Silk Ribbon DeStash

I'm destashing my studio so there'll be more space for working, so have decided to wrap silk ribbon around shipping tags and will be listing them in my store sometime today!

Etsy Treasuries - All about Blue and Green Today!

Indigo with a Hint of Lime by Sweet Lollipop Shop

Blue Green Olga by Tamaran Design

Pine Needle Basketry

I bought this book, two goodly bundles of long leaf pine needles and the plastic container it came in for a dollar this weekend at a yard sale! Now to find those three bundles of dyed long leaf pine needles and I'm set to make a basket.

Prairie Seeds

See shop for these beauties!

Colorful Etsy Treasuries

A Goldfish Cracker in Winter by SoSheSews

The treasury is Full of Color by iWunder

Natural Dyed Silk Velvet Fabrics

Just a sampling of what I listed for sale in my store http://www.prairiefibers.etsy.com/

Beads

I scored these vintage beads at a flea market today for a total of $4 I was so excited!!!

Canning Jars

I scored a three quarter pint jar for 25 cents today at a yard sale, no kidding! I didn't even know they existed but in reality I could really go with a couple dozen of these babies in the photo above the three quarter pint is the second from the left.

Left to right: Pint jar, three quarter pint, half pint, quarter pint! To make the set really interesting I'd need a quilted glass wide mouth pint jar.

Sweet Pickle Relish

Made this years first batch of sweet pickle relish, since it's been about six years since I've made any it took me a bit to remember what I did the last time. When my next batch of cukes are ready for making relish, they are too small yet, I'll strain the cooked relish a bit so there's less liquid in the jars.

Canned Butter

I used the recipe that was in backwoods home magazine, the one written by Jackie Clay, and the butter turned out wonderful! I used unsalted sweetened butter for my first batch, I will add that it only made 9 half pints and I used three pounds of butter, I should have come up with at least 10 half pints.

New Fall Colors

These lovely mohair rovings are available in my shop!

Mohair

I'm working on updating my etsy store tonight with some new goodies, I'm partricularly fond of these mohair rovings! I've spun some of my hand dyed roving up and will knit a shawl for myself for this winter.

Cell Phone Bag

A loop for the button to tie down the flap and a strap and this little gem is done. I made it to hold a cell phone, however, mine is bigger than the bag. I"m thinking it'd hold a small pair of scissors an a few needles and some thread for stitching. The yarn is cotton and was dyed by hand.

In Progress

I'm working on finishing this pair of socks for myself, they will be quite toasty when all is said and done! In the meantime I'm skirting and am dyeing Jacob fleeces for spinning that will also be made into socks.

In Progress

I need to finish this pair socks so I can make work socks for John, his job now requires that everyone wears black socks, and it's rather hard to find black wool socks, well in our price range anyway.

Gooseberry Jam

Purple Gooseberry Jam anyone??? The bushes we picked had a combination of green and purple berries on them as a result the jam came out a purple color. I failed to get a picture of the jam before ladeling into the jars so you'll have to take my word that the jam came out a lovely purple color!!!

Chicken Pot Pie

Plated up, no parsley for garnish but that's ok the fiestaware is pretty enough on its own don't you think!

The grand reveal! The biscuits were perfectly crisp.

Home Made Biscuits

Made with the left over dough that was made for the chicken pot pie topping.

Chicken Pot Pie

Fresh out of the oven, the sauce was coming up around the edges of the biscuits.

Before the bisquits were added I made the rue added the broth to make the sauce and then added the vegetables and cooked for about 10 minutes, the time it took dh to make the biscuit topping.

I used potatoes instead of boiled eggs in the recipe AND I added chopped onion, a half cups worth.

This seemed to be the right time to try our newly canned chicken and chicken broth. Let me tell you it was INCREDIBLE! Instead of using several dishes to make the pie I used my cast iron dutch oven.

Well it sorta started out that way anyway. I found the recipe this morning at Self-Reliant Yuppies but decided to wait until dh got home from work to start the pie, and I'm glad I did! Lets just say his idea of gourmet is NOT cheddar cheese filled pie crust, and he agreed with me the hard boiled eggs seemed a bit over the top so I used potato instead.

Stolen Roses

I'll have to go take pictures but someone stole my roses! No kidding and in my front yard next to the house no less! In addition to my roses they also swiped the blossoms off of my hosta's, have no clue what they wanted them for but whomever it was was quite precise in their cuttings. I willl be filing a police report this afternoon on this one as dh and I suspect it's the same person that has been stealing my grapevines.

If by chance I find out who it is I have every plan to file tresspassing charges and get a restraining order!

Double Bee Balm

There would appear to be two blossoms one shooting straight up out of the other blossom. I read somewhere that this is due to damage that occurs when in the bud stage. It's still wild looking!

What is it???

I've since found out that this is a japanese beetle and they can eat a lot of plants, so I will make tobacco tea, to spray on my plants, in the morning after it's done raining here.

I found this bug munching merrily away on my grape vines I'm thinking i'll have to get some bug repellent to deter their munching.

First Cucumbers

The first cucumbers of the season. I have my plants growing on cattle panels, which makes it easier for me to find the cukes and remove them from the vine with minimal damage. I'll be making bread and butter pickles with these lovely fruits! And will finish off the season making sweet relish.

Apple Butter

That's my kitchen floor that you are seeing, yep it really is, off to the sides of the table! It's been in this condition for something like 13 years now, long before dh and I got married it's just bare maple and in other places bare plywood making it a royal pain to wash. There's no sponge mopping in this room I use a real mop one of those big commercial ones, as it's the only thing that doesn't fall apart when used on this floor. Also if your thinking of going the bare plywood floor route note that vacuuming it works far better than sweeping for getting it really clean!!! Everytime I mention painting the floor dh says GO AHEAD and then immediately has apperplexi~!

Lodi Apples make the BEST apple sauce and apple butter!!! Ok maybe some people don't like their sauce as tart as I do but lucky for me DH does! Dh says the apple butter shown here tastes like his apple sauce, hey what can I say I followed the recipe in the Ball Blue Book!

Lodi Apples

We picked 11 boxes of Lodi Apples at a friends house in the country on Saturday (Hi Nancy) with our neighbors. We split the apples AND I'm so glad we did! We barely made it through one a half boxes of apples last night, we made apple butter, we started early afternoon and ended after 10 pm! The brown spots on the apples were caused by hail.

The Love Boat Treasury

The Love Boat Etsy.com Treasury created by Mullberrymoose

The Moody Blues Treasury

Greaves Design included me in this rather Moody Treasury. I love these blue colors.

Bead Soup

I'm destashing my studio, whilest getting my next project together and decided that it was time for the large collection of beads to find a new home. These are from mixes I had made for various projects a long time ago and don't feel like sorting them into "solids" again.