Homemade Cherry Jam With Rum & Almonds

Cherries have always been my favorite fruit and I can eat them until I'm just about to explode. So when me and my husband went cherry picking at the Cherry Avenue Farms last Saturday I was in paradise. And here's a little piece of my cherry paradise for you - a delicious and easy recipe for homemade cherry jam with rum and almonds.

Image by craftcookie

Ingredients:
1 kg pitted sweet cherries
750 g brown sugar
2-3 tablespoons rum

80 g peeled almonds

Cooking time:
1 h 15-20 minutes

Stem, wash and pit 1.25 kg of ripe, sweet cherries. This should give you around 1 kg of pitted cherries.
Combine the cherries and the sugar and let stand in the fridge for couple of hours.

Image by craftcookie

Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat (around 4.5). Stir frequently with
a wooden spoon and skim foam off surface for the next hour/hour and
5-10 minutes.

Reduce the heat and add 2-3 tablespoons rum and 80 g of peeled almonds to the mixture. Keep stirring for another 10 minutes to allow flavors to mix.

Ladle jam into preheated jars, leaving some head space. Seal jars, turn them upside down and leave them to cool down.

Makes about 4 250 ml (1/2 pint) jars. Enjoy!

New Stitches in the 'Knit & Purl' Section

Couple of days ago we added a couple of new stitches in the 'Knit & Purl' section of craftcookie.com. The first  stitch we'd like to introduce is the Stockinette Bobbles stitch.

Stockinette Bobbles            Side View
Images by craftcookie

This is the first bobble stitch we added to our library as a way to introduce one of the many techniques to make a bobble. All of them begin with making an odd number of stitches (usually 5 or 7) into one and the same stitch on a wrong side row of your work. Then, in the more traditional techniques you need to turn your work, work the newly increased stitches, turn again and decrease the stitches back to one, before continuing with the rest of the right side row. In the technique we used to create the Stockinette Bobbles the increased stitches aren't worked separately and there is no turning of the work for the specific purpose of finishing a bobble. Easy and simple.

The other stitches we included recently are created with nothing more than simple knit and purl stitches. They are also the first stitches with shiny new written instructions!

And here they are:

Stockinette Mosaic                            Garter Stitch Stripes                       4x2 Basket Weave
Images by craftcookie

Written Instructions Are Coming To Craftcookie.com

Poll Results (Image by craftcookie.com)

Over the past couple of months we've been asking you whether you had a preference for knitting charts or traditional, written knitting instructions.

As you can see the results are in and 74% of the votes are in favor of the written instructions. What you might ask is what we are going to do about it?

Craftcookie.com was created with the idea to offer a rich and useful resource for knitting stitches for our visitors and we are taking every piece of feedback and every idea we're getting very seriously. So over the next weeks we'll be gradually adding written instructions to the knitting charts on the website. In the meantime we would like to thank you for being our loyal fans and for your patience, while we're working on improving the site.

Your opinion truly counts.

My Knitting Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

We wish you all to love and be loved and to find joy in every little moment you share with the special people in your life :)
Here's our special greeting for the occasion and if you haven't seen Strictly Ballroom - one of our favorite, favorite movies ever - today's the day.



Just in case you're in the mood for a hearty knitting, have you tried our special Valentine's Day stitches?

• Simple Stockinette Hearts
• Your Twisted Heart I
• Your Twisted Heart II

Enjoy your day!

Knit Marie Antoinette Doll

Image by AmyGaines

Amy Gaines never fails to deliver a pleasant and in this case a royal surprise with her patterns. 

Today she added an amazing new item to her Etsy Shop - a knit Marie Antoinette doll. There's really no way to save the superlatives - the detailing of the dress and the wig is exquisite and the the only question is "Is His Majesty Louis XVI in sight?" 

You can get the pattern in PDF format from Amy's Etsy shop for $6.00 USD.

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