Gould's Sugar House

Over the weekend I went to Gould's Sugar House in Shelburne, MA on the Mohawk Trail (route 2). We were there early enough in the season to see the process of making maple syrup. We went last year, but we were too late in the season to see it. I love maple syrup, so it was great to see how it's made.

We got there at around 9:00 am, and the place was very crowded. We had to wait for about an hour and a half before we were seated for breakfast. There's enough to keep you busy while you wait, though. There's a gift shop, maple soft serve ice cream for 25 cents each, and of course you can watch the sap being boiled down into syrup. The Gould family is very nice and more than willing to answer questions. What a thrill to get a taste of freshly made syrup right out of the vat. You can't get any fresher than that!

The temperature is about 700 degrees.



It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.



They were bottling the syrup that day, too. The bottle of syrup that I bought before we left was still warm. Yummy!

Bottling the freshly made maple syrup

The restaurant is rustic; it's located in part of the barn. When your name is called, you go up a few steps into the restaurant to be seated. The kitchen is somewhat open to the restaurant, so you can see them making the pancakes, and other goodies. There are a couple of wood stoves to heat the place. Most of the tables are long, heavy wooden ones, with bench seats to match. They will seat about six people comfortably, maybe even eight. There are a few smaller tables, too. The restaurant isn't large. If I had to guess I'd say it seats about 50-60, but that's just a guess - I could be way off. The shades for the lights over the tables are wooden buckets turned upside down with holes drilled in the sides. I should have gotten a picture of that!



Worth the wait!

 The breakfast was delicious!! I ordered pancakes and sausage. They were out of this world. I can honestly say that it was worth the wait. You can't beat pure maple syrup. I'd rather not have pancakes than  put the fake stuff on them. We also had a small bowl of cut up pickles. The theory is that the pickles cut the sweetness of the maple syrup. Me - I love the sweetness, so that's not a problem for me, but they were good anyway.

Yummy pickles!

This was only our second year going to Gould's, but we loved it just as much as the first year. I can see this becoming a tradition.

To learn more about maple syrup or to find a sugarhouse in Massachusetts, Mass Maple is a good source of info.

Do you have any favorite springtime traditions?

My New Best Friend - Google Reader

Geez, I haven't put up a post in a while. I think it's because I'm addicted to reading blogs. I love them. I love to read about what real people are doing to their homes, what they're cooking, and what they're creating. It's a great way to get some inspiration and ideas to try in your own space. There are sooo many creative people out there - it's amazing.

Because of my addiction, I have a extremely long list of blogs saved in my favorites folder. Every so often, I'd open up the favorites folder and click through each one and read through the newest post on the blogs. Not very efficient. Then, I discovered Google Reader (insert singing choir here).

I think I first caught on to the purpose of Google Reader when I noticed that the blogs that I was following were listed in the reader and that the new posts showed up there (as well as on the Blogger Dashboard). Then I noticed that some blogs had "subscribe in a reader" buttons, and that when I clicked on those, it brought me to a page where you could choose your reader. I clicked on the Google button, which brought me to another page that asked me whether I wanted to subscribe via Google Reader, or iGoogle. I admit, that confused me for a while, until I learned that you could put a Google Reader gadget on your iGoogle page. So, from then on I clicked that I wanted to subscribe via Google Reader.

I realize that I'm probably a little late to this show. I'm just so happy to have found a way to keep up with the blogs that I had bookmarked as favorites. When a new post is put up on a  blog that you've subscribed to, then it shows up on the reader. No more clicking through my HUGE list of "favorites". Plus, if I'm not using my own computer, I can still access the Google Reader and stay caught up from where ever I am.

Also, if a blog doesn't have a "subscribe by a reader" button, then you can manually add it to the Google Reader page. Very handy. Apparently, you can also categorize the blogs into folders on Google Reader, but I haven't done that just yet. I may have to as the list on my reader continues to grow.

Now I just have to stay caught up with the new posts, and I'll be all set and won't miss anything wonderful from all of you creative people out there!

Making Progress

The quilt top is now finished. I was surprised at how quickly it came together. Now to fit the backing, sandwich everything together and quilt. I'm not sure what fabric I'll use for the binding. Maybe if I have enough left over, I'll use some of the backing fabric as the binding. I cut all of the rest of the fabric into squares, and I might actually have enough of those to make a small quilt. Maybe lap size. Or, maybe I'll get some more of the same fabric and make a bigger sized quilt. I'm not sure yet what I'll do.

I'm happy with the way the quilt top looks so far. I love the brown and aqua together. As an aside, everything up to this point has been sewn on the Singer 337 which you can read more about here. It's been working like a champ with no problems. It'll be interesting to see if it does as well with the quilting part of the project. Keep checking back to see my progress!

New Project - A Quilt For A Baby

I've got a new project to work on. Now that the holidays are over, the house is relatively clean, and I'm caught up on laundry, I thought it would be a good time to get started on a baby quilt that I've been wanting to make. It's for my husband's co-worker's baby. Ok, so the baby is about 7 months old now. I was just really overwhelmed before, and now I feel like I can breathe again. Anyway, it's never too late to give someone a handmade quilt.

I just picked these up today. I had a chance to go to JoAnn's Fabrics, so I took the opportunity to pick out which fabrics I wanted. That part is ALWAYS the hardest for me. I picked out five different fabrics for the quilt top. This is a change for me. In the past, I've only used about two different fabrics. I have only done 9 patch squares, or some variation of that. This time, I'm mixing things up a bit and trying something new. I have a design in my head, so we'll see how it turns out in reality.

These are the fabrics I chose for the quilt top:

For the backing I chose this fabric:



The backing fabric is a little bright, but I figured it'd be great for a baby to look at and play on. It's flannel, which I love to put on the backs of my quilts and blankets. It's so soft and snuggly, and I hope it'll be comforting.

I chose fabrics that didn't scream "baby". Those are great, but I'm sure by this time, the parents (and the baby) have tons of that stuff already. My hope is that this quilt be loved right into childhood and beyond, so I wanted fabrics that would be appropriate for any age.

The fabrics are in the wash now, and I can hardly wait to get started on this project. With all of this snow that is predicted, it'll give me something to do in between shoveling.

White 1505 Sewing Machine Price Lowered!

I've lowered the price of my White 1505 to $60. I'd like to make some room, so that's the reason for the change in price. It's well worth it! I've posted the ad on Craigslist. You can see it here. Please contact me if you are interested in it. Here is my previous post on the White 1505.

Finally, A Pillowcase

I finally made a pillowcase. Actually, I made two, but the first one got really messed up somehow. Seems to happen to me a lot. Anyway, I'm very happy with how it came out. I followed these directions from Amy Butler. They were very simple, and a great project for a beginner or maybe as a project to sew with your kids. I'll probably make a couple more, then try some pillowcases with a contrasting band of fabric and some trim. Those are really pretty, but I don't usually have a lot of time to sit down and create, so this pillowcase was quick. Instant gratification.

In a previous post, I complained about the prices of pillowcases. This one cost me $0. The fabric (Laura Ashley, at that) was given to me, and I already had the thread. All it took was my time. I sure beats shelling out $12, $25, or $50 and more for a simple set of pillowcases. I don't need them fancy, I just need them to cover the pillows!

Wishing You A Happy New Year