Seeing Red

I got a bunch of strawberries for $1.19/quart and made a bunch of freezer jam using this recipe.  Dave's mom makes this all the time and assured me it was easy. 

It was SO easy!  Mash your fruit, add your sugar, mix up you pectin and pour into jars.  I made 4 batches of strawberry jam and one batch of raspberry jam using the last of our raspberries in the freezer.

It is all safely tucked away in the freezer for a rainy day and for gifts.  I want to eventually get out to a strawberry patch for some field strawberries but I am busy for the next week and a half.  I have some gjetost in the fridge and I am hungry for it with this jam on some Ezekiel bread.  This is great as an ice cream topping too!

 In other news...I finally finished my red sweater!!!  I started knitting this over a year and a half ago when we still lived in the apartment.  I'd gotten this yarn on clearance at Micheal's and kind of went a little crazy and bought BAGS of the stuff.  It is a very soft fingering weight yarn with large gradually changing stripes of color.  I got a couple different colorways and wanted to knit a cardigan or a jacket out of it.  I used a free Drops pattern and starting knitting the pieces.  Because it is a fine yarn and small needles...it took forever.  The other caveat is that it is knitted in pieces and then seamed together.  It took me almost 3 days to sew it together and a lot of frustration.

The yarn is almost a boucle and bunched up while knitting so I had to keep sliding the lumps down the length of yarn.  I tried seaming with the yarn and quit after about 4 stitches because it was doing this.  This yarn is also very gossamer-y and I was afraid it wouldn't hold up and keep the sweater together. 

I remembered I had a large ball of leftover sock yarn and used that for the seams.

Invisible seams are kind of like lacing a shoe.  When the stitches are pulled tight, you can't see them so really I could have used neon green yarn to seam it.  Here are some of the stitches held open so you can see.

Here they are pulled tight and hidden.  This was a slow going process.  As eager as I was to get it done, I had to get up after a seam and come back to it.

Here is the final sweater!  The yarn reminds me a lot of Kauni but is much softer.  I haven't sewn the buttons on yet but I kind of like it without.  Now I just can't for it to get cold!  I was sweating to death while taking the pictures!

I love the stripes of color.  The back was knit in two pieces and sewn together up the middle.  The angles are produced from almost a mitered increase on either side of a marked stitch.  I have a blue/teal/purple colorway that I want to make into another one of these but I also want to knit a Little Sister's Dress and a Wingspan.  I will have to see how much I have and how far it will stretch.  This poor sweater was the first thing to get pushed to the back burner as baby, birthday and Christmas knitting came along.  Am I patient enough to wait another year and a half for a blue one?

Saturday Ritual

Tonight is another working Saturday so I baked treats to take along.  I worked evenings yesterday, slept last night and got up this morning and dinked around.  I usually lay down for a nap around 1300 and then report to work at 1900 and that first night is always the worst.  By 0300 you're fighting to stay awake and drinking pop and coffee and get almost nauseous from being so tired.  Some oatmeal fortified chocolate chip cookies will keep us energized and moving tonight.  Tomorrow I will crawl home and sleep like a baby.  My Sunday nights always go so much better.

 As usual my little helper stayed close to the kitchen in the eternal hopes that I would accidentally drop some food.  She is such good company!  Such a pretty Lopi dog!  MPTV is having pledge drive so I didn't get to watch my regular Saturday morning treat shows but USA is having an Indiana Jones marathon!  Yesssssss!!!

I started knitting these socks in Reno while watching Dave bowl.  I'd knit a pair of these for John a few years ago after he deployed.  They are "Soldier Socks" but we called them "Sailor Socks" in his case.  These are for no one in particular (but they'll probably go to  my sister in law because she is just as much a sailor as John for holding down the fort while he was gone!) but I wanted to enter them in the fair this year.  As soon as the weather warms up, I start getting eager for the fair!  I have so many things lined up to knit and I have most of next week off to get some serious knitting done.  Dave is done with school for a week before summer school and we might go fishing one of those days.  He can fish and I can knit!