One Crafty Fairey: Hello there...step into my world for a moment

Stormy NorCal winter

Welcome! I am starting this blog to document all the work I do this year. I am a person that loves projects, I love building puppets, sewing all sorts of things, cooking, canning, creating art...I love it all. I love to create.

So, I thought it might be nice to record and talk about all the little busy things I do, just in case someone out there finds it interesting!

My happy kitchen

So this is my life, I live in a small modular home on a street where my aunt, uncle, and cousins live. I have painted and redone many things on my house, but more on that later. I work graveyard shifts that allow me time to work on projects, and I spend much of my free time creating. I have three cats and two scratched up couches, and a kitchen painted to match my pots and pans set.

So my goals for this blog correspond with my New Year's resolutions.
I hope to demonstrate hand sewing techniques, design patterns for sewing projects, post plenty of recipes of all sorts, and keep track of what I'm working on at the moment by documenting the steps taken.
This won't be easy, but I hope you enjoy my little experiment.

Starting off with my weekend.
I welcomed the new year by swimming across the Chico river at 7:30am in the morning. 35 degrees in the air and the water, it was quite a wakeup!
Sunday was spent sewing a pair of pajama pants with my cousin Gavin and making Mandarin marmalade with my cousin Joann. The pants are cozy and the marmalade turned out great. I juiced Meyer lemons for freezing so I can save some money this summer as every recipe for canning pretty much needs lemon juice.
Quite a good weekend.
What's the plan for tonight? Orange marmalade and drafting a pattern for a puppet costume! Fun fun fun!
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

Mandarin Ginger Marmalade

2 lbs Mandarins

3 1/2 Cups Sugar

1 1/2 lemon, juiced

2 inch chunk of ginger root, finely diced

3 cups water

Reserving 1/3 of the peels, peel the mandarins and whirl in a blender until it makes a rough pulp. Julienne the reserved peels. Add all ingredients in a large pot (the jam will boil up quite a bit) and cook on medium high heat, stirring often to prevent burning. Cook until thick, or if you have a good thermometer, when it reaches 220 degrees. Pour into hot, sterilized jars, and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.