Warning! Long, and involves (gasp!) cooking!

In the beginning, there was a field with strawberries:

In the end, there was a LOT of jam. In between, there was a lot of mess and heat. Yep, once again I’ve made enough jam to (barely) keep two growing boys (aka the bottomless food pits) in peanut butter and jam sandwiches and toast with jam for a year. For those of you who haven’t made jam, here’s what you do:

1. Get the berries. Now that we live in Maine, we go to the U-pick fields, where berries are a bargain at $1.15 a pound (about US$ 2.40 a kilo if my rough arithmetic isn’t too far off). Everyone in the family was dragooned into the effort of “getting close to the land.” Let’s say the boys’ work ethic needs work LOL! My goal this year was to get 40+ pounds (nearly 20 kilos), since last year’s 38 pounds of berries and jam lasted with only two small jars to spare. Alas, we got only 38 pounds this year.

Papa / Dear Hubby:

The boys:

Sometimes you need to take a beauty break (and take photos from which to make quilts in the future) like this one:

or this one:

2. Go home and WASH the berries and hull them (remove the leafy do-bob). This is what 38 pounds of strawberries looks like–and don’t overlook the tray in the sink. Make sure you are wearing shoes that support your feet, because you’ll be on them for HOURS.

It took me over two hours to wash and hull all of them.

3. Start making the jam. I use Pomona’s Universal pectin, found in health food groceries. It seems to gel better than Ball Pectin or the brands found in regular every-day grocery stores. And it requires even less sugar than the “low-sugar” version of Ball Pectin. (Ball, by the way, has been around forever in home canning, and the Ball Blue book is the canner’s bible of how to preserve foods by canning, either hot water bath or steaming–find the book and every supply you could ever need other than the Pomona’s at HomeCanning.com).

4. The recipes always call for mashed fruit. My wrists and joints are not up to mashing 38 pounds of berries, and things like food processors pulverize. So I chopped. And chopped. And chopped.

5. Measure berries into a heavy, large pan. My bought-at-an-estate-sale-for-$25!!!!-Le Creuset Dutch oven (bought in the early 80s by the way), an enameled cast iron pan, is perfect. Add calcium water (Pomona’s gives you calcium powder to mix with water) to the berries and bring to a boil:

6. Measure sugar and pectin into a bowl and stir with whisk. Most pectins require equal amounts of berries and sugar: so 4 cups berries, 4 cups sugar. I prefer jams that taste like the berries not “sweet.” So I have used various low-sugar pectins, and like Pomona’s best. I was able to use about 2 1/2 cups sugar to 8 cups of berries, or about a one to four ratio… ta DA… jam that tastes like strawberries!

Somewhere in the middle, take more future-quilt-reference-photos like this one:

7. While bringing berries to a boil, also boil and sterilize the lids and rings and the jars. You’re supposed to keep the jars warm / hot, but I don’t ever have enough space and organization to do that, so I’m diligent on the other stuff.

Aside: by the way, for several years I volunteered at the judges’ table at the Food Preservation section of the San Juan County (Wash.) Fair, and learned a LOT about the subject. The key thing is health and safety. Don’t burn yourself. Don’t poison anyone. So observing proper headroom (the amount of airspace at the top of a jar) is critical…too much air, and the jam can spoil and make you sick. Ditto for too little. Getting a proper seal (more on that below) and a “vacuum” pack through the hot water bath (10 plus minutes) is also critical.

8. During all of this, make sure the jam doesn’t stick to the bottom and burn. I have found that my Mom’s old flat-bottomed potato masher (dates from about 1963 and still going strong) is the perfect stirring tool…stands upright in the pan! See it above, at the photo at step 4.

Once the fruit boils, you add the sugar-pectin mix and bring everything back to a boil again.

Strawberry jam is notorious for making “froth” (yuk) on the top. I swirl the potato masher to spin the froth to the edges. I’ll skim some, but if you add just a few slivers of butter, it makes the icky froth go away (if you can that up, it looks like gray scuz…not attractive).

9. Set the jars near the jam pot. Get a ladle and the wide-mouthed funnel. Here’s a bowl to contain (see… I make some effort to stay tidy… doesn’t work, but it limits the mess, sort of…) the tools: a skimmer, the green wide-mouth funnel (highly recommended), a spoon (to ladle in the last few bits to reach 1/4″ from the top of the jar), a magnetic grabber to get the lids and rings out of the scalding hot water (the blue wand things), and a jar lifter (essential! to get the jars into and then out of the boiling water bath)–it’s that wire thing on the right with green rubberized stuff on the bottom to keep from dropping the jars.

10. FILL the jars, add the lids and rings. Lower into boiling water bath in canning pot (the big tall metal one to the right of the stove in the “view” photo of the kitchen chaos). Cover, return to boil, boil for 10 minutes. Remove using essential jar lifter. I set an old towel on the counter, then a cookie rack on top of that. Place jars on cookie rack to cool. Wait for the tell-tale pop telling you that the vacuum seal has formed! Success!

11. Realize you have skipped lunch and are ravenous after hours on your feet. Eat the first slice of bread with butter and still-warm jam. Heaven!

12. Attempt to clean up. Decide some of it can wait, since you left for the berry fields 11 hours earlier. Take a well-deserved shower and collapse into a vegetative state on the sofa.

13. Next morning: Set out ALL the jars and take a picture to show your blog-friends that 38 pounds of berries and just under 10 pounds of sugar, and four boxes of pectin, makes 35 pints of jam (in 45 jars, pint and half-pint). Feel very self-satisfied (grin!).

14. Get the empty jar boxes and re-fill them with this year’s bounty, and haul them down to the basement, where they will be emptied a few jars at a time. Be REALLY glad it’s another year ’til we have to do this again, but be really glad my boys like my jam better because it’s not too sweet and “tastes like strawberries.” Yum!

And if you’ve read all this way, THANKS! Have a piece of bread with fresh jam for me! Next: find out who sells raspberries in Maine for….drum roll…. more jam (but not nearly as much!).

OK…. the Dreammakers that work at Quilts, Inc., in Houston, have been at it again, doing what they do best: making dreams come true.

Even before I went to Houston I had heard of the Viking Exhibit there (the link is to info on the Viking website). When I first attended Houston in 2004, the Viking exhibit was my favorite part of the whole nine-football -fields of juried show, exhibits, vendors. It is set up like a Gallery, with walls (instead of pipe-and-drape like most quilt shows, including Houston) that resemble grey cubicle walls, but taller, and excellent lighting and display. There is a book for each exhibit, with a full-page (which are about 8×8 inches) photo of each quilt. Some of my quilt idols had pieces hanging in that exhibit.

I decided I’d try to make a quilt to enter the next year. Didn’t get in. Decided to try again the following year. Didn’t get in. Decided to try again this year. Only had one entry. The theme this year is, as usual, suitably broad (aka vague so that many interpretations can be made): “Imagine That.”

I GOT IN!!!!!!! Me!!!!?????!!!!!!!! I’m going to be in the Viking show with real quilt artists! People whose names many avid quilters will recognize, who are recognized professionals in the field. Me! ??? !!!!!! On Monday, the e-mail arrived saying I was in… once again, the hard-working folks at Houston who help administer this show, helped make one of my dreams come true. (and I keep going back, and the e-mail is still there!!!!)

Alas, I can’t share a picture! You’ll have to wait until Quilt Festival opens in late October, at which point I can share here (or better yet, come see it in Houston… I’ll be grinning like an idiot standing next to it LOL!). In the meantime, I’m gonna keep tap dancing on the rings of Saturn, it’s too early to come down to Earth!

PS… here’s a link to the quilts from last year’s show… amazing: LINK.

PPS…I’ll do the strawberry blog tomorrow!

Happy 4th of July everyone! For those outside the US, today is our National Day, on which we celebrate the day the folks who Declared Independence from England on this date, and along with Thanksgiving (a traditional US holiday celebrating the first settlers making through their first year) and Christmas, on of the “big three” of national holidays.

Last night, I wrote this post, but was too tired to finish it! If you’re a regular, you’ll know that Kathy Daniels and I have a show on this month at the bank in the center of Camden which we titled Two Friends :: Textile Art. Kathy’s blog is a Studio in the Woods, so her work and style may look familiar…and wonderful and FUN! (oh…and in case someone is wondering… yes, two colons, no, no particular reason except I like the way they look LOL!)

On Monday, July 3, I was able to hang our pieces at Camden Bank! Here are some pictures of the inside of the bank. Over the next week or two I’ll be uploading a new piece every day or two to the blog with details about the piece. I’m also hoping to get all of the new pieces added to my website in the next couple of days…I’ll let you know!

The Christmas Tableau quilt is on the only wall large enough to hold it, but still in the public area so people can get close enough to see the detail– right by the doors on Chestnut Street (next to the post office and across from the Village Green):

Speaking of the Village Green, Kathy’s Homarus Americanus and Autumn on the Village Green are on the stairs leading down from the Chestnut Street entrance to the main banking / teller area. There is a sign that advertises the show on that wall, too:

The ivory billed woodpecker quilt, What Secrets Does Forest Hold? is on the wall near the elevator (which I’ve never seen anyone use, but lots of folks go to the desk next to it):

The Garuda Dances Under the Ocean Moon was large enough to fill the large wall in the teller’s area:

On the mezzanine to the right of the Chestnut Street entrance, just by the stairs, is Kathy’s wonderful tribute to Aldemere Farms and the belted Galloway cows, in next-door Rockport.

The small quilts fit best on the oddly shaped pillar in the center of the lower space:

Kathy’s Rooster quilt is at the end of the teller line and next to the doors that open onto where Elm Street becomes Main Street (aka the busiest intersection in town, and these days pretty close to gridlock with the perpetual roadwork on Route 1 a couple miles north…):

Have a wonderful 4th of July!

And today, we left the house before 9 to pick strawberries (things ripen late up here in the north!). We picked and canned 38 pounds last year, and again this year, and it was barely enough for a year’s worth of PB&J’s and toast for two rapidly growing boys (aka the eating machines). So this year…. I’ll be sure to take pictures of the kitchen chaos! It is now 8 pm, and the jam is almost made, and I promise to share every last detail with you soon–but after I get off my feet and get lots of sleep!

There are classics that endure despite the passing of decades and more. Rope swings over lakes in Maine are one them! Last week, I took Joshua and a friend down to Shirttail Point, a “beach” (about 30 feet of muddy bank) on the Megunticook River about 1/2 mile from our house, where they met up with two of the girls from their class. The girls were picnicking, so the boys immediately took to the water and swam out to a rock on a mini-island–the one on the right is mine!

Joshua’s friend knows several of the families whose homes front on the river, including the folks who have a small float/dock and rope swing on the far side. They swam over, asked permission, and proceeded to launch themselves from the tree, over the river and down!

The girls eventually swam over (in the first photo, in the water look for two heads on the way over to the dock; in the second photo, one of the girls is at the rock mid-river), but had the sense to stay closely acquainted with planet Earth, and watched the boys. Remember what it was like to be twelve going on thirteen, the summer before your 7th grade year? Here they are on their way back to Shirttail from the rope swing–the girls are in the water:

Eli doesn’t swim so well, so he had to stay close to Mom…aw shucks! But had fun anyway, and managed to pluck a tree root/branch out of the muck which looks rather like a pteranodon or some mythical creature. I’m hoping to nail it up on our screened porch as art! Pictures anon on that one….

Before we left, some kids came to release two painted turtles they had adopted from the river a while back. Here they are in the box just before release…they were a good 8-10 inches long, and were VERY glad to be released:

Yep…. warm days, cool water, and life is good!

I’d like to invite any of you within driving distance of Camden, Maine, to visit our textile art show at Camden National Bank, at the corner of Elm and Chestnut streets in Camden (next to the post office, across from the village green). The show will be open for viewing during regular bank hours from July 3 to 31.

My friend Kathy Daniels of Studio in the Woods blog and I will have about a dozen pieces hanging at the bank. Kathy, as regular readers may know, is a talented art quilter from China Village, about 45 minutes up the road from Camden. I met her through Art Quilts Maine (the art quilt chapter of the statewide Pine Tree Quilt guild) and Kate Cutko. She, Kate, Deborah Boschert and I formed a mini-group, the Frayed Edges about a year and a half ago. Kate is still, thank heavens, part of us despite having decamped to Dallas, and we’ve been joined by Hannah Beattie…yeah! To participate in the bank show, you have to have an account there, so that means just the two of us.

Anyway, if you happen to make it to Camden, I’d love to come into town to meet you if I can and give you a “personal tour” of the show #grin#!

Over the next few days I’ll be uploading pictures of some new, smaller works, Kathy’s pieces, and hopefully shots of the show at the bank, so please surf back in to see!

And next year, all of the Frayed Edges are scheduled to have a group show in the Picker Room at the Camden Public Library, which has to be one of the most beautiful libraries and settings in any small town in America. We’ll be participating in Maine’s Year of FiberArt 2007–yeah! Guess we’d better get to work, eh?