Grape Jelly!!!

Today's topic is GRAPE JELLY! yummo!
It's super easy and just takes a little time and patience. 

Materials:
Jars with lids
Grapes
Pectin
Sugar
Pots and spoons
Old Towel
Funnel

Step One:

Pick as many grapes as you can off your vine (or you can go buy grapes).  My vine tends to ripen around August-September.  I prune my vines back in February and they fill in nicely by the time summer comes around. 

Step Two:
Put the grapes in a large cooking pot and fill with water so it barely covers the grapes.  Now cook on a med temperate until the grapes boil down and the water turns red and everything smells delicious.  (Took me about 30 min) 

Step Three:
Lay an old towel (that is clean of course) in a strainer and set the strainer over another large pot (a tall pot works best for this) and pour the grape juice into the strainer.  The towel will keep lots of the sediment from ending up in the jelly.  You will probably want to let this sit overnight so all the grape juice makes it way into the pot.  When you are done, pour the juice into a container and let it sit in your fridge until you are ready to make the jelly.  (I usually make the juice one day, and jelly a week later) 

Step Four:
Wash out your jars and keep them in hot water while we do step 5.

Step Five: 
Get your grape juice out of the fridge and pour it into a cup that measures liters (I have a pitcher that has measurements on the side).  While your grape juice was sitting more sediment ended up on the bottom, so pour it out carefully and try not to get a lot of sediment in your new container.
The recipie I follow comes from the Saturday Evening Post and it uses:
1 box of pectin (Sure-Jell brand) and 3 cups sugar per 1 liter of grape juice. 
So find out what you need based on how many liters you have.  I did a batch with 4 liters of juice.  Each liter will fill about 3 small jars, so keep that in mind. 
Now, heat up your grape juice until it comes to a boil.  Then add the pectin and stir until the juices comes to a rolling boil.  THEN add the sugar and continue stirring until the juice comes to a boil again.  The mixture will start foaming and you know when you are done when you are afraid the foam will come right out of the pot.  Turn off the heat and remove as much foam as you can.  Now one by one take out a jar - fill it with jelly almost to the top (I found that a funnel works wonders here) wipe the rim of the jar off and put the lid on tightly.  Let the jars sit undisturbed for 12 hours and after the first hour you will probably hear popping sounds of the lids popping into place. 

Step Six:

The jelly will last for a long time, but its always nice to give a few to friends and family :)

Renaissance Mask - Long Nose

For this project you will need:
Plastic Mask (you can pick one up at any craft store)
Hot glue gun
Fabric (I used synthetic suede)
scissors
chalk
Leather chord

Step One:

Lay the mask out on the underside of the material and trace roughly around the edges with the chalk.  Also scribble in the eye holes.  I used this as a rough guide for where I places my fabric. 

Step Two:

Then very carefully and taking my time, I started gluing small sections of the fabric to the mask, making sure to smooth out the fabric as I went.  I noticed that as i got closer to the eyes, the fabric was wrinkling.  You can probably avoid this by starting from the middle and going outwards, or you can use the wrinkles to create features around the eyes.  For this mask I only did the upper half first so that the fabric did not wrinkle too much in the lower portion.  Also make sure to cut slits for the eye holes and tuck the fabric behind and glue to the back of the mask. 

Step Three: 
Now using a triangular piece of fabric, glue on the beak.  Be careful to smooth as you go to minimize wrinkles.  When you are done, poke holes for the leather chord (my plastic mask already had holes) and making a knot in one end, string it through to the other side.  Make sure to measure with your head how tight you want the string. 

And your done :)

Easy Renaissance Fair Boots - PART ONE

I know a lot of people that go to the renaissance fair don't want to pay a boatload of money for genuine leather boots, so here is my cheaper alternative that hopefully doesn't take to long. :)

Materials:
1 pair of old boots or shoes
Cutting Materials (Scissors, Seam Ripper, X-acto knife)
Synthetic Suede, Leather, or Fur Fabric
Sewing Machine
Needle and Thread
Elastic
and unless you have a good eye for shapes and sizes, I used pieces from Buttericks B5223 pattern

Step One:

Start with a pair of old boots.  Note where they are stitched together and how the sole is attached.  Many soles are glued on, but if you have flips flops or sandals, they might be stitched on.  Think about how you want the end product to look and think about which pieces might be useful to keep.

Step Two: 

Now using the cutting materials start deconstructing the boots/shoes.  I started with the bottom and worked my way up.  I left the lining of the boot intact for comfort, and I also left the leather around the sole intact for shaping purposes.  Everything else though, can go.  I used the seam ripper for most of the pieces, and scissors for trimming away unneeded areas.

Step Three:

Because my shoes were leather and very hot to wear I made new tongues for the boots out of a lighter material.  I just traced the old tongue on the fabric and cut out two pieces (one for each shoe).  Then I took the tongue apart (setting the leather aside and keeping the lining and the foam insert) and sewed the new fabric onto the old tongue (make sure you sew the lining FACING the outer part of the new fabric, and then place the foam insert on top and leave a little space so that when done, you can turn the whole thing inside out). 
I then sewed the tongue back onto the shoe in the original position and sewed the front part shut so that I wouldn't need laces. 

I then also added a small piece of elastic to the top of the boot and sewed it in place so that the boot didn't feel like it was going to fall off when I was walking around in it.  Very helpful.

Step Four:
For this part I cut out three pieces of the pattern from Butterick for their boots.  The two back pieces, and the piece that covers the top of the foot.  I sewed them together as per directions in the pattern set.  I then also cut out a long strip of fabric about one and a half inches wide and sewed it to the bottom of the piece (as you can see in the photo)  this piece helps cover the sole of the shoe and also keeps the rest of the fabric in place.  If you don't have the pattern, you can make your own pattern I'm sure by tracing around your foot and making measurements as to how tall you want the boot. 

Then place the piece you just made over top of the modified boot and voila, we are getting somewhere.

PART TWO will be posted later this week