Making preserves with Flathead cherries

My daughter gave me several pounds of flathead cherries last week.
They taste so good at first, better than store bought cherries .
After my family ate their fill for a week we started to get tired of cherries.
I needed to do something with about six pounds as they were getting ripe fast.
I decided to make preserves and ended up with 12 ½ pints.

Here is the recipe I used. You can also use this recipe with most fresh fruit.

2 pounds cherries ( 6 cups)
4 cups sugar.
6 ½ pint jars
Pit cherries and add sugar into large pot. Cook to a rolling boil for 20 minutes. Because my cherries were so ripe and sweet I only added 3 cups of sugar to 2 pounds cherries. I also had to add one box Sure Jell to mine. Put cooked preserves in clean canning jars and seal. This is a simple and easy recipe to use. If you have never canned before I would recommend getting a canning and freezing book by either Ball and Kerr.

Summer flowers

There is a bed of beautiful flowers at the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge.
I took these pictures about 30 minutes before dark.

There were a lot of bees, damselflies and mosquitoes flying around the flower beds.
The damselflies are a beautiful blue and after several attempts trying to photograph them I finally got a somewhat decent picture of one. The purple flowers are lavender. One of my favorites.

This is the latest picture of my husband camper. Starting to look good.

1974 Aloha camper

My husband bought a 1964 Aloha Shasta compact trailer today. Camper had been used as a hunting camper and you can still smell dog odor in it. The price was very cheap, cheap, cheap.
My son and husband are going to use it on weekend prospecting trips .
They go into areas that have black bears and possible grizzly bears and did not like sleeping in a tent. Outside of camper needs a good painting.

I tried to get pictures before my son and husband gutted it but was to late.
The carpet was so dirty and smelly and it was hard to tell what the original color was.
This picture shows my husband mopping the floors after taking carpet out. You can see how dirty it is, after only just a small bit of mopping. Floor had nice vinyl floor and most likely the original.

This is my son vacuum the dirt out, he had earlier taken out an old frig that does not work. They plan to take this cabinet out and make bedding area a little larger.
There is one small leak in corner that can be fixed.
After we paint, put in new curtains, new bedding and a portable toilet camper should be ready to go.

I believe these are the original curtains. They are in very bad condition. Cute fabric when they was new, have little hula girls on them. I will make new curtains but without the hula girls. Maybe flowers, I think they would like that.

My cat loves flowers

I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my duaghter on mother' s day. I decided to keep the dry purple flowers and put in a vase other red flowers..

The first day my cat, who loves flowers, jumped on the table and checked each one of them out for about 15 minutes.

The next day he again jumped on the table and rearraged them to his liking. Yes, I just left them as he had arranged them.

The next day he again jumped on the table and picked one of the purple flowers from vase. He dropped it on the floor and the second picture shows what he did with it.

I hope this has satisfied his curiosty and will leave the rest of flowers alone.

Kootenai Falls or let me just die

Yesterday we drove 4 hours for a soccer game to Libby, Montana and the temperature was 93*. Not suppose to be that hot here in Montana.
After we left the games we stopped with some of the parents and about 10 kids at Kootenai Falls.

The walk back to falls and swinging bridge was suppose to be a short walk. But with temps in the 90’s and walking down narrow trails going down hill, the walk seemed to go on and on and on.
We crossed a bridge going over the rail road tracks with about 4 sets of stairs on each side of bridge and time I got to other side, I thought let me just die here, but my daughter would not let me. Finally we got to the falls and the river was raging with mountain snow melts.
After a brief look at falls and no kids falling in water we made our way to the swinging bridge.
By time I got there, I was hot , sweating, thirsty, and I thought my heart would beat out of my chest.

I was breathing like a horse that had just raced in the Kentucky Derby.
If my daughter had left me there I think I would have just died right there.
The kids went across the swinging bridge and seemed to have a good time.
I looked at those millions of stairs going up to bridge and decided that I had rather rest on a nice rock than cross that bridge.
After some time kids came back across, ready to climb back up that long hill (mountain) to me.

When we got to bridge going across rail road track, one man had lain down in grass to rest. I really wanted to join him but my daughter said she would carry me on her back up steps. ( great daughter).
I told her I can make it. I believe the steps had multiplied from the first time we had crossed them There seemed to be more of them than the first time.

I have decided either I am to old or out of shape for all these mountain trips. I think it is a little of both.
All in all we had a good time that day and I would do it again, but without the heat.
And a good bottle of whiskey.

Old man winter is out of here

Since old man winter seems to have lifted it's hold I have been doing a lot of bird watching and local site seeing. Came across this old log house that was about to fall down the hill. Also the rock buiding may have been a root cellar. The way the rocks was piled on top of each other was very artistic.

Ring neck pheseant in a field. Such a beautiful bird. Introduced to North America from China in the 1800's.

Came across this garter snake lying on the path. He was reluctant to move. When I seen a group of people coming with dogs, I stomped my foot on the pavement and he crawled off into the grass. He was about two feet long. It would have been nice if the kids in the group could have seen snake. Since so many people are afraid of them and they had dogs, I thought it best if he went on his way.

Earth Day and a Canadian goose

I took these pictures this weekend at the Lee Matcalf Wildlife Refuge.

This is a favorite site for amateur and professional photographers to take pictures of birds and scenery.

There was two geese feeding on the lawn but only one that wanted his/her picture taken.

The mountains had a late spring snow storm that came through and dumped several inches of snow on them.

Snow Geese

I took these pictures of snow geese that had flown into the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge.
There was about 30 of them and they all made their way on shore to feed except for three.
It seemed that these three was timid or had been spooked before on land. Perhaps a fox or hawk chased them.





After a few minutes a car drove by on the road and scared them off.
The second picture shows them in flight and the third picture shows them landing.
There was a beautiful reflection in the water as they was landing.

Felted woman quilt

I made this for a group of crafters that my daughter and I belong to called “ In Good company”.

Each month we are given a challenge to make something from a kit that we get.

For the month of April we was given 4 colors of wool felt to use, a piece of wool fabric and felt needles along with a few other items.

I told my daughter that we should make something really different. After thinking about it for a few days I came up with making a man and woman wall quilt.
My daughter choose the man and that left me with the woman to make.

I decided to use a vintage picture of a beautiful young girl and use the wool felt to make her hair.
I used wool fabric to make the hat with.

You can see my daughters wall quilt at her blog site. http://kianafecteau.blogspot.com/

These are original designs.

Small wool pillow

I love to make small pillows and since I have never sewn with wool I decided to make a small pillow.
I wanted to see how easy wool is to sew.
I think the wool fabrics sew as good as cotton fabrics.
I will make a larger pillow and a few more smaller pillows.
I love this green color. Green and burgundy colors go together beautiful.
These are hand-dyed wool fabrics.
I bought fabrics from a shop that does their own dying of different fabrics.

Wool yarn and felting

This week I bought from two different shops beautiful wool and wool felting.
Both the fabric and felting had been hand dyed.
There was so many different colors that I had a hard time choosing which one’s I wanted to buy.
I finally decided on a few basic colors to start with.
One shop had every kind of wool from animals that I did not even know wool was used from them.
Some of the wool was so soft that I just wanted to dive into the basket and lie on it.
I used to knit and almost got tempted to start knitting again.
The new fabrics that are out for knitting are a lot different than the old dime store yarns that I used to use.
I keep telling myself I don‘t have time to start a new craft.

Now I just need to decide what I want to make with all this beautiful wool.

Mixed media art quilt. Girl with leaves

I love this vintage picture. I wanted to use it on a small quilt and I could not find just the right fabrics to use with it.
I wanted the quilt to have an old vintage look to it.
I had just made a lap quilt with plaids and had a scrap laying on my cutting table.
I had at last found the perfect fabric to use!
I put some new and vintage buttons on top , beads and hand and machine embroidery.
This is beautiful framed.

Lavender sachet

The wind is blowing as she runs through a field of flowers.

Holding onto her scarf to keep it from blowing off her head.

I am a big fan of Pre-Raphaelite art. The women are absolutely beautiful in the art works.

I decided to use this picture in a lavender sachet.

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I like to add bead work to some of my designs. This is another Pre-Raphalelite picture. Original designs.

Fabric collage quilts

I have been making small art quilts in the past few days.
It has been some time since I have made any of these as I have been working on larger quilts.
To take a break from a large quilt, I feel the need to go smaller.
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I love these small pieces framed. They can be hung in a small area that calls for a small work of art.
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I never know what I am going to make when I start. Sometimes an idea will pop in my head before I get out of bed in the morning.
Morning is the best time for me to think. My mind is refreshed from the worries of the day, at least most times it is.
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I first choose my picture and then I look for fabrics that go with the picture.
I lay everything out on a table and start adding different things to get an idea of what my quilt or art piece is going to look like.
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Sometimes I will leave quilt over night if everything is not coming together right.
At times I have had a quilt to go together perfect the first time and other times yuck!!
If I am not happy with a piece that I am working on , I take it back a part and reuse the fabrics in something else.

Making vintage ACEO'S

I have been playing around with different ways to make ACEO’S this week.
I like making my bright colors ones that I have on Etsy but decided to make an aged looking ACEO.
Even thought the ACEO did not turn out the way I had planned. I still like the effects.

This is my challenge for this month. This is a group of ladies that get together once a month and we are given a challenge to make each month.

You can see their site at http://www.ingoodcohanddyes.com./

We had to use gel or gesso on a picture and bond this to fabric. I decided to use a wood board that I had and then aged the process. I gave it an aged look.
It is called “Memories” of peaceful days.
It is not my favorite way of transferring pictures. Being a little lazy I had rather print my pictures off on my printer.