I finally decided to purchase a vodka that had been quadruple distilled to use in making my vanilla extract. I took three very fragrant vanilla beans, sliced them in half, put them in a small bottle, filled it with the vodka, sealed it and put it in the basement. In six months I will have my very first homemade vanilla extract to use in baking. I am so excited. If this turns out well, then it will be a matter of time before I will be producing my own with vanilla beans off of my own vanilla planiflora variegata plant. I will of course have to learn how to hand pollinate the flowers and cure the vanilla beans but that should be fairly easy.

We had to take another trip to Indianapolis today so we decided to stop at Allisonville Nursery after we had lunch at Applebees. Since our third wedding anniversary is the nineth of this month we decided to celebrate a bit early. At the nursery I found large bags of vermiculite and peat moss. I bought both. That should keep me in business for most of the winter. I also bought the game Gardenopoly. I had wanted it for a while and figured it would give Jerry and I something to do during the winter evenings when not much else was happening.

Of course what trip to a nursery would be complete without purchasing plants or bulbs? They had a buy one get one free sale on the packaged bulbs so I picked up two packs. The first pack was a gorgeous Hyacinthus known as ‘Isabelle.’ This is a double hyacinth with fragrant flowers. The tips of the outer petals have green on them and I simply fell in love. Hyacinths are one of my favorite spring flowers anyway due to their capitavating scent. The other package of bulbs I chose was from the Biltmore Collection. It was Narcissus ‘Double Poet’s Daffodil,’ another great bulb I had been wanting for some time. Jerry will help me dig holes tomorrow to get these planted and then I will begin the countdown to spring.

I picked up the sampler I had woven several months ago. Fred was kind enough to allow me to go to the Howard County Fairgrounds with him after the fair so he could teach me how to use a floor loom. I had to wait until the loom was out of warp for the project to be removed. I used raw, unprocessed wool to create my sampler. The plan now is to felt it and see what I come up with.

We also cut a velvet material up last night in lengths long enough to make a chair and couch cover for our furniture. I think there may be enough material left over to make matching draperies. The material that came with my loom, once made into rugs, is similar enough in color to the velvet material to make a rug for the living room floor and have everyone think the colors are the same. How cool is that?

Sheri