PDF version available for download & printing here. This pattern is also available as a project on Ravelry.

The approximate finished size should be about 7 inches around at the top by the knuckles and 6 1/2 inches at the bottom after the wrist decreases. There is little stretch at the starting chain (near the knuckles) but quite a bit of stretch throughout the rest of the wrist warmer (about an inch or little more in stretch). The finished length is 8 inches.

Supplies:
Size F (3.75 mm) crochet hook
Sock Yarn – Approx. 200 yards give or take a little. The yarn in the picture is Hobby Lobby Yarn Bee Walk Away in the Footsy colorway.
Sewing needle for weaving in ends if you don’t want to crochet them in.

Special Stitches & Abbreviations:
BPDC: back post double crochet – Dc worked around the back post of the stitch. Yarn over, insert hook from the back side of the work right to left around the post of the indicated stitch on a previous row;
yo and pull up a loop (3 loops on hook), yo and draw through two loops (2 loops on hook), yo and draw through two loops (1 loop on hk)
FPDC: front post double crochet – Dc worked around the front post of the stitch. Yarn over, insert hook from the front side of the work right to left around the post of the indicated stitch on a previous row;
yo and pull up a loop (3 loops on hook), yo and draw through two loops (2 loops on hook), yo and draw through two loops (1 loop on hook)
DC Decrease: double crochet decrease – Work a dc in the next stitch without completing the very last step (2 loops on hook), then dc in the next stitch without completing the last step (3 loops on hook), yarn over and draw through all the loops. Decrease made.
Sl. st.: slip stitch
Ch: chain
Dc: double crochet
Yo: Yarn over

Hand:
Ch 30 loosely. Making sure not to twist the chain, slip stitch chain together.
Row 1: Ch3. Dc in each chain. Sl. st. to previous ch3 to close the round. Ch2.
Row 2: Ribbing: BPDC in first DC, FPDC in next DC then BPDC in the following repeating from to the end of the round. Sl. to previous ch2 to close the round. Chain 2.
Row 3: Dc in each dc to end of row. Sl. st. to previous ch2 to close the round. Ch 2.
Row 4-6: Repeat row 3.

Thumb Hole:
Row 7: Turn work rather than continuing in round and dc across to next to last stitch (leaving one stitch in previous round unworked). Ch2. Turn.
Row 8-9: Dc in each dc. Ch2 turn.
Row 10: Dc in each dc. Chain 1. Sl. st. across skipped stitches to first dc and join. Ch2.
Row 11: Return working in the round. DC in each dc then across ch1 joining the round with a sl. st. to top of previous ch2. Ch2.
Row 12-16: Dc in each dc. Sl. st. in top of previous ch2. Ch2.

Wrist Decreases:
Row 17-19: Dc in each dc making 3 dc decreases throughout round joining each round with a sl. st. to top of ch2.

Arm:
Row 20-24: Dc in each dc joining the round with a sl. to top of ch2. Repeat this row for as long as you want your warmers to be. (I didn’t add any more rows to the ones I made in the pictures.)
Row 25: Dc in each dc joining the round with a sl. to top of ch 2. Cut thread and weave in ends.

Now make another one!

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Photo by Ethan Hurd

When our oldest was in 8^th grade the public school he attended sent home forms for career paths – maybe a dozen choices – and told us to plan his course schedule for the next 4 years according to our chosen pigeon hole. How he was supposed to plan for a career when his life thus far had been exposed to so little at thirteen years of age. In junior high I despised history thinking it to be the driest and least interesting thing I could ever be forced to study. Up until high school I had only been exposed to state approved American and Missouri State history lessons and frankly, it was terrible. By the time I entered college I discovered ancient and modern world histories and well written American history. That exposure turned me around on history forever. I may not have plans to become a historian but who knew how inspiring history could be.

People reinvent themselves as they go through life. I like to visualize people as katamari and we are just rolling around picking things up and letting things stick to us. As we grow we are exposed to more knowledge from schools, people we encounter and our own personal explorations. Reinvention is a natural process in our personal evolution. The information we have defines the choices we make.

How can a person know what they want to do if they don’t even know what there is to be done?

For the last few years I have started to take time on at least a weekly basis to reflect on things that are important to me and to shift my goals as required. Learning and self-reliance have always held a golden place at the top of my list.

I have learned:

…that while it’s true that you can catch more flies with honey it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice yourself in the process.

…that I learned more from my parents than I ever thought I possibly could.

…that learning what not to do is sometimes more important than what to do.

…not to be possessive of my ideas if it means that someone is inspired by them, improves them, and builds upon them.

…that it is my responsibility as a member of the human race to be productive and to contribute to my community.

…that no contribution is too small and that greed destroys communities.

…that being a woman doesn’t make me less of a person and having awesome homemaking skills is a strength not a weakness whether male or female.

…change is necessary even if not always welcome.

We are about to embark on a new adventure and I hope that I am able to  share it with you in the same vivid detail that I am about to live it.

Work is insane right now as we prepare for the fall semester. I am in the middle of a VMware infrastructure upgrade and adding new VMware products into the mix at the same time on top of a bunch of other new implimentations. The VMware projects are organized like a house of cards, if one project doesn’t run smoothly it is going to foul up the rest of them.

On the hobby front I have completed my DIY spinning wheel project (will blog about it more thoroughly another time) with only minor tweaks here and there being done.  I have been busy unraveling sweaters and cutting up t-shirts to respin into new and wonderful yarn. I have been trying to par down my pile of clothes to refashion and have completed a few projects that will go up into a new Etsy store. My biggest problem with my creative endeavors is that I always want to keep everything for myself and I am trying to convince myself that while these new finished objects are indeed awesome, I am better off selling them to fund my hobby habit so I can make more awesome things. I have been knitting and crocheting like a fiend too.

On the home front the garden is coming right along but the tomatoes are taking longer to ripen than we have patience for. We are battling the annual guinea pig summer mite outbreak like champs and surviving the seemingly weird weather we have been experiencing this summer in the midwest. I am still progressing with my slow move to a more sustainable life and we are also in the middle of another big home project but that is secret for now. Can’t give everything away yet.

On the family front I have 4 kids to enroll in 4 different schools (stupid yearly enrollment processes), school supplies to buy, school clothes and shoes to purchase and closets to purge.

I have had a couple of people ask me if I have stopped the technology thing and my answer is no. I am still a sysadmin but I do spend a whole lot less time sysadmin’ing at home than I used to. It just hasn’t been my priority but I help out anyone that asks whenever I can. I have gotten past the point in my life where I feel like I have to prove myself and besides, I just have better things to do with my free time than tinker with servers and run up my electric bill. I still keep up, I still support things, I am still reading about new technologies and I am still working on open source causes – I just am not really talking about it all that much.

So there you have it, my latest update. Lots going on in a pretty vague post but you know, I have things to do.

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In honor of SysAdmin Day (July 31st), we most proudly present ThinkGeek’s 2009 SysAdmin Pageant! Do you know a sysadmin King or Queen who saved the network from inevitable doom? How about the brilliant mail server admin who finally got those plighted African businessmen out of your inbox? Now you can finally say thanks in a way that he or she would actually appreciate: the title of SysKing or SysQueen, plus a $500 ThinkGeek gift certificate! And if your nominated sysadmin wins, you get a $250 ThinkGeek gift certificate, too. Hurry, our pageant ends July 24th – and we’ll announce the winner on Sysadmin Day – Friday, July 31st!

Nominate them now!

• dnsstuff.com
• iptools.com
• DNSCog.com
• ajaxdns.com
• DNS-OARC
• SamSpade
• kloth.net
• DomainTools
• who.is DNS tool
  

There were also suggestions for console tools or installable tools which you can read in the responses above. I was specifically looking for tools I could access via the web so I won’t go into those in this post. Thanks to all of the replies. I found some of my neglected favorites in there as well as some great new links to add to my tool box.

How people justify shopping Big Box

Big Box stores – almost everyone has shopped at one at some point in time. Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Toys ‘R’ Us, you just can’t beat them on their prices. They have so much purchasing power by buying their goods in freakishly huge quantities that they run smaller mom & pop shops right into the ground. The average business cannot even begin to compete with them in most aspects. I hear people say they want to support small business but can’t afford to. This annoys me on many levels because everyone can afford to support local business, they just chose not to & they make excuses to justify their choice. Let’s look at those justifications.

Big Box stores are cheaper.

Not more affordable. I could go into Wal-mart and buy a lamp for $25 or go into the locally run furniture store and buy one for $50 or more. Technically Wal-mart has a lower price but do they have a better product? Additionally, do I really need another lamp or am I just buying one because I can afford to if it is $25.

The terms cheap and affordable are related terms however, do not have the same meaning. If you use them in the correct way, you can start to change the way you think.

Cheap: Low and/or reduced in price; Of poor quality; Of little worth; unfairly powerful.

Affordable: that you have the financial means for.

Big Box stores are contributing to the economic failure of American families.

There it is, I said it. Consumers are nickel and diming their hard earned income away and not even noticing. I am a firm believer in just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. What is it that you want and what is it that you really truly need. American’s are really good at being wasteful like no where else in the world. We have convinced ourselves that the more stuff we have the more successful we are and Big Box stores have no problem telling us that is indeed fact. We need big houses to hold all of our stuff and we need big cars to transport all of our stuff. We spend most of our money credit card payments for this stuff and then buy houses we cannot afford and lease cars that will never be ours. We don’t actually own anything but we are in debt for it all.

We can never have enough, it’s a constant pursuit of material happiness that we think we will find in substandard products. Big Box stores are there to help us in our pursuit of happiness.

What kind of quality do you find in Big Box stores? Not high quality, that is for certain. Pressboard furniture (made of sawdust and glue), cheaply made clothes that fall apart at the seams after a wash or two, toys that don’t least more than a few months of playtime and somehow we decided that this was all acceptable. You get what you pay for and we seem to be ok with that. We repeat the mantra they don’t make things like they used to and head up to Target and buy another one. Here’s the thing, they DO make them like they used to they just don’t sell them where you shop. We are so stuck in the vicious cycle of more stuff we don’t take the time to reflect on it. We have so much stuff we don’t even use that we buy pressboard furniture to store it in. I don’t know how many times I have heard people say they need a bigger house. I tend to ask why and they tell me because they don’t have room for all of  their stuff.

Instead of buying twice as many crummy things we could spend our money on things that have quality, will be a value to us, and that will last or at least give us resale value should we decide to replace it in the future.

Ah, resale value. Now this is the whole reason for my post.

Why buy it used when you can buy it new?

I had a yard sale this weekend with some friends. We priced items very reasonably and only sold items of good quality and we had a hard time even giving the stuff away. One of the things I overheard from a shopper ,”Why pay $3 for a child’s outfit that still *looks* new at a yard sale when they can pay $9 for one that *is* new at Wal-Mart?” It was that that made me write this. I can tell you why I would, because the child will outgrow that outfit in just a few months and I have better things to spend my money on. I buy a like new item for less than half of the new value and I have saved that much money to spend on other things I need or want that have more value to me.

There are many outlets for reselling everyday items including newspapers, flea markets, yard sale, Craigslist, and Ebay. You can find anything somewhere for the right price (and maybe shipping and handling). Obviously the more rare and in demand an item is the higher the cost is driven but, what about everyday necessities? We can factor the value of a used item based on it’s condition then take that number and using basic economic pricipals we learned in primary or secondary education factor in it’s market saturation or availability and adjust the price accordingly. What I have discovered is that current trends are showing that the value of a used item isn’t anything close to what it should be (we are also seeing this with real estate, automobiles, and other things but that’s another post). The majority of consumers are neither educated shoppers nor are they capable of understanding the value of a product – they are only seeing a small piece of the computation. They see a product, compare that product based on price in the Big Box discount stores where they shop and instantly place a value on it.

Example: Hardwood dining table handcrafted and sells new for $1500.00. Listed used but in excellent condition for $500 (considerably less than what they could ask for it but lets say the seller really wants to get rid of it). Consumers view picture (or actual item) and note that while it is in good condition there might be normal and nominal wear and tear so price is mentally calculated as 1/2 of retail costs. Sound reasonable so far? Wait for it. Consumer draws up comparable (to their memory) item, ie, superstore butcher block kitchen table. Retail price anywhere from $150 – $300 for substandard mass produced quality. Consumer instantly comes to the calculations that this previously owned table should be worth $60-$150 and might go as far as to offer such an absurd and unreasonable price to the seller. Seem like a fictional scenario to you? I witnessed this again and again in person last weekend. Item is either sold for an insane price, given away, or ends up in a dumpster because it’s just more trouble than it’s worth – literally.

Big Box stores have now not only managed to run out the mom and pop stores that provided higher quality and better customer attention but has successfully underminded used resell values. People cannot resell their items and they might very well end up piling up a landfill and I can’t imagine that all these crummy man made materials biodegrade all that well. Even if you aren’t greenminded think of all the potential heirlooms that are lost everyday because the disposable household items won’t hold up to pass to your children much less your grandchildren and beyond. Personally I am proud to have an opportunity to share stories of my grandparents when they were young and newlyweds because the kids asked me about my bedroom set which just so happened to be their very first one after they married. To some it might be an outdated dresser, to me it is memories everytime I give it a fresh coat of paint and a set of shiny new drawer pulls.

Before my train of thought got derailed I was talking about crazy consumer calculations and thought processes but I started testing theories.

The more you get the better the deal.

What is a better deal; 25 cents per item or 4 for a $1? Four is more than one so four for a dollar has to be a better value! I know, just bear with me. Big Box has spent a lot of time convincing us that more is better and it has sunk in. Buy one get one half off sales draw in consumers like no tomorrow. Drug stores regularly have sales of this kind on more expensive shampoos and makeup and I frequently see shelves sold out of these products by Monday evening even though the sale was only announced the day before. This is only 25% off two items but if it was advertised that way it wouldn’t draw in nearly as many sales. The items are already higher priced items to begin with so the profit margin is higher and is the $4 shampoo really a better quality than say a $2 shampoo? Frequently  consumer reports have found that there isn’t a difference in many products except the name, label and resale cost. If you are marketer you get paid to come up with this language that gets the consumers in and spending their hard earned dollars. Kuddos to you for fooling so many of us.

Herding the sheeple

My daughter recently went through a life skills class. They were assigned jobs, incomes, and bank accounts. They were taught to shop, buy homes, and spend money. They are seventh graders and this is one of the last mandatory classes they will ever have on these skills. She was assigned computer programmer and given an annual salary of $25,000 per year (quiet you geeks, I know this is insane) and her friend was given the occupation of physician and paid $300,000 per year. The went into their professions with no student loan debt which in my opinion was already a massive fail and told to find housing. My daughter (lucky girl she listens to me sometimes) decided to room with a friend in an apartment and split living expenses. Needless to say she ended the class with a healthy checkbook. Her doctor friend bought a very expensive home and while she was doing well with her annual salary didn’t have much left over when all her expenses were calculated. The funny (sad) thing is that her friend mocked her for not having all the wonderful things she herself had as a doctor. Good thing she didn’t find out how life can throw a malpractice suit at you and take everything you have.

Really, there was a point to this and the point was, we are failing to educate our future. We are teaching them how to spend but not how to be smart consumers or how to save money. We are teaching them more is better and that quality doesn’t matter but quantitiy is everything. We are hearding a new generation of sheeple off the cliff of dependency and failure. Why should we stop? We need consumers to spend so that we have more stores, bigger profit margins, and fatter bankrolls.

Don’t forget, Big Box isn’t just Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Fry, and other similar shops but includes grocery chains, fast food, and sit down frozen cooked to order chains like Applebee’s and TGI Fridays just to name a few.

I could take this in so many directions I might just write an e-book but until then you get the point. Big Box contributes to waste: consumer over spending, landfill filling, destruction of small community business and more. Is it worth it to have one on all sides of town?

Is the convenience worth the loss?

Do you really need all that stuff?

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My podcast had a lot of opinion, don’t get me wrong. I get adamant about what I think sometimes. But the facts, the FACTS need to be released. Opinion should ALWAYS be differentiated from facts and opinion should be based on facts – all of them – every side of the story. I do not support the mainstream media, I think they lie to people and only give the public the facts that they want them to know. They spin stories and leave pertinent information out. The breed ignorance. They are contributing to the dumbing down of my country. Honestly, it makes me want to cry when I think of the mountain of ignorance that we propagate. It is the saddest thing in the world to me. With knowledge people can bring themselves up and improve their situations. Those who aren’t self learners can rely on those that teach. Teachers who spin facts and withhold information should not be allowed to continue to teach. To clarify, by teachers I mean anyone who shares information with others, not necessarily those that are in paid instructional career positions. The propaganda machine sure doesn’t need any more preachers.

So anyway, I wanted to share information. Not because I had a sponsor, but because I wanted people to know and understand the important issues. I want people to be empowered! In fact, the only sponsors I had were in a battering system because a good friend of mine was able to hook me up with bandwidth or hosting space. I refused to spam my audience and website visitors with useless ads. Advertisements should be targeted and useful. Every podcast in the world seems to have that retarded Go To Meeting sponsor. Oh get over it and move on. Ack. Useless.

The work on the podcast was immense. Even tho my co-host took on the hours long editing responsibilities there was still the research and prep. Hours upon hours every day of finding stories and howtos then researching them to ensure I was providing accurate and useful information to my listeners. Then the emails and the IMs started coming in. I will not turn down someone who wants help nor will I turn down the opportunity for debate. I do love to talk, even if it is just email. Just forget Twitter, I think I am offending people because I miss their DMs, @s and other things they say.

I still have a day job. Oh, and I have four kids, seven pets, one husband, and ton of laundry and housework, and the list goes on and on household wise. I also garden in the summer because I try to be as self-sufficient as I can so I can avoid to mainstream garbage as well as teach my family valuable skills for the future. See, here we are back to teaching again.

Taking a look at the hobbies I have knitting, crochet, sewing, painting, crafts, refinishing furniture, upcycling thrift store finds… Here is even more teaching, I write howtos for all these things and have shared my knowledge of knitting and crochet and sewing to as many people as will listen. I am trying to build a stash of completed projects to list for sale at Etsy and I have people interested in my designs. Once again I have these hobbies so that I can try to be more self-sufficient. I sew my kids clothes, I mend them, I make my own, and I turn one person’s trash into my very own unique treasure.

Gee, I am rambling again.

Anyway, I miss podcasting. It would be freaking peachy if I had a producer, and editor, a sales manager for all the stupid monetising that needs to be done, and so on. I want to teach dang it. What would I teach/podcast about? No clue. It’s really rather complicated. How in the world do I combine all of these things which I love dearly and think everyone should know how to do into one show. How can I possibly talk tech and crafty things into one weekly show that both sides of the spectrum would listen to? Did I mention my day job and my house of noisy kids? I can only record at odd late night weekend times so that makes it even more difficult to add co-hosts or join other shows. Bah!

I am at a loss. Any ideas are welcome because I have no idea how to pull it off. I just want to teach.

P.S. I am a serious grammar freak and this post breaks more rules than I care to count. Please forgive me and realize that this is raw. So unlike me but oh so necessary.

Today, I patched my jeans while wearing them using an upholstery needle. I like a challenge. It’s not the best stitching ever, but it gets the job done. If you have never used an upholstery needle, it is curved to allow you to stitch and patch in places that you can’t get a needle in behind the fabric – like a cushion or the side of the couch or in my case, my jeans since I actually have them on. One pair of jeans saved thanks to a simple patch. YAY! Now for the pictures to show you the patching process as well as the finished result:

Sewing the patch on my jeans. I used a denim scrap that I saved from shortening another pair for my daughter.

The finished product

If you want to get creative, you can stencil a design on fabric and make your patch a designer work of art like I did with these pants:

I used Wonder Under to iron on the owl and cotton thread to attach buttons for eyes

How the owl looks finished on the jeans

I have added two more birds to the jeans to tie them all in as part of the design

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I am using fabric in cordinating colors – one striped and one polka dotted. This will give me to sets of cordinating (but not matchy matchy) towels to give as gifts.

First you need to measure and cut your fabric. To figure out how long I needed the fabric to be I ironed then layed out the towels to find the length. Add 1/2 inch to this measurement for folding over the raw edges of your contrasting fabric. After you know how long your fabric stripe is going to be you need to figure out how wide. I made mine 4 inches wide when finished so do make it the same measure 4 1/2 inches so that you have enough fabric to fold over the raw edges.

Fold under raw edges and iron

When sewing, your iron is your best friend.

Once you have cut out your fabric, iron under the raw edges on the long sides – 1/4 inch on each side.

When you have finished that, fold under and iron the raw edges from the short sides.

Raw edges turned under and ironed

Layout your flour sack towel and lay your stripe out on it. Get it positioned where you want it to be then pin it to the towel. Top stitch the fabric to the towel. I did horizontal stitching only and did not go vertically up the sides. When you are done, trim your threads and repeat with the next towel.

Pin fabric stripe to towel

Top stitch the fabric to the towel

Finished sewing

These towels are 100% prettier with the fabric added but I wanted a little more interest. I am using matte fabric paint – blue and orange for these – to stamp birds just above the added fabric. To make the stamps  I used the printables from Craft Magazine and two sponges. I traced the pattern of one of the birds onto a sponge and then used an Exacto knife to cut it out. I squirted some paint onto a paper plate, dipped the sponge stamp into it and then placed it onto the towel.

Sponge bird stamp

Sponge stamps in two sizes

Make sure you cover the surface under your towel where you will be painting. I used wax paper for easy cleanup.

Stamping imperfections can be corrected with a paint brush

Sometimes the sponge leaves the paint with gaps or holes on the impression so I just used a paint brush to smooth out bumps, globs, and imprefections.

Finished embellished kitchen dishcloth

When you have added all the painted details you want to your towel, allow to dry as the paint instructions indicate. When it has cured you will have a unique and impressive gift for family and friends, or you can keep them for your own kitchen!

If you are feeling extra crafty, you can use any extra or left over paint to stamp paper to make cordinating custom gift wrap!

Stamps on paper for custom gift wrap

Wrapped gifts

Happy crafting!

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It has really been stinky because I haven’t been able to do any task for very long without being in excruciating pain. By the time I get off work after sitting at a desk all day I don’t want to start typing at home. I can’t knit for long and projects that shouldn’t take more than a few days are going to take a few months. I am honestly about to go stir crazy.

This week the neurologist ran nerve tests and said I have damaged nerves in both arms. They are thinking a virus attacked them. I am being scheduled for an MRI just to be sure.

Anyway, I hate talking about my “private life” but I don’t know how much longer this is going to carry on. Wearing arm braces  (like they have for carpal tunnel) on both arms has been pretty helpful. Yesterday was a good day for my arms, today not so much. It is really getting exhausting and I am missing things that I should be doing so I thought I would explain my absence.

Anyway, thanks for still stopping by and making comments on posts. I am glad you haven’t forgotten about me. Hopefully I will be 100% again soon. :)

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“terry jones” sent me a message this morning. Of course said user hasn’t bothered to fill out any information on their profile. What a coward and a miserable excuse for a human to use Change.org or any other group they don’t agree with to attack people while they hide behind anonymity. Here’s the message (copied in it’s entirety with misspellings and all):

Your not real
It is so amusing to see people try to fool the rest of the world that they care about anyone else besides themselves and at the same time be such an advocate of such the contradictory cause such as the killing of a baby while its in the womb. You expose yourself as such fake person when doing so. Its just a way for you to try to fool people into thinking your a good person. Most people see right through it, so quit wasting your time,your unwittingly embarrasing yourself. You should just be honest with yourself and others and quit the fake posturing of being an empathetic, caring person and just admit to being a woman that has the sad ability to kill her own baby. No different than Casey Anthony. Abortion may always have to be legal but it will always be seen as nothing but the ultimate act of shame and selfishness shamefull. And that will never change. “Scout leader”, hah ! , gimme a break. What a phony. This is not the kind of change and hope this site is about. Get lost.

So please, if you are going to send me utter crap like this and spout off please do several things:

1) Use proper grammar and spelling. I can’t take you seriously if you can’t even spell.
2) Don’t try to talk big but hide behind the Internet. It just makes you look like a loser. At least create a fake profile and make an effort.
3) Don’t accuse me of something when you know nothing. I support reproductive rights but until you read this post you wouldn’t have known. The Women’s Rights cause is for equal pay, sexual discrimination, exploitation, and a load of other stuff. All of those things are near and dear to my heart.
4) Realize your pathetic private messages won’t scare me or change my mind, they will only make me more of an advocate toward my chosen cause.

So “terry jones“, feel free to get lost. Oh, and start using spell check.

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While finishing up the DVDs for season one and starting season two of Doctor Who, I knitted up a Police Box for my iPod Touch.

This was inspired by the TARDIS iPod Cozy. It looks really cool when I have it on and glowing through the stitches.

Yes, I am a fangirl. There is a bead on top for the ligh (and also to hold it closed) but you can’t see it in the photo.

Check out what others are doing for Frugal Friday at Biblical Womanhood.

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Ingredients:

• 18 oz of frozen mixed berries
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions:

• Thaw, rinse, & drain berries.
• Place a saucer in the freezer for later.
• Combine berries, sugar, and lemon juice in bowl and mix well. Leave out at room temp. stirring occasionally for two hours.
• Transfer mixture to saucepan & bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to prevent burning.
• Mash to thick puree then reduce to medium heat and gently boil for about 20 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken & stirring often.
• Remove from heat to test jam for gelling point. Drop a teaspoon full onto the saucer from the freezer and place back into the freezer for about a minute. Test by pushing the jam with your finger. If it is ready, it will wrinkle on the surface. Cook a few minutes longer if it fails to do this and test again until it gels.
• When ready, ladle jam into a clean jar. Place in refrigerator when cool. Jam will last about 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

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