Baby Blanket

My niece had a beautiful baby girl in August. Seems like just yesterday she was 2 and my son was a baby and now she has her own wee one. Wow time flies.


Because I tend to be crafty and love making things for people I was inspired to make a blanket for this precious little one. Her mama's favorite color is green so I wanted to make sure that I incorporated that. Once I started shopping for fabric I ended up with 3 different blankets. I made one with a beautiful pale green cuddle satin backing and the front is pink, green and white chenille which is so, so soft. The second is pure white minkee back with green and white polka dot flannel. And then with the left-over I made a slightly smaller blanket with the chenille on one side and the minkee on the other. I wish I had such soft blankets for my son when he was that little.

Here are the instructions. So easy to do.

Cut the back 40 X 35 inches and the front 35 X 30 inches. Fold the edge of the back over 1/4 inch all the way around and press. Lay the front in the center of the back wrong sides together. I measured in from the edge 2 1/4 inches and made marks all the way around so that I could make sure the top ended up in the right place. I put a lot of pins in as the chenille was quite stretchy and I didn't want it to get puckered or out of shape as I sewed it.




I mitred my corners - it is easiest if you snip in from the outside corner to just before the top fabric corner, remove excess fabric and keep playing around with the fabric until it to looks right (I was so busy doing it that I forgot to take a picture of it). Then I just started at a corner and sewed to the next corner and then up the mitred edge as close to the edge of the fabric as I could. Then I sewed the next side until I was all the way around and voila.


The satin and chenille blanket is a wonderful light and soft blanket and the flannel minkee combination is so warm and cozy and fuzzy.



What mama wouldn't want such a wonderfully soft blankie to wrap their precious wee one in. My husband actually wants me to make a queen-sized one for our bed.

Salsa Recipe

For those who have asked here it is. Chop everything as fine as you like it to be in your salsa. The tomatoes will break down a little bit. I hand chopped everything except the hot peppers which I put in a mini food processor to make sure that their flavour was evenly distributed throughout the salsa.

Salsa

8 cups (7 lbs) tomatoes (peeled & chopped)
2 large Onions (approx 4 cups)
2 red bell peppers
2 yellow bell peppers
2 orange bell peppers
2 cups celery
3 cloves garlic, minced
6+ hot peppers (jalapeno, banana or other hot peppers) My recipe is 2 Jalapeno, 2 Habanero, 3 Red Serrano, 2 Cherry Peppers, 2 Green Serrano chopped very finely)
4 small cans tomato paste
6 tsp pickling salt
2 tsp Cumin
2 tsp ground corriander
2 cups white vinegar

Chop all tomatoes, onions, bell peppers & celery as fine as you like your salsa to be (if you like a really runny salsa use a food processor but if you like it chunky chop it all by hand - the time is worth it). Put all ingredients in a large pot and bring to a simmer for 30 minutes. Taste and then add dried crushed chilies (1/2 to 1 tsp at a time) to get it to the heat you like.

Put into 250ml jars and can in boiling water canner for 15 minutes. Remove and rest for 24 hours before moving.

This recipe tastes awesome straight out of the pot (cooled of course), but it improves and gets a bit hotter with time. If you can, wait about a month for the flavours to fully develop.

Canning and other stuff

I have been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately. She was a farm wife and she canned - I am told right up to the year she died. Anytime she was in the kitchen she was singing. She was such an amazing lady - one of my biggest regrets in life is that I lost her in the divorce of my parents as she was my father's mother. When my son was 2 we went to visit her so that he could meet his great-grandparents on that side of the family. She was a woman who lived grace and love. She was so happy as that year was the year that she had been married longer to her second husband than her first (who passed away before I was born) and the looks of love that passed between them made me hope for that kind of love when my husband and I reach our late 70s. I had a beautiful opportunity to build relationship with her as an adult, however life was just so busy and I never made the time - how I wish that I had. I am blessed to have the memories of her that I do, and with the grace that she walked in, I know she forgives me.


I have never really been one to do canning except the couple of years that I made salsa but this year I have spent time every weekend canning something or other. My darling husband had to build me shelves to hold it all and they will soon be full. Pickles and cherries and pickled carrots and salsa and tomatoes are all gracing these shelves and tonight my latest creation will be joining them. This one truly is my creation. I looked at a recipe to get ratios for the sugar, water and alcohol and for the timing but other than that everything is mine (my husband suggested the saskatoons and they really contribute a lot to the flavour).


My latest adventure this weekend is canned peaches with huckleberries and saskatoons. So yummy! I poached the fruit in a mixture of 1 part sugar, 1 part water and 1/4 part blueberry vodka (the alcohol cooks off), added some cinnamon (just enough to add flavour but not enough to be able to say it has it) and a splash of vanilla.

I kept some out for us to eat for desert last night and we poured it over vanilla ice cream - so good. The jars look really pretty too.

New to this

So this is a whole new experience for me and I don't really know where to begin. I have always written for myself and really don't know if ever anyone will read this, but even if I just use this as a place to do things for me that is ok too.

I am inspired by a friend who does this and is probably the most wonderfully creative person that I have ever met. She knocks my socks off everytime I read one of her blogs and see how she takes pictures and the crafts she does with her kids. She amazes me and I wish I could be her, even though I do alot of the same things, like take pictures and do crafts and stuff.

This past month has been spent being an old fashioned domestic (I want to say goddess, but that just doesn't sit right) blast from the housewives of the past - only I have been working. I have spent a day pitting and canning wonderful cherries brought back from the Flathead Lake region of Montanna and another day freezing huckleberries, picked on the side of a mountain at Hungry Horse Dam also in Montanna and Saskatoons (sadly purchased at the Saskatoon Farm - prepicked). I have also spent 2 separate days making the most delicious salsa ever and my latest adventure - Pickles - both dill and carrot (apparently my hubby's fav). I hope they turn out. I have never attempted this particular feat before. Of course it takes forever to actually find out if they turn out.