Stocking the Pantry with Pumpkin

Yesterday was a pumpkin canning day. I started with the two largest Winter Luxury pumpkins, each weighing about eight pounds:

They yielded 11 quarts of canned pumpkin. One jar is enough for two pies, so that’s 22 pies. The husband does not think that’s enough. 😂

I was surprised at how much these cooked down and got mushy while processing. The processing time for pumpkin is 90 minutes at 15 pounds pressure, so they were in the canner for a while, but still.

I cut them into 1" cubes. I could cut larger cubes, but they don’t pack the jars as easily. It is verboten to can pureed pumpkin because the heat can’t penetrate to the middle of the jars.

I am going to can at least one of the Georgia Roasters, probably on Friday. Those are supposed to make excellent pies, as well, but I plan to keep the Winter Luxury pumpkins in the rotation from now on.

I still have plenty of Winter Luxury pumpkins left. If any of my Kalispell peeps want to try one, let me know. I’ll share.

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I made a Ramona skirt out of the pink corduroy. The zipper went in much more easily on this version, although I still need to make some adjustments. My invisible zipper foot sews too close to the zipper teeth—even after pressing them with an iron to uncurl them—and makes it somewhat difficult to close the zipper. I’ll adjust the needle position on the next version.

That skirt just needs to be hemmed and it will be ready to go.

What I need most right now is a book on trouser construction techniques. I want something that shows how to use my sloper for drafting different styles, the order of operations, etc. I don’t think that book exists. I can go through my vintage sewing books from Singer, Vogue, Reader’s Digest, etc., and glean what I need, but it’s going to take a bit of effort. I would rather work from a book than watch YouTube videos.

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Speaking of videos . . . the quilt store likes to have promotional videos for my classes to post on Facebook. I think they would like to have them for all the classes, eventually, but I seem to have been chosen as the teacher guinea pig. Ashlee (the owner’s daughter) asked me to make one for my thread class back in August, which I did. Last week, she asked me to make one for my upcoming rulerwork classes on the sit-down longarm machines. I stalled and said I really needed to get a tripod for my phone, which I picked up at Best Buy on Monday. I made a video yesterday and sent it to her. The tripod is actually pretty cool. It has a magnetic self-leveling/self-stabilizing clamp to hold the phone.

I do okay on video. I should probably put on some makeup (ugh) but being on video is not much different than speaking in person. I am beginning to accept the inevitable progression toward video. It’s time to think about setting up some kind of studio here in my office. With the new LED fixtures, the lighting is better here than anywhere else.