Making Marmalade

I love marmalade. Real English marmalade made with bitter Seville oranges. My family once spent all out leftover English coins at Harrad's duty free store at Gatwick on marmalade. Sigh, in these days of heightened security they probably wouldn't let us on the plane with a dozen jars of marmalade.

I've made marmalade from regular sweet oranges and so has my daughter, Jennie, and it was good, but I've always wanted to make it from Seville oranges. So did my friend,Betsy and I could hardly believe it when she found them at a grocery store in Seattle. Pricey little jewels but we both decided to make the splurge. Betsy found a great recipe from Delia in the Uk.

She found the recipe through a neat blog, the Cottage Small Holder, from England, and also a link to the annual marmalade festival in Cumbria, England. It's held in February so we won't make it this year but we can dream about next year.

Anyway I am having a great deal of fun with this marmalade recipe which is one where you simmer the stuff for hours on the back of the stove. I'll let you know tomorrow how it turns out.

Island New Year's Party

My friend Betsy wrote about our New Year's party so well that I'm not going to try and emulate it just send you to her blog: Celebration

P.S. I'm having trouble getting the above link to Betsy's blog to work and I'm about to run off for the Farmers Market. If that link takes you to her home page click on the link to her blog. If that doesn't work at all go to http://www.bendingtreearts.com

When I get home I'll try and fix it so it works better.

Happy New Year to you all.

Stocking for Charlotte

I can finally post about the Christmas stocking I made for my granddaughter, Charlotte, who just had her first Christmas. I didn't want to mention it before Christmas because I didn't want her Mom and Dad to see it. I didn't imagine that Charlotte would be reading my blog.

I wove the fabric in an overshot pattern using 20/2 cotton for warp and tabby and 3 yarns of 20/2 and 8/2 cotton in slightly different shades of red wound together for the pattern weft. I like using slightly different shades of a color together as it gives a nice depth of color. The name was designed on graph paper and woven by pickup. I took that part out quite a few times to get it just right picking up the same threads each time and not wandering a thread or two to the side.
The back is from a red sheet I had in my rug weaving stash and the lining from a bright red silk blouse I got at the thrift store. I am really pleased with how it came out. I am contemplating making something similar for Christmas sales next year, but without the name.

Christmas Cookies

So, this is what I have been doing with my daughters and granddaughters. I frosted the tree in the upper right hand corner and the dancer in the middle of the bottom row. I love getting together with all the kids and grandkids for Christmas. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.

Photo by granddaughter Lauren

What a Big World

Our youngest daughter, Siri, finished college at Brooklyn College, in well, Brooklyn, NY, yesterday in the Film Studies program. We are immensley proud of her and the hard work it took to do that. She's a long way from the farm and the island but maybe she has always looked out from here to the great big interesting world. Best of luck to you in all your ventures, dearest daughter.

Christmas Tree is Up

The Christmas tree is up, presents are appearing under it, the holly is up over the doors and windows to "keep out the dark" (See Susan Cooper's, The Dark is Rising). I love the lights on the tree. Being off the grid as we are and thus having to be very careful about electricity use, ours are very small LED lights. Not really bright but we can safely and with a clear conscience leave them on all night. I love getting up in the dark and seeing the tree lights.

Candy Cane Cookies

I've been wrapping presents to take to friends on San Juan island on market day Saturday and baking cookies for gifts. These candy cane cookies are made from sugar cookie dough. One half of the dough is dyed red. You roll out pencil thickness strips of each color and roll them together. I haven't made these in years. They are a lot of fun.