Kicking out the Jams!

[jilliclecat.livejournal.com]

This is my first official post on Craftgrrl, although I've been lurking for a really long time. Apologies in advance if I mess up my lj-cut!

My husband and I spent a few weekends this summer picking berries, and I've made a LOT of jam. 33 jars of jam so far, and I haven't touched the blueberries yet! (I also have recently picked about 50 pounds of apples... yikes!) I've made raspberry, blackberry, boysenberry and marionberry jam. This was my first time making jam, and it turned out really well!

So in the fever of jam making, which took place over the course of a week, I found I was dreaming about jam every night. The last morning of jam making, I woke from a dream about jars of jam with capes and shields on their chests, saving everyone I know from... something. It's a little fuzzy. I suspect Cthulhu. But the important bit is that the mental image stuck with me, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to actually construct something that came to me in a dream.

I present:

SuperJams!

These are probably going to be Christmas presents this year, because there's no way that we'll eat 33 jars of jam before next year's berry picking begins.



Hello, I'm Jilly, and these are my jams. My husband and I decided that the Dave Chappelle voice in our heads was brilliant, and the tagline became "They're In Ya Face!"



Back of cape. These are just made out of 3/4 of a yard of inexpensive satin. I think it was on the clearance rack at Joanns! This cape was a draft, too. The actual capes for the presents aren't sewn in black thread, and they've got matching red velcro, so everything's nice and tidy. I also ended up modge-podging the labels because I'd already cut them all out when I discovered that the ink was going to run like crazy. Quick coat of modge podge sealed them easily, although it's not nearly as smooth as it would have been if I'd laminated them.



(I couldn't resist taking the cape for a spin!)

We did a tasting of one from each batch three weeks later, and only one batch of the raspberry was a little softer than I'd like, but it wasn't a dealbreaker. Still edible, no botulism. ;)

Thanks for looking!

x-posted to my journal