Smorgasbord

smor·gas·bord

noun

noun: smorgasbord; plural noun: smorgasbords 

a buffet offering a variety of hot and cold meats, salads, hors d'oeuvres, etc.

1. • a wide range of something; a variety.

     "the album is a smorgasbord of different musical styles"

 My free time of late is filled with a smattering of all kinds of crafty things. Summer tends to bring out my urge to create and this past week is no exception. I bound off my Happy Street shawl by Veera Valimaki last night. It only took 45 minutes to bind off and it's only taller than I am by about a foot or so. I'm contemplating where to block it since space is hard to come by in our little apartment.

 I cast on a new cardigan out of some lovely Miss Babs Yowza Whatta Skein in the Ironweed color. I have two skeins which should be just enough for this cardigan by Louisa Harding. It's a basic v-neck cardi to go with my second Outfit-Along dress.

 Little A helped me juice a whole bag of lemons today which yielded about four cups of lemon juice.

The lemon juice then went into this stock pot with strawberry puree and more sugar than I want to think about to make strawberry lemonade concentrate. My recipe yielded five pint jars and I'm looking forward to adding some water, soda water, or booze to this concoction throughout the Summer for refreshing homemade juice or cocktails. Yum! Maybe with a mint leaf or two? Even better. I'm using the Ball Book for Home Preserving which has very clear and detailed instructions. If you've been kind of sort of afraid to try home canning I can recommend this book since the yields are fairly small and there is a wide variety of recipes.