Moving UFOs Along

I did get out the Slabtown Backpack project. I didn’t have to do much digging to unearth it as it has been sitting here in my office for a year. Restarting a project after a long hiatus can be difficult because it takes time to figure out where the project stalled. I have always been very impressed with the Klum House patterns, though. They are broken down into easily-manageable steps with excellent explanations and illustrations. I had marked the pattern where I stopped, so it was a simple matter to pick up and continue.

The backpack portion is now done:

I expected this to take longer. I thought I’d get one or two steps done every day over the next week, but finishing the bag only took about three hours. I still have to attach the straps and some hardware. I’ll wait to do that, however, until some morning when I am fresh and less likely to make a stupid mistake.

It feels good to move this along, especially as this was not an inexpensive kit. And we can always use another backpack around here. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long. I do enjoy sewing with waxed canvas.

I made another batch of curried zucchini soup while working on this. WS came over last night to buy my extra cucumbers to sell at his corner market. (At eight years old, he has a much better grasp of economics than most adults I know.) The collards are just about ready to pick, blanch, and freeze. I started doing collards instead of spinach a couple of years ago because I always missed the five-minute window between when spinach was ready and when it bolted. Collards are just as good in soups.

I want to experiment with canning some soups. I cannot bring myself to pay close to $5 for a can of Amy’s when I have all the ingredients here to make my own. I thought about canning that curried zucchini soup—freezer space is going to be at a premium soon—but I am not finding much USDA guidance on canning anything like that. I’ll start with some approved recipes, first.

[I used my homemade chicken stock as a base for the curried zucchini soup, and I have to say that it is so much better than anything I’ve ever bought in the store.]

I’ve got two Cookin’ in Color Apron classes today, one this morning and one this evening. That is not an ideal schedule for this morning person, but we had someone who could only take an evening class and I wanted to accommodate her.

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Finishing this backpack was the motivation I needed to keep going. My sew-jo was about to take a hike and I didn’t want that to happen. It is still ridiculously hot here, in the 90s until at least Monday. March and August are my two least favorite months of the year. The chickens are cranky and sniping at each other. Another fire started yesterday, not far from the one I drove by on my way back from Spokane. The husband is doing a job up by Glacier National Park and got caught in a traffic jam after a car accident on his way home the other night. There have been a lot of car accidents. People are driving like idiots. Every time I go to town, I pass drivers looking down at their phones (usually on Lake Blaine Road, for you locals).

I await fall. And snow.