a harvest classic: tomato sauce

with balsamic vinegar, red wine, and fresh garden basil - a great way to use up the last of the tomatoes before tearing out the final plants. We had several spaghetti dinners in September made with homemade sauce from homegrown tomatoes. I'd forgotten how simple spaghetti with bolognese can be - and how enticing, if you have four or five hours to let your tomatoes and wine and meat and onions ever so s-l-o-w-l-y simmer down to beautiful, deep, rich deliciousness.

This is like a shortcut to do the same again this winter. If you haven't canned tomatoes before, the only real trick is to make sure you add enough vinegar (with at least a 5% acidity level - my balsamic was 6%) or citric acid so that your acidity is at a safe level. Not sure about how much to add, or seeking recipes? I always rely on the USDA to tell me how to make sure my foods are safely packed. Find more information here. And happy harvest!

after

erm. seems I accidentally deleted my "before," since it took so long to complete this project! Let me paint you a picture: denim-blue cabinets with a shabby-chic dry-brush effect over them in white. Lemon-yellow walls and door. White trim, except for the middle part of the wainscoting around this window, which was a darker yellow, and except for the trim around the ceiling which was, for some reason, also denim-blue with a shabby-chic treatment.

This is the second room that had 3- 4 different colours of paint on the walls when we moved in. We did the bathroom first (lavender walls, with trim in two colours of green, a celadon shower, and ivory fixtures, woof!). Now it is blue, with white trim, and we are still stripping the shower to paint it white as well. After working all summer to get every bit of the painting done, I finally got Cass to help me do the wallpapering today - we'd been putting it off, dreading it. Thank goodness it was only the one wall - it only took a few hours to do. I still have to re-upholster the chairs, which are badly stained after years of use, and put up the steel curtain rod we purchased at ikea and hang privacy sheers (won't our neighbours be glad!), but mostly, this room is DONE. Whew!

Now, the walls are a muted off-white, as close a match to the background of the wallpaper as we could find. All trim is bright white, the cabinets are a pale green. Wallpaper is "forest" by Cole and Sons. It retails for $180/roll at anthropologie, but it's quite a bit less if you have friends in Britain, as wholesalers there offer it for about 55 GBP/roll.

I absolutely love the way this wall looks now. We'll be packing a few more plants into that window for winter - all the lemon-scented things that need to overwinter indoors, plus a few plants that I am taking care of for the neighbours while they are visiting family overseas. We bought little bathroom benches from Ikea to set them on, which can double as additional seating at the table when we have guests - we'll just move the plants to another room and set some cushions on the bench and voila! Seating.

So there it is, my little "swedish forest," as I am calling it, of a kitchen. Can't get over how elegant that paper is!

diy: anthro's gleaming cuves bracelet

lovely, isn't it? And on sale - down to $80 from $160. still too rich for my blood, though.

So I bought some brass rod from the hardware store, cut it, hammered it, filed it. I learned that I need an anvil - hammering on my concrete stairs was difficult and I couldn't get the even curves I wanted at the ends.

Then I wrapped it in silk cord designed for stringing pearls. On half of the bracelet I figure out how to twist the thread to unwrap the ply - it gives the softer look of the silk cord on the original. That long tail will be used to wrap the beads.

But first I had to get the pyrite beads on there. In order to secure the pyrite, I strung them on fine beading wire; I cut a long piece and wrapped it around one side of the bracelet. I put on the beads, and then wrapped the ends around the other side.

Then I worked the cord between the beads and made a few stitches at the back to secure it. Ah well, it's not bad for a first attempt. I have more pyrite; I think I'll look into getting some lighter-weight brass rod and an anvil and give it another go. For one thing, I think it'd make a lovely gift.

remembering summer

for a while this summer, the door which leads off to the deck from our bedroom was flanked by bunches of lavender. Our own lavender plants aren't big enough for this yet - nope, this is from our wonderful next-door neighbours, who offered us six big bunches when they cut theirs down in late summer.

We dried them for two-three weeks, then used our fingers to rub the flower buds from the stems and into a big paper bag, where they had to stay while we were on vacation in the desert.

Yesterday, I finished sewing up sachets stuffed full of the buds. I've had a half yard of this pretty printed canvas for years, waiting for a good project. I had been thinking it would make a pretty pocket on a hand-made tote bag or something, but I really like it in these sachets; perhaps I'll keep it and just keep using it every year for more sachets until it's gone.

What a quick little project, too - I used the sewing machine to quickly sew three sides of the sachets together, then pressed the top edge down, stuffed, and hand-sewed the tops. We came out with seven, all told - Cass took one to work, I gave two to a friend, and four remain to keep moths out of our sweaters (and of course, they smell heavenly!)

harvest: pickled wild apples and crabs

crabapples, that is. The dark jars on the left have molasses in the mix, I think they're better that way. These will be great cut into small wedges and served on a cheese tray, or stuffed into roast fowl. I plan to use one jar in my Thanksgiving turkey this year, won't that be a pretty treat?

more "summer" sewing

the equinox technically occurs at 2am tomorrow morning, so I suppose this is squeezing in at the 11th hour of the season that is on the way out. I've had this washable lightweight wool for a while and finally figured out what I wanted to make with it: a maxi skirt.

I used Very Easy Vogue V8232 again (just as I did for the skirt that I made at the start of summer) for the bias-cut skirt panels, but this time I altered the hem so that it was higher in the front and scooped down lower in the back (obviously, I'm a fan of the hi-lo hem). I also used the pattern that I drafted for a waistband for that white summer skirt. Then I cut three three-yard strips, each 12" high. I gathered one of them into the middle tier, and sewed two of them together to make the bottom tier of the skirt. The gathering took a while - I recruited Cass to help me pass the gathers all the way along the skirt.


The result? Voila! Wore this today with some heeled ankle boots and it's lovely. Hard to tell in this picture, but the back of the skirt is just barely above ground level when I am barefoot, so it doesn't drag on the ground. With all the fullness and extra length in the back, it kind of skims and swirls about a bit - a cute girl with magenta hair came over to me at a coffee shop to compliment it, comparing the movement to waves. I think I'm in love.

oh, and how cute are those thistle buttons? Found those (for 10 cents each) at a favorite antique/vintage shop in Fremont.

harvest: spicy green tomato pickles

what to do with a small handful (okay, maybe two hands full) of green zebra tomatoes and a few leftover homegrown onions? Spicy Tomato Pickles! (I used this recipe for rough proportions of ingredients, but added whole dried red chilis to the spice mix). Sorry, friends - this one probably won't be going out for the holiday care packages, as I only have the one jar!