Cherry Season: At the Orchard

It’s cherry season!

My home state of Michigan produces 70-75% of the tart cherries grown in the US. Tart or sour cherries are the kind used in cherry pie, and they’re just about my favorite thing. The season is short, the flavor is fantastic, and getting them fresh can be a challenge. So when Bob and I went on a family camping trip just a little ways away from one of my favorite Michigan orchards, Spicer Orchards in Hartland, we resolved to pick cherries on our way home to Chicago.

And pick cherries we did. In a marvelous bit of luck, the day was cooler than usual, with lots of nice cloud cover, so the day was comfortable and the orchard wasn’t too crowded. We picked about 13 pounds of tart cherries, and threw in six pounds of blueberries for good measure.

I find it unadvisable to wear cute vintage clothes for serious picking.

Arguably, after the obvious benefit of having cherries, the best thing about picking your own is watching the cherry pitting machine. It costs a little extra, but the mechanical wonder took care of my cherries in about a minute. Since I hand pit cherries with a bent paperclip, which would have taken at least an hour, I would have paid more than the twenty-five cents per pound the orchard charged. AND YOU GET TO WATCH THE MACHINE, I cannot overemphasize that. I didn’t take any video at Spicers, but this machine is quite similar.

What will be done with this bounty of fruit? So far, I’ve canned six pints of cherries in syrup, made a little more than a pint of sour cherry syrup for drinks, and made a batch of cherry and a batch of blueberry scones. The rest of the fruit is going in the freezer, where some of it will await a cool day to make jam, and the rest will be used in various baked goods.

How do you like to use sour cherries?

1920’s Home Ec Homework: Granba’s Sewing Book

It’s the little bits of everyday history that I like most.

Recently, I received a small treasure: my great-grandmother’s home economics class notebook.

Dating from the early 1920s (we think somewhere around 1923), it is a showcase of the sewing techniques she mastered in ninth grade.

“Granba,” as the family called her, was known as a talented seamstress, knitter, and general maker, and it was really neat to see early examples of the characteristics that would be her hallmarks: absolute precision, knowledgeability, and talent. Sadly, I know her only by reputation, as she passed away while my mother was still a child.

The book is a combination of demonstration and composition. It’s a fascinating sampler of things a high school freshman was expected to be able to accomplish in the 1920s.

At this point, she was nobodys Granba. — At this point, she was nobody’s Granba.

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The Cutest Outfit You Never Saw

It’s spring in Chicago, so that means it’s time for Vintage Garage!

Chicago’s Vintage Garage is a monthly all-vintage flea market, held in a parking garage in the Uptown neighborhood through the warm months. Over a hundred vendors of vintage clothing, appliances, housewares, and various sundries gather, set up their wares, and sell to the vintage loving hordes. And for some reason, I had never gone. I always mean to go, then end up skipping it. Not this year!

Each month has a different theme, and May’s was Mid-Century Modern. Clearly, this requires a mid-century outfit. So I assembled one. It ended up being completely covered by my coat. It was so cold! While 50 degrees certainly isn’t the worst, inside a concrete parking garage it was much colder. I felt bad for the vendors. On the plus side, the people selling coats and sweaters probably had a great day.

This is the outfit I came up with. This is also the first time I got up the gumption to wear cigarette pants out in public. I think the whole thing is rather sweater girl and cute.

Details:
Sweater: Vintage, thrifted.
Cigarette pants: Reproduction, from Collectif.
Scarf: Vintage, gift.
Basket purse: undetermined age, thrifted.
Shoes: Super cheap navy blue Keds knock-offs.

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Maker Monday: Make Ahead, Make Space

To take a turn on Game of Thrones: Summer is coming.

There are a lot of things I love about summer, like trips to the beach, working in my garden, not shivering while waiting for the bus, etc. However, I have the heat tolerance of a popsicle. Being excessively warm transforms me from a reasonable person into an angry, wilted mess. A hot sunny day often gets my chronic conditions a-flaring, and let’s not even talk about how easily I sunburn.

If it's over 80 degrees, it's pretty much a given that I have the vapors. — If it’s over 80 degrees, it’s pretty much a given that I have the vapors.

These various things being the case, it is not surprising that I am not keen to turn on my oven in the heat of summer. However, I’ve been baking a lot of my own bread lately, and I’d like to continue to do so. Bread baking keeps the oven going at 350-400 degrees for about an hour. The natural conclusion is to buy bread. OR bake it at four in the morning. OR bake it all now.

Enter the freezer, my hero. I’m baking loaves of bread, wrapping them up in foil, and filing them away for summer time.

Food storage has been an issue for humans for a long, long time. It’s why we learned to dry, pickle, bake, boil, and roast. It’s why we figured out canning, and refrigeration, and flash freezing. Having a ready supply of food has meant the difference between survival and death for most of history.

In more recent, vintage-y times, food storage was a way to be thrifty and prepared. Homemakers stored the bounty of their summer gardens for winter, so they didn’t have to rely on store bought products. During World War II, American homemakers were encouraged to grow and can food, so that factory produced stuff could go to the troops and people who couldn’t preserve their own food. This is why victory gardens were such a big thing, and people could get extra sugar rations for canning.

My own reasons for preparing food are a mix of thrift, preference, and a desire to shake my puny fist at our corporate food system. But since I don’t have a summer kitchen, or a root cellar, or basement, or any of the many appealing options for storage that have seen housewives through the ages, I will first have to make space.

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Maker Monday: 2016 #VintagePledge

I’m not the only one who loves to make things…

The world (and Internet) is full of makers. That’s why I’ve joined the 2016 Vintage Pledge. Thanks to fellow blogger Raven Gemini of Revisionist Vintage, I actually remembered that the Vintage Pledge is a thing, and signed up for it.

The basics are thus:

Sewists and knitters around the globe commit to using vintage or reproduction patterns to make a number of things of their choosing. They share their projects on a dedicated Pinterest board, and use the #VintagePledge hashtag, and eventually there are prizes and such. It’s a great way to see what other people are up to. I’m in it for the inspiration.

So here’s my #VintagePledge:

I, Megan, pledge to make at least three vintage style garments, using fabric and patterns I already own.

This is what’s known in the crafty world as “stash busting.” As a person with very limited storage space, I’m sure my fabric stash pales in comparison to many. This is fine by me. I want to be a person who uses fabric, not a person who stores it. I have two dresser drawers devoted to fabric, and I try hard to keep it strictly to that. However, lately it’s been getting a little crammed in there. There are some pieces I’ve been saving for “something special” which so far seems to mean, “the inside of this drawer.” It’s time for them to live their best life.

This should be fun.