"I'm Not Dead!"

It has been some time since I have written about my projects. Admittedly, I have been posting more on my SCA Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.guyton), but since not everyone is a facebook fan, I will update here. (Long post incoming with lots of pics) 

In no particular order...

ALL THE SOCKS!!! I am always knitting socks. Its my favorite thing to knit. Here are some images of the ones I have completed. I think there were some I didn't photograph.

I did knit several other pairs as Christmas gifts for family members, but those I did not photograph sadly. I should have.

Next... A friend was elevated to the Order of the Pelican back in November. I was asked to make her a Pelican themed Byzantine collar.  I used silk and linen fabric, silk embroidery threads and many, many fresh water pearls.

She was very happy with it and it looked wonderful on her.
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I made and donated a small blank journal with an embroidered cover to a silent auction. I was very pleased with how it turned out and fetched a good price from the buyer. I used silk ground fabric and threads to embroider. Gold palions were used as well for embellishment. The flower came from a period binding that is housed in the British Library.

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Two friends, who are the baron's for their local SCA group, asked if I would make them hoods with their arms and the barony's arms on them. These are constructed of wool and linen. The arms were embroidered in silk and hand stitched on. They are modeled by my two sons as I had to mail these off to the recipient.

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 The date is eluding me, it was earlier in summer that I was asked if I could embroider two napkins for a gift basket that was being given to a set of visiting royals. I embroidered with cotton threads for durability onto cotton napkins.

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I bottled another batch of limoncello. I always have a batch steeping away.  My last batch I made some orangcello. I was sad it did not have the brighter orange color that the peels were but it was tasty.  (hubby started sampling a bottle before I was able to take the pictures)

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Another friend was elevated to the Order of the Laurel. She requested that friends embroider a leaf to be appliqued onto her elevation cloak. The leaf i embroidered is below executed in silk threads onto a wool leaf provided by the recipient.

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Lastly, was a modern geeky cross stitch. I have been cross stitching since I was 7 years old. A friend had this pattern and let me copy it so I could make this myself. I love it. I am planning on framing it and hanging it in my "She Shelter" (the basement is my crafting area that hubby appropriately named).  Love me some Doctor Who!

I will make a concerted effort to update this blog more often. It didn't help I was injured by faulty equipment at my job in June that had me on disability for three months (and then they "eliminated my position" and am now job hunting).  Thank you to everyone that reads my blog and gives me encouragement and inspiration.

Ciao!

Limoncello!!!!

Life has been crazy but good. There have been job changes, lots of projects and fun.  This will be the first of a couple posts, just so as not to make them so long.

I had a job with the Postal Service that kept me from getting to events because my hours were every Saturday and Sunday. I made it to Coronation here in the East Kingdom and that was the last event until this past weekend with 12th Night.  In between then, my wonderful and beautiful sister in law treated me to my dream trip of going to Italy. We did a whirlwind tour of all the great places to see in 9 days.  My favorite place to see and eat at was the Almafi Coast and Positano.  I had my first limoncello there and fell madly in love with it. I brought home a bottle of it and it included a recipe.  I thought I would give it a whirl when we got home and the bottle was quickly emptied between my husband and I. So, I got the supplies and followed the very simple recipe with one change. The italian's use grain alcohol like Everclear, which is very strong in flavor and expensive. After consulting with a friend who also makes it, she said to use Vodka.

Recipe:
Skins of 10 lemons
Large bottle of Vodka (not an expensive brand)
Biggest mason Jars I could find

Friends were visiting and they all joined in the fun.

Zested lemons on left, peeled on right. 

Once the vodka lemon skins mix has sat for minimum 8 days, you make a simple syrup solution of six cups of water and six cups of white sugar. Pour the syrup into the vodka/skins mix and swirl around. Because the jars were full to the top with vodka, we had to split the jars off into an empty one to be able to add the syrup. Once done, you strain out the skins and bottle.  Here is the final results.

Lessons learned in making this: in our first attempt we zested some of the lemons and peeled the others. I would stick with peeling the lemons with a potato peeler from now on as the zested bits didnt all completely strain out even with a piece of linen. 

Still tasted fabulous though!  On New Years Eve, we toasted at midnight to glasses of Verde with limoncello mixed in! It was sooooooo good!!!!

Got more "cooking" as we speak!