I have been in Christmas mode. By that, I mean I have been trying to work on things for Christmas gifts. I do not like to procrastinate.

Yesterday I canned a few items, some of which will be gifts. DH's tomatoes are starting to come on. When given the choice, he would prefer slicing larger tomatoes than eating the cherry ones. I juiced the cherry ones and made tomato juice and canned that yesterday. I realized a quart and a pint for our pantry.

A few days ago a friend gave us some black cherries. We were not eating them fast enough and I didn't want them to go bad. So, I juiced them and made black cherry jam. Only realized two 1/4 pint jars, but they will make a small gift.

Each week I make a fruit salad and we had more grapes than I could use. I wasn't sure how much longer they were going to be good, so again, I made grape juice and then made jelly. There weren't a lot of them, but I realized 1 half pint and 1/4 pint of grape jelly.

I also made apple jelly out of some apple juice I had. It was from the juice I made. I have to add extra sugar because when I make the juice, I use very little sugar. So, there are 7 half pints and one 1/4 pint of apple jelly.

I also made sweet pickles. 4 half pints of those went into the pantry. We use a pie safe for most of this and with the green beans I have canned, and a couple of jars of spaghetti sauce I made last year, it is full. What a great problem to have.

I have been crocheting simple Swiffer mop covers for my friends. I use leftover yarn from the hats I knit when there isn't enough yarn to make another hat. Some of them are in odd colors, but they are used for the floor so who cares. Anyway, I often use a Swiffer duster and I just hate using them and then throwing them away. I was looking at the oblong loom thinking I could make a cover. I figured out a pattern and it takes both the looming and then a little bit of crocheting for the handle to fit in, but I'm thinking I can use these for gifts for a couple of people since I know they use the dusters. I showed one to a friend and she admired it. I didn't tell her I was going to make her some for Christmas, I just wanted to see if she thought it was a good idea. I have a bunch of white yarn that I bought at thrift store so I can make quite a few of them for very little money.

One of the thrift stores had a huge sale this week. Everything Christmas was 50 to 75 percent off. I have been crocheting small ornaments using crochet thread and I was hoping to find a very small table top tree. I found one and the total price was a quarter with the sale. It was in nice shape. I have a friend who has a small apartment so I thought this might work and wouldn't take a lot of storage after Christmas.

I finished crocheting a scarf for a friend in the Cubs colors for Christmas. I had made him a hat last year in these colors that he helped pick out.

We had our knitting group at church last Thursday and we are up to 644 hats. We probably would have had more except a lot of our members are on vacation. One lady at church said she wished she could join us, but she babysits the grandchildren on the days we meet, so I offered to teach her how to use the knitting loom at a time convenient for her. She said that would be wonderful and she would work on hats at home and give them to us for our mission.