Fall weather inspiration

 

I love fall.  It is my absolute favorite time of the year.  I love the cool weather, the upcoming holidays, and the shorter days.  When that first day of fall weather hits I start thinking about making homemade bread, canning, pumpkin pies, and using the fireplace.  This year, the canning bug hit.  Two years ago I made about 20 jars of plum jam but this year I wanted to use fruit from my garden.

My good friend Theresa, who moved away a few years ago, was quite the avid farmer/gardener and a totally awesome do-it-yourselfer.  Before she left, she gave me two of her grape vines.  I planted them back along my fence line but didn’t do much else with them.  We had some serious problems with irrigation and I never saw the vines grow.  I assume I had killed them.  This year, after some serious backyard renovation and irrigation repair, the vines started growing like weeds.  I couldn’t believe they were still alive!  We had so many grapes – I didn’t know what to do with them all.  Enter – fall weather and canning.  This is what we picked just the other day:

 

And this is what we got in the end:

Yummy homemade grape jelly.  How awesome is that?!?

Embroidery

 

My sewing machine is so awesome.  I love embroidery but don’t have the talent to do it (or the patience).  My machine will transfer a computer picture to any cloth surface.  I wanted to make something special for Julia’s 2nd birthday coming up.  So I made this:

Last year, I was at a meeting for YW and a woman was speaking about her daughter.  As she was talking, she displayed a picture of her little girl, about 1 or 2 years old, sitting next to an embroidered pillow that said, “I am a Child of God.”  I thought it was the most awesome picture I had ever seen.  It was really grainy and old but the message of how precious this little girl was, not only to her parents, but her Heavenly Father, just warmed my heart.  I knew I wanted to do the same thing for Julia.  I actually made this pillow last year but J was not old enough to understand it’s meaning.  She may not understand it this year, but I want to give it to her and take a few pictures because I want her to know now, and in the years to come, how truly precious she is.