International Can-It-Forward

It's that time of year again! Today is International-Can-It-Forward Day

Have you seen the new purple jars? They are just gorgeous. Bright, grape purple. Excellent for crafts, but also excellent for grape jelly. Grape Jelly is a great starter jelly for people just beginning to can because it can be made economically and easily from grape juice. It makes a lovely gift.

FreshPreserving.com has a lot of recipes available. The site is the home of Ball® Canning products, and today they will be showing video workshops and answering questions on their Facebook page and on Twitter.

I love canning, and so does my daughter- and I love the Heritage collection. I have all 3 colors, and my favorites are the green jars from the first year, with this year's purple coming in second. My daughter's favorite are the blue ones.
If you look at the flower jelly in the back- that has a pretty purple lid. This year, they came out with gorgeous colored lids and bands to personalize. So you can have blue jars with red lids, or purple with purple lids. You can mix and match to your heart's content. They also have the Sip and Straw lids in great colors too. Right now I'm a little annoyed because I took a pretty picture of ice water flavored with apples and mint and can't find the photo. The Sip and Straw lids are available in purple, red and blue. If you love mason jar fashion, or simply want to be more ecologically friendly and use reusable drink containers, these are a great choice. The straws are big enough for your thickest smoothie or shake recipe.

I've already written about this year's Ball Blue Book® Guide 37th Edition.

All the things mentioned above were given to me for review purposes, but what I haven't talked about is the Ball® freshTECH Electric Water Bath Canner + Multi-Cooker. I bought this for myself.
I love it, my daughter loves it. It doesn't heat up the kitchen the way having our gas stove on does, and with, we can get things set up production line style. Make the jam, fill the jars, put the jars in the canner. When we want nearly no effort jelly, we use the FreshTECH Jelly and Jam Maker, and make a batch, get it processing, rinse out the bowl for the jelly maker, start the next batch.

I love this time of year. My berries are turning red, and it's time to start canning them forward. Nearly everybody appreciates a gift of homemade jam, and it's so easy.

Rainbow Shawl

I love Darn Good Yarn so much, and while I was buying yarn for my purse, I saw the chiffon rainbow pack, which was unfortunately sold out. I knew right then that I wanted a rainbow shawl made from that yarn.

Darn Good Yarn is a pretty amazing company. Owned by a US veteran, selling fair trade yarn made from recycled goods, in incredibly bright, beautiful colors, a winner in every way.

To make this shawl, I ordered 2 rainbow packs of chiffon ribbon yarn from Darn Good Yarn. The ribbon packs come in different colors, so you don't have to make a rainbow shawl. Pick your favorite color packs. I just really like rainbows. The packs have 4 skeins each. The shawl works up very quickly. It took me 2 evenings to finish it.

In the end, I used 7 skeins, and had about half a skein left of the orange and yellow. Because of the nature of the ribbon packs, your colors may vary from mine, so you'll adapt the colors of the rows to fit the colors you get. Arrange your rainbow so color 6 is one you have two skeins.

UPDATE! 8-5-15 Darn Good Yarn has put together a kit of yarn to make this shawl! Available here- Rainbow Shawl Kit

My shawl used:
1 purple- color 1
1 red- color 2
1 orange- color 3
1 yellow- color 4
1 green- color 5
2 blue- color 6


A size N hook

Stitches used:
ch=chain
sl st= slip stitch
dc=double crochet

Some quick notes- because of the nature of the yarn, to change colors, I just tied square knots in the yarn and kept working, working the ends in as I went. That made it go fast, and it works because there are knots and loose ends from stitched together ends as well in the ribbon. It adds to the texture and makes it super easy.

When you're winding the center pull balls, make them loose and easy. Keep a pair of scissors handy to trim loose threads.

Pattern:
Using color 1= chain 6, sl st into ring
Row 1: Ch 4(counts as first dc and ch 1), dc in ring, ch 1, dc in ring, ch 1, dc in ring, ch 1, dc in ring (5 dcs 4 spaces)
Row 2: Ch 4 (counts as first dc and ch 1),dc in same stitch, ch 1, dc in next dc, ch 1, dc in next dc, ch 1, dc in same stitch, ch 1, dc in next dc, ch 1, dc in last dc, ch 1, dc in same dc

Now it's all the same pattern. All the rows start with Ch 4 (counts as first dc and ch 1), dc in same stitch, ch 1, dc in next stitch, until the center loop of the previous row, ch 1, dc in loop, ch 1, dc in loop, continue ch 1, dc in next stitch to the last stitch of the previous row, dc in stitch, ch 1, dc in stitch. So the increases are worked in the first and last stitch of the previous row and in the center.

Rows 3-4 in color 2
Rows 5-6 in color 3
Rows 7-8 in color 4
Rows 9-10 in color 5
Rows 11-12 in color 6
Row 13-14 in color 1
Rows 15-16 in color 2
Row 17 in color 3
Row 18 in color 4
Row 19 in color 5
Row 20-21 in color 6

Fringe- Cut 43 pieces of ribbon 10 inches long. Pull loop of ribbon through first space, pull ends through loop and tighten, skip next space, put fringe in next space all the way around.

Hidden Heart Mandala to color

This heart mandala was one of those that started out one way and ended up doing something different. I do like the final result though. The colored version above shows where the original heart is that I built the mandala around. If you color it differently the hearts aren't as obvious.

Print and color!

Small JPG version:

Large transparent PNG version:

Introducing Twined - something exciting and new

Twined is a brand new site with a fantastic concept. The idea is that Tastemakers- people you trust, write reviews of their favorite products explaining why they recommend them- and you can show your interest if you like or want the product, then Twined uses that interest to get the very best price possible for a group buy.

The reviews are well laid out, easy to read and include images taken by the Tastemakers of the product being used or the final result. These aren't slick, glossy images from PR departments trying to sell you something, they are real people who use the products.

Buy with peace of mind.

The Tastemakers can choose what products they review, they get to recommend their favorite things, Offered the opportunity, I wrote about the Ball® FreshTECH Automatic Jam & Jelly Maker (love it and use it all year round) and Aerogarden 6.

The products cover a wide range of things like crafting supplies, toys, home appliances, and beauty items.

Twined has great FAQs and videos to explain the whole process.

Go, sign up, browse the reviews.
You can check out my profile page  and follow my reviews.

Like Twined on Facebook
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I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.