Bayberry Candle Making Day and Apron Making Day
It's 11 a.m. and the house is buzzing with activity. The morning is gorgeous. Not yet hot and with a hint of a coolness in the air that hasn't been felt for months. I felt invigorated the minute I stepped out of the back door to do chores. The goats were most co-operative this morning, not sure if they were just being gracious to me for the new bale of sudan hay or if they too felt the slight difference in the air. Not less than a dozen birds were hanging upside down feeding on the huge sunflower heads gone to seed in the garden. Clean clothes drying on the line, not out of some sort of novelty thing, but because we have no clothes dryer. Our choice, many reasons.In the oven, 5 loaves of banana bread...a grocery bag full of "over-ripe" banana's for 99 cents prompted the baking. We have eaten lots of the bananas too. We like yellow banana's, not the green ones. One container of bayberry wax melts on the stove and another of beeswax...its candle making day. Bayberry doesn't burn well on its own, so I mix in some beeswax, less than 30% though. An hour after standing there dipping the candles I decide 5 pairs of bayberry candles will do. I am ready to sit for a while and sew on the aprons I cut out this morning. Three total. I am anxious to see them done up. Its my all time favorite apron style.
No time for laziness today, there is just to many things I want to do !
Here is a link to my posts with "how to's" for a few things I enjoy doing, including how to dip beeswax candles for some of the newer readers
Bayberry wax on the left side of the picture, beeswax on the right, wicking in the middle
Aprons all cut out, ready to sew
Banana bread cooling
Candles cooling, bayberry in the middle, beeswax on the two ends
Comments
Here is a little history...."Bayberry candles and the traditions we associate with them began during colonial times. Colonists could not depend on regular shipments from the old world, and were always searching for local alternatives. One such happy find was the bayberry bush. When colonists boiled the bayberry fruit, they found that it left a fragrant wax on top of the water. Better still, the bayberry wax was harder and more brittle than beeswax, whey they were already using. And, although making bayberry candles was considerably more effort, the colonists discovered that they burned longer and cleaner, with a brighter light than other candles. Because they took so much effort to make, many families saved them for special occasions, such as Christmas and New Year's Eve.
Eventually, burning bayberry candles on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve became tradition, and even inspired the saying, “Bayberry candles burned to the socket, bring health to the home and wealth to the pocket." Another lovely tradition was for sweethearts who were separated on Christmas to burn bayberry candles; legend said that the couple would be united by the candles' lovely scent."
http://www.pinelandsfolkmusic.com/candles/bayberry.html
Brandi