just the yarn. Sadly though it is still in a skein and so needs to be wound and swatched.

So that's 2011 so far for me, winding and swatching.

Holiday knitting

I have given away all the necklaces. Here are the ones I made for my co-workers.


They seemed to like them. I also gave the teachers theirs and they seem to have been appreciated. Then I went and bought some new beads.

But, beaded crochet isn't a good "travel" project. I put travel in quotes because travel projects are good if you are traveling a long way or just down the street for holiday stuff. I always think it is good to have a small easily memorizable patterned thing when visiting with people. And the week after christmas is going to be big on this knit and chat type project, so I was trying to finish up a few things so I could get well and easily started on my "talking" or "traveling" or whatever you would call it knitting.

So I finished my leftover socks. I didn't know if I would have enough yarn. I didn't but was only 4 rounds away, so I just made the second sock a little shorter. (Would have stunk to have run out of yarn in the middle of the post turkey talk!)


This way I can wear them over the holidays.

I also want to finish my shawl before Christmas--and get something new started, for my talking knitting. It has about 4 maybe 5 more rows left.

Instead of baking this year, I seem to be doing all this knitting. It is kind of too bad because I have a few things I love to make at Christmas, and this year I skipped them to make socks. Ah well, probably better for my waistline to be making socks than spiced pecans.

back to knitting

It isn't all beaded crochet around here.  Although I did see a website for bead weaving and that looked cool, and so I don't think my beading days are over.

But I need to get back to my knitting.

I am having a problem with a pair of socks. see I decided to make a pair of short socks from some yarn I dyed last year... well leftover yarn.  And as you might imagine, I don't have quite enough.  So, of course being hand dyed yarn there is NOTHING that I can do about it


Wellt he only thing I can do about it is to use a different yarn to finish the second sock. So that should be entertaining. I just need to decide what I have that will work.

In the meantime, I finally decided what to do with some yarn my MIL brought me from Ireland


I don't have a tag, so I don't know the brand or the color-way or anything really. I know it is wool, has an interesting texture, and is a little difficult to work with. I decided to just make a garter stitch shawl using an old dishcloth pattern. You cast on 3, knit 1 yo knit to the end, every row until it gets big enough, then I can't remember the decreases to make it a dishcloth. Instead I'll just bind off when it gets big enough.




I don't know if it will work, but it has been fun.

twelve

I have made 12 beaded crochet necklaces.  That's 36 strands and roughly 1000 beads.  I only really started feeling a slowdown around eleven and I think that's because my bead supply is dwindling.  I'm entirely out of white beads, running low on purple and blue and clear but have a ton more green and black.  I got the green and black at Joann's and I think if I do this again (who am I kidding when I do this again) I'll get the beads there because for $4 I got a ton.

What am I doing with all these necklaces? Well, I'm giving them ALL away.  So far I've given away two.  One to my best friend and one to my hair um artist her card says.  Of course I started with one for the teacher and one for the teacher's aide.  (that's 4 in case you lost count) I made one for each of my daughters (6) and one for each of the six people in my department (12).

Initially, number 12 was going to be for me.  I made it the day my book club was going out for Christmas dinner and wore it.  Then I started on number 13 and realized that with the limited beads I have left that it looks very much like one I already made.  So, I decided to be THAT person and give away the one I wore. I also hope I'm right in the number of people in my department, I feel like I'm missing someone.  So. I'll be boxing those up early so I can have time to think.

Then I'll have to think about what to make for myself.

beads

I think I'm addicted. Addicted to beaded crochet of all things.

It started out as a neat idea to give the teachers, something non scarf, not because I have any objection to scarves really, but more because I'm not really all that inspired at the moment by scarves--wait a month I'll be cranking out scarves like mad. and then it sort of got out of control.

First there were the swatches, and then:

And then:


Seriously, I had two teacher gifts in less than a week.  Turns out I can knock out 3 strings of a necklace in about 90 minutes.  So my teacher gifts were done, but I couldn't stop. 



I have two different types of metallic threads, but I like the dandyline in the top pictures the best.



I've already been to the craft stores twice since this project started, and I'm sure I'll be back for more dandyline.  And gold clasps.  And maybe just more clasps because I was teh dumb and bought 4.  I mean really, what was I thinking?  That I'd be able to stop with 4?

I think it might be the beads

gifts

Usually about this time of year I start to get all excited about Christmas knitting. The last few years I have knit scarves for my girls' teachers. ANd then last year I made a pair of socks for my MIL. At the end of the Christmas season I wished I had whipped up a few scarves for my co-workers. This year I was determined to start earlier and do that very thing. Um yeah. Let's just say this year, I don't really feel the need to knit everyone I work with a scarf. It isn't that I don't like them, I just don't want to spend the money. Ok and I've been feeling tired lately at the end of the day and the thought of such pressurized knitting fills me with dread.

But that's not to say I won't be knitting some gifts! In fact I've already started (and finished) a few. LAst year my girls got American girl dolls for Christmas, and while they don't "play" with them exactly, they do like dressing them up. So this year after browsing the catalog--and realizing that the scarf trend that is so popular with adults is trickling down to the dolls, I decided the dolls needed scarves. And hats:



All this is cascade fixation done one size 4 or 5 needles. Fours I think.
I did measure the heads and worked up enough stitches to go around based on gauge, which was about 52.



The one doll is sporting a complicated updo (as seen in a doll magazine--it had directions so of course we had to do it...) and the hat doesn't fit over her head. It will fit when her hair is down though.

I have no idea this year if the girls' teacher is a scarf appreciator. Last year I figured if the teacher wasn't, she had a teenage daughter who might be. This year, there are no teenage daughters. Also complicating this year is that the aide in their classroom (who is there to help one boy but she really does more) was also the aide in their kindergarten classroom. So I already made her a scarf. And even though she has a new coat this year, I know she knits--AND I gave her the pattern for her scarf (she asked). So I figured a scarf wouldn't quite do.

Enter a quick look around ravelry and Lo and behold, I discovered you can crochet beaded necklaces. I'm following the directions here. I'm really happy so far:



I think I need more and bigger beads though. Who knows, maybe I'll end up making necklaces for my co-workers too.

the fall

In the middle of the Halloween costume craziness, my daughters decided they wanted to be brownies. After attending the first meeting and being handed the uniform order forms I has a small gasp of sticker shock. The whole kit for vest/patches etc retails around $50. Take that times 2 and well... let's just say I had a moment of quiet contemplation.

I went home, and after researching it out--the patches totaled $15 each, the vest was $16 and the rest was made up of books, I decided there must be a cheaper way. I looked on ebay, I asked around, and in the end, I scanned a bunch of pattern books. Because really--$16 for a brown vest? The downfall of me, was when I said--how hard can this be? In the end, I found that Mccall's pattern M6229 has a view that is roughly the same shape. I got the pattern for $1 on sale at Joanne's and then went looking for fabric. I found some for $6 a yard, and bought 3 yards. I also bought a bunch of bias tape, but in the end, I didn't use it. So, for $17 I was ready to make 2 vests.

Well, this is about the time I realized that the vest pattern was only partially lined, and I was thinking fully lined (although for the record, official brownie vests are not lined at all). So I thought I'd just make mine fully lined, I've done a vest like that before, and thought I remembered how it should go. So I cut out the 2 pattern pieces 4 times and set to work.

The first vest, went together really nice until I sewed the lining to the outside. Let's just say that the way *I* had it it would have no armholes. I could not for the life of me figure out how I had done this before. Looking at the vest I had made, I could not figure out how to do it. After a day of fretting and ripping, I finally thought to look to see if I had kept the pattern. I had and after looking at the instructions, it was very clear what I had done wrong.

The second vest took only an hour to put totally together.

But the vests also took some handsewing--on the sides, which was how they got turned inside out. And again, I had to remember how to sew slightly invisibly those seams together.
So, ok it isn't much of a fall, but you would think that two vests could not take 3 days to sew. And then the patches! The patches are ironed on, but they need to be sewed down still. And I didn't foresee that my homemade vests would need some sort of label so that girls could tell them apart.

The official vest:


My versions:

pride goeth before the dfall

You know the saying, Pride goeth before the fall? This here, this is the pride:



I don't know if I've ever been more proud of my sewing skills. Not only did I manage to pull off a frog costume, I managed to shorten it in a fairly non-distracting way. I think you can see where I had to make cuts, but it doesn't distract from the overall look. And then! And then I made a dress. A real dress that actually fits and doesn't look costumey (like ariel as a bride and Glenda). Also in those last two, I can really see all my mistakes. Honestly, I pull it off, but I can see saggy hems and threads hanging and puckered sleeves. In this year's colonial girl--I don't see ANY of that. Of course if I was to do it over, I'd probably have surged the hem first, because that is where it is fraying. Or maybe an overlock stitch. But anyway, it looks like well, a real dress, not just something someone whipped up for Halloween.

You might think that the "fall" I allude to in the first line has something to do with a school halloween party and black frosted cupcakes (actually something like that happened to Glenda), but no! Actually aside from a minor punch mishap which I think if I washed the colonial girl dress, would probably come out, they remained unscathed. The pride... well let's just say I got a little too proud of my sewing skills and details will follow.

How to turn a bear into a frog

* First look to make sure you can't find a frog pattern. I couldn't but perhaps you have resources I do not (or a smaller child). Second, look for something close to a frog, perhaps a bear:



* Decide that a bear is really a brown frog and you can do this. The buy the fleece the pattern calls for in green, buy the accent color as yellow. Get a tiny bit extra because it is on sale and you have no idea how you are going to make the head look froglike.

* Sew up the costume, omitting details like the bow around the neck. Frogs do not wear bows.

* Listen to your children when they say, just make it like ears only make the front look like an eye, you know with white fabric with some black sewn on.

* Find some white fleece leftover from the time you turned a bear into a panda (bears are very versatile)

* Borrow two black buttons from a child who seemingly has a bigger button collection than you.

* Do some hand sewing instead of knitting for two nights.

* Hear Tim Gunn in your head announce, "Make it work!"



* Adapt the mitten pattern to have a more fin-like look.

* Sit back and enjoy how froglike it looks.

Nine days

With nine days left and counting, dare I say I'm in good shape for Halloween.

I have the "clone" (colonial) girl dress completed and it is absolutely lovely. I need to still work on the shawl and mobcap, which are made out of a purchased lace panel.

I have the frog jumpsuit completed, and a good idea how the frog eyes are going to go. I have a little bit of handsewing on that, that I'll work on tonight instead of knitting. I do need to figure out the flippers and as my daughter says, buy the facepaint.

So of course I'm spending a ton of time in the sewing room and I'm thinking projects. For some reason I have a big starteritis going on the sewing projects. Not so much on knitting. Here's what I think I might be sewing soon:
A fleece jacket for me. I made one a few years ago (ok 8 years ago) and I love it but it is getting pilly. So when I bought the frog fleece and noticed fleece was 1/2 price, I bought a pretty blue for me.

PJ pants for me. I love making these, I need a new pair to replace one and MIL bought me some cute flannel. The big drawback is that I need to thread the serger first.

Brownie vests for the girls. I found a Mccall's pattern that is the right shape, if I can find some appropriate brown fabric, I'll be making rather than purchasing brownie vests. Also Mccall's patterns are $.99 at my Joann's this week. And seriously, if I can keep it under $20 I'll be saving money ($31 is what buying 2 will cost me). Of course I have to find brown fabric--I'm guessing 2.5 yards should do the trick. So even if I have to pay $8.50 a yard, I should still be good.

I wish I had such plans for knitting. I want to knit the teacher a nice scarf, but at our house, when I bring up patterns, everyone wants the pencil scarf.

Maybe in nine days I'll be able to concentrate on my knitting again. Nine more days.

State of the costumes

I had a very real moment of panic when I looked at the calendar for something at work this week.  Oh my, there is only two weeks left to get the Halloween costumes done.  I still had sleeves and collars and oh my.
So this week, I set some goals, I only had two free afternoons, but I wanted to make the most of it. Collars, facings, and sleeves for the colonial girl (or "clone girl" as she puts it). I actually set that all for Wednesday afternoon, but only ended up getting the collars done.

I hate collar facings.  I think I do them wrong or something but they never lay the way they should, they are my least favorite thing to do in any costume. Boy, am I glad they are done.

I had some issues with the colonial girl sleeves as they have two pieces that have to be set in. And there was an error in the pattern directions because it told me to match up the "R1s" and there was nothing like that on the pattern. I did the best I could matching seams and notches, but they look backwards to me. So much so, I ripped out the first one and re-did it, but they still look a little backwards. I guess we'll have to wait for the fitting.

There is a moment in every episode of Project Runway where Tim Gunn comes in and says "Designers, I'm sending in your models for a fitting" and that's when sometimes things get crazy. My goal is that later tonight, I'll be doing fittings. I may find myself a little crazy as I deal with two very excited seven year olds dancing as I'm trying to figure out exactly where the frog should get hemmed and my big worry--making sure the colonial girl dress fits. Simplicty patterns are so whack that while the Frog was too big, I'm concerned that the colonial dress with be too small (and yes I did take measurements, and by those, she needs a size 8 everywhere BUT the waist where I am either measuring wrong, or somehow my stick figure daughter with the rib bones you can see, needs a size 14 waist).

Since I'm talking fittings, you might realize that I've lost a bit of panic, and I have... as long as everything fits, I should be in decent shape, which is good because this promises to be a busy week.

halloween!

I've been meaning to write for a while, but this time of year is really busy and October 1st I had this panic of thinking that Halloween was just at the end of this month and my progress on the costumes has been abysmal. Although I'm not sure getting distracted by thinking the kitchen floor needs mopping every time I got to cut out pattern pieces helps much.

I did finish the socks though--which means that before they were in school a month, I had made each of them a new pair of socks.


I did a toe up pattern, just a plain vanilla sock and made them pretty short. I used only one skein of Lorna's laces Shepherd sock and probably could have gone another inch or two longer. Of course finishing the socks meant that I had no travel knitting during a week when I needed about 4 hours of travel knitting, so I grabbed what was leftover from my hand dyed sock yarn and started some toe up socks for me. I have no idea if I'll get an actual PAIR of socks out of what I have left, but I'm pretty sure I'm ok with that, as it is helping me focus on the scarf or shawl I think I'd like to make out of my Ireland yarn.


And I'm really trying hard not to panic at the thought that Christmas knitting should start soon. I don't know the 2nd grade teacher as well as I'd like, and this year there is an aide int he classroom and she's the same aide I knit a scarf for when the ladies were in kindergarten.
The scarf I knit for the aide

Anyway, back to Halloween, because deep breathing and thinking of one thing at a time helps. I did get the frog costume cut out (double layer fleece UGH) and mostly sewn together before I realized that the size I made was WAY too big. So big it nearly fit me. So the frog costume will have one more seam in it an was called for because I decided the only way to make a fleece jumpsuit short enough (the crotch was at her knees!) was to take out nearly 4 inches in the middle. For all that fuss though, fleece jumpsuit costumes must be the absolute easiest things to sew as fleece doesn't really fray and jumpsuits have only one real tricky part--the zippers.

Today's task is to finish cutting out the colonial girl's dress. Made tricky by 1) wanting to get it right and 2)my wrist hurting again. The wrist problem though has been diagnosed as tendonitis and is being treated. It doesn't interfere with the knitting, but the cutting motion is really hard on it, so I have been cutting in shifts so I don't hurt it again.

So in summary: panic, panic, socks, decisions to be made and ouch.

Halloween

It took me a week, but I think I have all the materials to get started on this year's halloween costumes.  Well most of it anyway.  I could not believe how difficult it was to find a plain pink calico or in the words of the "client" "white with dark and light pink flowers and green stems."  One of these years I'll actually achieve my goal of buying everything for both costumes at $20 per kids, but not this year thanks to the pink calico finally found at a local quilting store for $9.50 a yard instead of Joann's $2.99 per yard. Thankfully halloween is only once a year.

Along the way I bought fabric to make myself a fleece jacket and almost bought flannel to make jammies for me.  As if I have the time for all that nonsense.  Nope, all my sewing time for the next 5-6 weeks is focused on Halloween.  The class party is Friday the 29th which cuts off two days of sewing!

I had thought this year also that perhaps I could have a costume--and had the perfect idea... Velma from Scooby Doo.  I have the orange sweater and the hair and glasses but then I'd need a red pleated skirt and orange knee high socks.  The crazy part of my brain whispered that I could sew the skirt and get this... dye and knit the socks.

Are you laughing yet?

As odd as it sounds after running to three stores to look for pink calico I started to think the red pleated skirt might be the issue  rather than say knitting a pair of knee high socks.

Did someone mention socks?  I finished one.



Lorna's Laces Mardi Gras done toe-up and short because I'm trying to get two kids socks out of one skein--somehow her feet have grown since I last made her socks.  Second sock is underway.  Thankfully my sewing and knitting times are so different in nature that this won't interfere.

SOCKS

In my haste to tell you all that I had entered the exciting world of crochet I had neglected to tell you about the socks!


I finished the first pair of my back to school socks for the ladies. They both had picked out some yarn at Threadbear and I can't tell you why I started with this pair, but I did. The next are on the needles now, but for some reason I'm having a big mental block on them--I've ripped back so many times that I'm nearly ready to rip all the way back and just start fresh. And you know what--they aren't even HARD socks.



That's some Lorna's laces in Mardi Gras--a colorway I'm sure I've seen at other shops although I was told (at purchase it wasn't a deal breaker for me) that this was exclusive to the shop I was in. I'm just hoping I have enough--their feet have grown a bunch since I last made them socks.

And coming soon (well next month anyway):



Oh yeah, life is good.

insert obligatory hooking joke here

I have a very mixed history with crochet.  Oh sure I can knit, and I can quilt and I can even do some basic weaving and dyeing, but I think I might have this mental block when it comes to crochet.

My mom crochets and has ever since I could remember.  She mostly makes afghans which I once at the tender age of 3 or 4 thought were going to turn into dogs, after meeting an afghan hound.  I don't know what my small self would have thought had I known a whole country existed... but I digress.

I have several afghans (the blanks not the people or hounds) that she's made for me (and for my girls).  Once I tried to knit one, and boy howdy that's not something I'll rush to do again any time soon. And frankly, I have enough so at this point learning to crochet so I can make afghans is kind of pointless. Still, I love the 1970 style granny square hats and vests (although I would probably never wear a vest) and would love to make some.

My mom did try to teach me to crochet once, but it was very short lived as I had the attention span of an ant. I tried to teach myself once, about 18 years ago when my husband's roommate's wife was pregnant, and gave up on it shortly after the child turned 2--and gave everything away.  And I taught myself to chain and single  crochet for knitting projects. 

This time though I'm determined to master this... in part because I thought it might be a good thing to teach my girls.  So when my mom announced her annual visit--I said--perhaps you could teach me to crochet.  She proceeded to teach both of my girls to chain and single crochet (sort of).  She also helped me clarify why it is so hard for me to get this. 

First, crochet is not knitting and I was expecting that I would be as good at crochet as I am at knitting.  By this I don't mean that I am an expert knitter (I'm not) but I mean I can read a knitting pattern, know what's going on and follow it pretty well. I can look at my knitting and tell where I am.  I can look at my knitting and see the mistakes AND how to fix them.  I can do none of that (hopefully yet) with crochet.

First, the directions still don't make a lot of sense to me and second, I'm clueless when it comes to looking at something someone has crocheted and knowing what they did (I can do this with knitting pretty much).  But my mom left me with two how to crochet books (one for kids and one for clueless adults like me) and the girls and I are working through them.  My girls though, ever the optimists want to make hats and blankets for charity or afghans. Me, I have given up on the idea of a granny square hat anytime soon, and am focusing in on doll blankets as let's say practice swatches. 

I guess it is like anything--a lot of bad swatches need to come out before you can start producing good.  I wince at the first attempts I made at quilts, and I think I pitched my first knitted swatch (although I still have the project I made with my grandma--before I learned to cast on). So it is with this knowledge that I show you my efforts on single crochet

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52177363@N00/4971077987/

I think there are a lot of doll blankets in my future.

why I love socks

I had been working hard on my shrug. It does seem to go very very slow for some reason. But I felt like I was starting to make some progress:


But a closer look reveals some ripping in my future:


So I started a sock:


Since taking this picture, I finished this sock and started sock number 2. This is for my daughter that loves pink. I have yarn for socks for my daughter that loves purple.

state of the jam

I've made my last batch of jam for the summer. And in the interests of memory here is the listing.

3 batches of strawberry--with berries prepped by my husband. Very easy, very fun. Made a facebook offer to make jam for others, and so made a batch in exchange for sock yarn.

1 batch of sour cherry. Sour cherries are a pain in the side to prep. All those pits! But not only did I do a batch of jam, I froze two small batches of cherries for 2 small batches of cherry crisp.

2 batches of blueberries. Blueberries are about the easiest to prep for jam, as they have no tops to cut off or pits to cut out. So essentially I throw them in the bowl and mash away. Sadly, I don't care for blueberries (don't say it too loudly or I think they will take away my Michigan Drivers license). I don't mind them if they are frozen, but let's just say the jam was not my idea. Other people in this house got a taste for them. I made the second batch to give away (and I have 4 of those left!). I'd offer them here, but freezer jam really doesn't mail well.

1 batch of peach. I love peaches. I could eat (and have) peaches every single day. I hate the skins (fur--yuck) but as I say here: I'm a grown-up and know how to use a knife. These are about the hardest to prepare for jam--you have to peel pit and chop. But yesterday I did the 6 containers that now make up my peach jam stash. What happens to me is that I buy a large quantity of peaches because I love them, then they all get ripe at the same time and I get overwhelmed because not even I can eat 6 peaches in one day. So one year every time the peaches started to get overripe I'd make peach jam. I think I made three batches. That was the year I gave everyone at playgroup peach jam--someone might still have one of my tupperware containers (for the record, tupperware is the only container I'd want back). Now, I have a different strategy--I freeze them for peach crisp. This year I have a container going and I chop one or two that are just ripe but can't be eaten into the container--when it is full, I'll stash it in the downstairs freezer. I'll probably make a fresh one too before peach season is over.