Lots of Yummy Elderberry Jelly

Elderberry jelly is by far everyone's favorite around here and they'll be glad to know that this was a good year. I was much more organized than in previous years and picked berries as they ripened. That meant checking once a week for about a month to get them at their best. When I bought the twenty 12 oz. jars at Goodwill I thought I'd never fill them all but I very nearly did. The big jar is for my friend whose kids will sneak into the kitchen and eat elderberry jelly with a spoon. Who needs bread?
I keep coming across natural dye information that suggests using elderberry as a purple dye and last year I boiled up a dye bath from the leftover pulp from jelly making. I made up a test piece and put it by the window to see how it would hold up. Not well. Within a month it was a blah brown. Really, pokeweed dye holds up better and that dulls out too. So my advice is, don't bother with it. Make jelly.

It's Elderberry Season!

Sponge Bob has his jelly fishing and I have elderberry season. Jelly making! Jelly making! My enthusiasm level is about the same as his. The elderberries nearest my home were decimated by the birds but I can't really blame them after the hot dry summer we've had. Just imagine how good those juicy berries must have tasted to them. My super secret spot (just kidding, it's on a busy road.)is looking wonderful though. The birds there either don't like elderberries or the abundance has overwhelmed them. I've got 7 cups of juice in the fridge from my first pick and most of the bushes still needed a bit more time to ripen. I'll be making the jelly I give as holiday presents but I do want to try a pie this year.
The steps involved in getting that jelly made are a good bit of work. Normally, I hate being hot and sweaty but somehow, when I'm picking berries or boiling jelly, it doesn't bother me. It feels so satisfying to have made something from start to finish. Finding the wild fruit was a treasure hunt, so was the great deal on twenty canning jars from Goodwill. As if tasting divine weren't enough, elderberries are loaded with vitamin C and have been used to boost the immune system for eons. When I give it to my friends and family I do so in the hope that it will help them stay healthy through the winter. Here's a link to the recipe I use: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/elderberry_jelly/ I've been using cider vinegar in place of the lemon juice and it seems to do just fine.

Hat Stand Prototype

This is the prototype for a hat display that was inspired by my Mom's Swedish Christmas tree candle holder. I made it from glued up layers of cardboard from the big cereal boxes we get at BJ's. I don't think that the cardboard would hold up well enough, plus it was a lot of work considering I'll need at least 25 of them. So I'll be making them from the recycled masonite my husband brings home from the museum. Every time they change an exhibit the old cases get trashed because they don't have room to store and reuse them or they wouldn't be the right size for something else. He's built all sorts of projects around here from the stuff. Anyway, these come apart to stack flat which should make for easy transport.
I taught my last crochet class at a local summer camp today. That's paying for two more 4' adjustable fold up tables. Bit by bit, this booth is coming together!

My New Banner

For people like me, it's Christmas in July because we're busy making inventory for the fall and holiday craft shows. It's also a time to revise my booth , especially since I keep making new things that need different displays. In my case, everything must fit inside my New Beetle. It looks like a clown car whenever I unload or pack up at a show. People can't believe how much I squeeze in there! It does get a lot easier when I do indoor shows and don't have to bring my tent.
My banner is hand lettered on a piece of recycled canvas from a stash of fabric a tenant left behind in a friend's garage. It would have been quick and easy to order something from Vista Print but this has a lot more personality and I enjoyed the project. Next up I'm trying a couple of ideas for hat stands.

How to fix A Lumpy Felted Sweater

You've just pulled this awesome felted sweater out of the dryer and you're so excited to make something with it but, oh no, it looks like a piece of fried bacon! Relax. You can fix this. The two yarns used to knit the sweater in the pictures did not shrink at the same rate, the black shrank more than the magenta. It didn't cause a problem in the checked areas because the color is distributed evenly. But in the pinwheel pattern there are long black floats that tightened up and made the fabric pucker. Here's the fix:
On the wrong side, carefully slide the blade of your small scissors under the black floats without catching any of the magenta wool and snip them. Take your time so you don't accidentally cut through the magenta layer. Then give the whole thing a good shot of steam on both sides with a hot iron. Now gently pull and stretch the piece until the pattern looks straight and give it a press. Since the sweater was well felted, snipping the floats hasn't really weakened it. Problem solved! This sweater also came out too fuzzy and a bit linty and it's obscuring the pattern so I'll give it a going over with my trusty clothes shaver.

Larger Than Life

I'm delivering this painting to the Greene Gallery today. This was really fun! It's the first in a series of larger-than-life vintage toys I'll be doing. I've got a sweet vintage metal box of crayons to paint next, more phones and some Ohio Arts toy teapots after that.

So You Wanna Felt Some Sweaters?

Or, I could call this entry my Year End Compendium of Cool Stuff and Dismal Failures. Rather you are new to felting sweaters and cutting them up to make new things or have been at it for a while, you may find some good information here.

Sourcing the sweaters:
Let's start with the basics. Most of my sweaters come from thrift stores. Wednesday is the best day for sales at Salvation Army. Goodwill tends to be more expensive so check for their half price color of the week. Tag sales can be an option too and once your friends know what you're up to they'll give you sweaters. The sweaters must be 100% wool to reliably felt. Do check the tags for content and care instructions. (Sometimes they hide them on the side seam.) If it says machine washable put it back. The wool has been treated and won't felt. If there are no tags, put it back. Whenever I take a chance on a sweater without tags I invariably get burned. Also, keep in mind that other wool items can be felted too, scarves, skirts, jackets and coats are all worth consideration. The easiest way is to get your sweaters from Resweater on Artfire: http://www.artfire.com/users/resweater

Protect your washer, dryer and pipes.
Sweaters can throw off an incredible amount of loose wool. I use an old top loading washer that drains into a utility sink. My husband glued an inverted wire mesh sink strainer over the drain to catch the fibers and save our plumbing. Granted, I do a fair amount of felting but you should be aware of this. Make sure your dryer lint collector is clear before each load rather you're drying sweaters or not. If your dryer vent tube is one of the plastic ones you should replace it with a metal or foil tube immediately. Even if you never dry a felted sweater this is a good idea. Your local Fire Department can tell you that many house fires are started when lint in the dryer vent gets too hot and ignites. In a metal vent it quickly burns out. In a plastic one the fire burns through and away it goes. Please, go check this now. If you have the plastic vent and it has brown marks on it, those are burn marks from the times you already got lucky.

Felting in your washer.
Ok, you've got some wool sweaters to felt, now what? Well, you could just put them in with a regular load of laundry, separated by color and set to hot wash/cold rinse. But before you jump into it, take a few moments to look over and prep the sweaters. I turn them inside out to protect the right side from too much fuzzing, check for moth damage, mend it and separate by color or dark and light. I usually take off buttons and zippers too. If a sweater has finished knitted edges on the pieces I'll take out the sleeve and side seams. (This won't work if the sweater was cut from knitted fabric and sewn together on a sewing machine.) Sweaters were not intended to be washed so some will bleed like mad, particularly reds and any dark saturated colors.
Each sweater has its own personality. Some will felt well with one wash others may need a second wash. Or you can add a kettle of boiling water once the wash starts to agitate. I set my machine for the longest wash and sometimes turn it back before the rinse to agitate longer. Leaving the lid open stops the machine before the wash drains so you can check it. Unfortunately, the newer machines may not let you do this and because they are made to be more gentle, don't felt as well. You could take your sweaters to a laundromat, hopefully one with older machines.
In my next post I'll talk about the fun stuff, making projects and why I love my clothes shaver.