Garden Ending Kitchen Work

So it begins--or ends.  Today I am making the last batch of zucchini pickles for 2017.  I also have a half gallon of concord/mixed grape juice in the fridge which will become grape jelly.  This means wholesale cleaning/sanitizing of the kitchen today and the huge canning kettle of boiling water.

Mt friend Patty dropped off a brown paper grocery sack of grapes on Friday.  I picked each little grape off the stems and dropped them in the big soup kettle.  Added exactly one half cup water and set it to boil then simmer for 15 minutes.  Then strain thru the jelly bag.  then empty the jelly bag into the compost bucket.  so many SEEDS.  Chill the juice and today I'll strain it again for tartrate crystals that can damage kidney function.  Then add sugar and boil until it's jelly.

So--today is canning day.

Which means I need to put on my most messed up clothing.  And my vinyl apron so I can wipe myself off.

I worked on the Little Art Piece:   some of you will be upset when next you see it.  I covered most of the mid-section with other fabrics.  And now the top third looks wrong so I might cover it or --and this is more likely--cut it off.   This was just a "learning piece" in any event.  I was trying to get a feel for abstract work in dyed and painted fabric.  Non-representational but full of meaning. (???)

I have a large piece on the work table.  This little one is where I am making my mistakes.  Hopefully the larger piece will benefit.  So far the larger piece is three pieces of fabric and a painted moon but nothing sewn down and I need to figure out a design wall.  You REALLY HAVE to do the work vertical as that is how people will see it.  Working flat on a table top---not good. Putting the work on the floor and standing and looking down on it--not much better.

I hand basted two new seams in the Red Linen Circus Tent Swing Top.  Now I have to actually sew them.  Which means digging my way to the sewing machine and cleaning the inner parts of the machine and oiling everything.  Fun trying to get the bobbin case holder back together.  Bernina.  Three parts or maybe more--- I try and forget.  Trauma trying to get them back together and then, blind, into the bobbin thingy.  I am also thinking of making a few alterations to the huge baggy pockets--that bag out at the hip (just where I need extra "baggy-ness)---just short of sewing them SHUT.

Sewing machine and Canning.   Deluxe crappy day.