Show n Tell Saturday

I have pin basted, quilted and bound my first complete project!

Friday is one of only two days in the week when both the boys are in school/preschool all day (9am-3pm), so I took the opportunity to completely ignore all the chores that needed doing around the house and started looking for a small project that could be completed in a day by a beginner.

I found a lovely tutorial for placemats and potholders and decided to make the smaller of the two.

Mine has come out slightly smaller again than the tutorial... so I'm calling it a Mug Rug!

I used 2.5" scraps of apple fabric I had left over from my Fruitilicious Baby quilt top made on Wednesday, and plain white just because that's what I had to hand.

I was a bit confused about binding as it was my first time but I found that the tutorial on Jaybird Quilts was really helpful.

Although my binding is messy and the stitch doesn't disappear in the ditch all the way around (My hand sewing is atrocious so I machined it) I'm really pleased to have completed a full project on my own.

KitchenCraft - Making Liquid Pectin

One of my lovely Facebook friends Heather Bowery shared some recipes with me on my self sufficiency page for spicy apple chutney, marrow and ginger jam and liquid based pectin.  Already a chutney lover and having been given a marrow to use I decided to give her recipes a try.

I had read about fruits with high or low pectin levels and how this effects the setting of jams but hadn't needed to make or use pectin before...

Hopefully she won't mind if I share the wisdom with you!

Take the peel and cores from approx 4lb of apples, (the apples were used in the chutney) put in a pan with barely enough water to cover. Simmer gently with lid on for 1 hour.

Pour the contents of the pan through a colander or sieve - remembering it's the liquid you want to keep!! To get more liquid out you can push the contents of the sieve with a spatula but don't rub it, think in terms of squeezing the juice out.

Return the liquid to the pan and boil down to about 15 fl oz. If you are making it to store, bottle and seal hot. 

This quantity of pectin can be used to set marrow and ginger jam.