Same excuses, different results

I've been very bad and haven't posted on this blog for quite some time. Just so you know I'm not totally slacking, I'm trying to finish a skirt that I started a very long time ago.

Most of you will recognize it, it's Knitty's Carnaby skirt. I've been slowly working away at it for quite some time, but it's still got a ways to go.

In the meantime, I've still been very active on my jewellery blog, Blackmaille Jewellery. The most active blog, however, has been my family blog Many-Hues Acres. We're currently gearing up for spring, so it's been a very busy couple of months for us.

I've been busy beekeeping, so please forgive me.

Here's one of my little girls (Bonus: That's a tractor hat that I knitted for my Dad this Christmas! Lookit the little trains!)

I'll try to locate the chart for this hat. The hat itself was a modification of David's Hat. I ADORE this pattern. It's very easy to modify for multiple designs. I even did a hat for my Grandfather that had a celtic knot pattern around the earband! It was a super easy pattern to follow (especially when you use the Magic Loop knitting style.) I'll try to get a picture of him wearing it, unfortunately I wasn't able to give it to him this year as he was out of the country for Christmas, so I left it with my parents to gift it. Everyone tells me that he loves it though.

Very busy

I haven't updated in quite some time...

That's because I've been busy working on my family's blog, Many-Hues Acres. My parents asked me to set up a blog that we can post all of our updates for the land on. So all of my beekeeping, all of my fruit trees and building, are all going to be on that blog from now on.

That leads me to my second excuse for not posting, my jewellery blog Blackmaille Jewellery. I fully ment for this to be a knitting blog on which to post my experiments and patterns, so I need to break it up a bit.

I'm really hoping that this will allow anyone who's following my blog for knitting to not be disappointed with my jewellery posts, or my posts on beekeeping and other land concerns. I do want to keep these blogs up so that people have an opportunity to learn from my mistakes and trials, I just want to make sure that my various followers don't have to dig for thier particular interests.

At any rate, thanks for being so understanding.

I'll be posting updates on my knitting as soon as I can, but lately it's been all Christmas presents! I will hopefully have a fantastic new pattern to release before too long, but as it's for a relative that checks in every now and then... It's going to have to wait till after Christmas.

Thanks everyone, I hope my blog(s) will be a little easier to follow from now on!

The last little bits of summer

I've been too busy lately. But here's so photos of what I've been doing:

Appreciation photo from a customer. She wanted Tiffany's Infinity ring, which has been discontinued. This is my version of it.

I attended a beautiful wedding:

Yes, those are knitting needles sticking out of my bag. I have a lot of gifts to finish.

I finalized a gorgeous wedding set

Completely done and polished

With a couple of personal touches

Have to love my mini jackhammer. It just looks so cool.

I got to play with a beautiful Mama barn cat

She's pregnant again, maybe that's why she was so nice to me

And spent a bit of time with Magik Morn's herd

I've never been this close to her horses before. So blessed!

And last, but not least, I've been drooling over this lovely number

This is unspun Lopi, which is from a special breed of sheep in Iceland. You knit using two strands together, which results in a very lightweight but warm sweater. These colours are just so beautiful that it almost makes me cry.

So that's my quick update on my life right now. Can't wait for Thanksgiving weekend!

Lots of Jewellery

I've been quite busy the past few days. I finished a couple of fun projects:

This will be available on my Etsy right shortly.

And these, you've seen before, but I'm still really proud of them.

So there's my life right now. Gotta get some earrings made and mailed. Whoop!

Quick Update

It's been a very busy couple of selling weeks for me. I've sold a bunch of chainmaille pieces, like this lovely:

I also finished two wedding rings:

This is a bride/groom set. The grooms ring says his wife's name, Kari. Her ring has his name, Derek.

And then I finished this Tiffany style infinity band, which started out as:

And is now:

 I think it's beautiful, I really hope the recipient does too.

And now I'm leaving to go camping tomorrow morning. My very first manicure is DESTROYED but the wedding rings are finished.

A busy weekend

It's finally Sunday, and tomorrow I'll be heading back to the city. As for my weekend:

Baby black currants, ready for planting.

Happy in their new home

Dealing with the deadfall

Barely a dent in the work we have to do.

My girls trying to deal with their exposed honeycomb. If you take a good look, you can see them sticking their little tongues out to eat up the exposed honey. This is on the bottom of the inner cover, NOT a place where they should be building comb. We're trying to deal with this.

This is the hive body. Noticed the exposed honey. They're relocating it now that we've broken it open. Again, we're trying to deal with this so that they put it in a better spot!

The girls on top of the inner cover

Red Pepper Jelly

Is there anything quite as fantastic as red pepper jelly? James and I found peppers in chinatown on sale for 79 cents a pound, so clearly...

Makes about nine 250mL jars

• 2 1/4 lbs red peppers
• 1.5 cups cider vinegar
• 0.5 cup lemon juice
• 1 tsp chili flakes
• 1 tsp butter
• one pack (57 gr) Benardin Pectin
• 7.5 cups sugar

Weigh out your peppers, and clean out the seeds and white membrane. Chop them finely, or do what I do and chuck them in the food processor. I don't puree them, just make sure they're chopped up really fine. I pulsed the food processor until it all looked good.

Put your red peppers, cider vinegar, lemon juice, chili flakes, butter and pectin into a large pot. At this point, I measured out the sugar. Bring your red pepper mix up to a boil over high heat, and add your sugar. Bring back to the boil, and stir continuously for 4 min. At that point, remove from heat and allow to stand for 5 min, stirring every now and then to redistribute the peppers.

Can using your preferred method. I'm a bit old school in this. I sterilize my jars in the oven at the lowest setting, then put the jelly in them and lid them while they're still hot. I don't bother with a hot water bath. I know many people advocate this, and by all means if you're happier with a hot water bath please do it. My family never has, and I'm just sticking with what I'm familiar with.

This recipe results in a jam that's a bit runny, which I prefer to pour over cream cheese. If you want it to be more firm, add more pectin or increase the boiling time.

(the butter just helps the jelly to not foam. If you leave out the butter, you'll have to skim the foam off the jelly before you bottle)