maraschino cherries

Last year, I made maraschino cherries. I made a few half pints with a couple of different kinds of cherries, gave some away and as of today, I've got four cherries left.

I grew up as a child eating the bright red commercial maraschino cherries. These are not those cherries. These are so much better. Less sweet, certainly, but these taste like booze and cherries.

I use the N.Y. Times recipe.

The first cherries at the farmers market this year were small, pink and only somewhat sweet.

Last year I made them from sour cherries, which went over well with some of my friends who are far more into cocktails than I. I also made them with bing cherries, which I preferred. We'll see how these turn out.

I pitted them with my cherry pitter. It's pretty much a single use tool, but it saves so much time when you're working with cherries.

Then, I put my cherries in a pint jar and brought a little over a cup of Luxardo Maraschino to a boil on the stovetop. I topped the cherries with the hot booze, popped a lid on it, (took a couple of photos), and put the jar in the fridge to macerate. They'll be ready for cocktails in about a week.

Yum!

Finished baby quilt!

The binding on this took me a little longer than I had anticipated and I ended up finishing the last bit before bed on Friday night. The baby shower was on Saturday afternoon. I definitely cut it a little close.

There's something that's a little hard about giving away a newly finished quilt. I'm not sure I had enough time to admire the finished product. That's what pictures are for, I suppose.

I think Nigel and Malcolm are going to miss this quilt when it gets gifted this weekend in Maine.

Burgundy "Citron" Shawl

This is the only thing I want to do right now. It's Knitty's Citron shawl. I'm knitting it out of Malabrigo's lace weight wool in Pagoda, which is a mildly variegated burgundy color. It's so soft. My hope is to give it to my mother as a Christmas present, but at the rate I'm knitting, it'll be done long before that. I'm terrible at waiting to give things to people, but I'm also terrible at getting to the post office, so we'll see if she gets it early or not.

a new beginning

I'm hoping to use this space to keep track of the canning and crafting projects I've got going on. Right now I've got a baby quilt that needs to be quilted and bound for a baby shower this week, a little over a pound of rhubarb I'm not sure what to do with, and a knitted lace-weight shawl I'm feverishly working on instead of doing sensible things, like laundry.