A Homemade Week

This is what I've been doing all week.

Lynd's fruit farm is on my way/way back from work; they have a peach sale every year: $10 a peck when you buy at least 5 pecks. Last week I bought 9 pecks. It took me forever to get around to canning them. In fact, they were so ripe, I had to freeze about 3 pecks so they wouldn't rot before I could can them. I gave some to friends and we ate a bunch, accounting for 1 peck, so I ended up canning 5 pecks. In case you were curious, 1 peck equals about 5 canned quarts and 1 pint. I did a bunch of pints to give away as Christmast presents.

I gotta' tell you (if you don't already know it), Ohio peaches are awesome! We had a bit of a drought this year, which resulted in sweeter-than-usual fruit. Yum, yum, yum. I used the lightest syrup I could because they're so sweet.

We have friends who moved to Florida about 2 years ago, and I really want to visit them this winter or next spring break; if we do, I want to take them about a half dozen jars. Because living on the water is nice, but canned Ohio peaches...ain't nothin' like 'em! Nice gift, eh?

Next bumper crop...

This is the first batch of tomatoes from our garden. I anticipate that we will have about 20 more like this before the end of the summer.

I want to make and can salsa.

Unfortunately, I don't know if we have enough green peppers on the vines left, and the onions came up months ago, so it won't be quite the homegrown effort I anticipated. Still, I'm hunting for good salsa recipes. I think pints of salsa will also make great Christmas gifts.

I've been wanting to make some "butter 'em up" gifts for BonnieBlue's teachers, so I spent a lot of today making these.

I found the free tutorial at P.S. I Quilt. She calls it a friendship bag. Aren't they darling?

I made one for BonnieBlue two weeks ago, when she asked me to make her a purse (my heart leapt at that moment!). I let her pick out most of the fabrics. Did she or did she not pick the absolute cutest stuff!? Truth be told, I already had the fabric for the handles and the green fabrics, but she picked the others. And they were in the clearance bin! Woot!

I realized just now looking at the picture that I didn't stitch around the top of the bag. I also didn't quilt it. That just adds too much time, so instead, I used WunderUnder to stiffen up the fabric. And thanks to my crafting mentor, Mama Pea, I made a few adjustments, including making the straps like she does. One of my favorite of her tips is to use a contrasting thread and lengthen the stitches for a more professional look.

I have one more bag to make (BB has two teachers and an aide...private school; don't judge me). After I was almost finished with the first bag, I was reading her student handbook and noticed that there was a sentence about not giving teachers gifts. My stomach dropped a bit, but when I read on, the sentence ended with "unless homemade." Whew!

I'm also going to make one for a little girl at church who is 10 (BB is 5) but who is awfully kind to BB; she even invited BB to her bday party this week at a fun-n-games place! It was kind of last-minute, so I didn't yet have a chance to get her a gift, so I'm going to make a bag for her and fill it with nail polish, polish remover, and cotton pads. Cute, no?

And at Christmas, I want to make some for my nieces and sisters. But I'm not sure what to fill them with. Any ideas?

I hope this post isn't a hot mess of incomprehsible drivel. For some reason, my excision site is more swollen than usual and hurts a bit, so I took something for that AND melatonin to help me sleep, two things in combination that usually lead to...well, incomprehensible drivel.