Hectic Life This Week

Life really has been busy this week.  Here is a recap:

I did manage to get these blocks for the Farmer's Wife 30's Sampler Sew Along.

This is so far, one of my favorites.

This one looks a bit confusing to me, probably my choice of fabrics.  The pink/red flower print was too big to use in such a small block.  I think overall though, it will blend in when the quilt is put together.

This had "Y" seams.  Doing it paper piecing.  "Y" paper piecing seams should be a four letter word!!!

This one reminds me of summer.  

Then I spent a couple of days getting my garden area ready for winter.  I spread two bales of hay along the paths between the raised beds, and covered my carrot and onions.  When I posted this on Facebook, I had a friend tell me to roll my hoses and drain the pipes.  It usually doesn't freeze until late December or January, and I still need water on for the chickens.  

Then towards the end of the week I had cataract surgery.  Yep, at age 55 I had to get this surgery.  It comes as a result of getting cobalt radiation when I was a child.  I am doing fine, and can see much better.  I am going to get the other eye done, as it won't be possible to do a prescription for glasses, and the other eye has the normal start of a cataract, so they will just go ahead and get it done in about 3 weeks. Definitely not my best photo, but wanted to capture the look right after surgery that day.  Smile!

Since moving my parents up here to live with us, I have been having my dad work on this sewing cabinet.  Remember when I posted about my Sister In Law gifting me the Singer Rocketeer?  And remember the old dingy varnish looking desk it came with, including the water rings and cigarette scars?  Well, Dad spent hours sanding off the old varnish, priming it, and then painting it a very light blush  rose color.  I also had him change out the drawer hardware with knobs and handles with pretty rose motifs.  What a transformation!!! I couldn't be more excited.  He did such a good job.

Well, onto another week of busyness and working on all kinds of projects.  

Warmest...

What's Up at My House

I am traveling out of state again, for the next few weeks, to prepare my parents to leave their home and come and live with my husband and me.  One of the many things we have done in our home is to fix them up a room to sleep.  We had an extra spare room so we cleared it out, painted, added a light/ceiling fan, and I made some new curtains for the two windows.  I scored this gray fabric, which is one of my Mom's favorite colors, and made four panels. 

I only wanted the length to come to the edge of the windows, as I didn't want the curtains to get in the way of the beds that are going in the room.  The picture didn't come out so well, as the sun was directly coming in the windows this time of day.

I also have been busy with this year's harvest.  Remember when I posted about all the little seedlings raised in the greenhouse?  And then planting all those plants in the garden?  Well, all of those seedlings/plants have produced.  Boatloads of produce!!!!

Tomatoes, about a bushel.

 Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans:

That came off of these plants on the trellis that had peas on it earlier this year.

So the tally for the day was 18 quarts of tomatoes, and 9 pints of green beans.

Fall is going to really be busy for me this year!  Hang on for the ride with me....

Warmest...

Garden Update

While I do understand that this blog is mainly about my various crafts, I also have a very vibrant garden this year and want to brag a little about it.

This is the peas that are going to be ready to pick within the next week.  This is one of two arbors that I have chocked full of peas.  It is hard to see, but the pea vines are on the inside of the boxes and the outside of the boxes have things like beets, pepper plants, squash, cucumbers and carrots.  I also have a row a beans coming up right in front of the beans so they can grow on the arbor as soon a the peas are harvested.

Remember when I filled some large tubs with dirt, and planted potatoes.  They all have come up and are doing quite well.  Supposedly the 4 pounds of potatoes that I planted will give me about 200 pounds of harvested potatoes.  Need to learn and prepare for some cold winter storage for this crop.

The box is mostly full of roma tomato plants, about 26 plants,  I am hoping for a bumper crop to make things like tomato paste, sauce, salsa, spaghetti sauce, enchilada sauce, stewed tomatoes, and anything else that I can think of along the way of canning or drying them.  

If you look closely at the front end of the box, you will see some small plants.  They are not tomatoes, they are peanuts.  Yep, peanuts.  I am giving them a try this year just for kicks.

These three boxes are more tomatoes.  One box has a mixture of red pear tomatoes, regular slicing tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, and I think a purple heirloom one.  The other two are more roma types that are different varieties that will hopefully mix together with the long box and make some awesome tasting stuff.

The box to the front of the picture is the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage plants.  Lots of leaves, still no produce yet.  Should be seeing results in a couple of week though.

Here we have the onion box.  I planted over 100 onions, I pick every other one for awhile for green onions then I leave the rest in the ground and pull one when I need an onion for my cooking.  I can cover the crop with straw and sawdust and overwinter them and pull them as needed all though the rest of the year.  How cool it that, having produce right out your back door whenever one needs something! 

The strawberries are producing, not at the rate I would like them to, but I am hoping since this is the first year the production will be low, and they will do better next year.

Thought I would throw in the picture of the climates that is growing over the fence from the flower bed on the other side.  It is really loaded with blooms this year.

The next two pictures are of the half wine barrels that are growing my herbs.  The first one has sage, thyme and oregano.  

This barrel has dill, basil, another kind of thyme, and coriander.

This picture shows how the herb barrels are positioned in front of the greenhouse.  I have already dried a batch of oregano (almost a quart jar of dried leaves) and a batch of dill.  I need to do some the thyme next.

Now that the initial part of gardening is done, it is now a waiting game until harvesting, then the next wave of work starts!

Warmest...

Starting today, at the end of every post, I am going to picture a new or several new cheddar blocks that I get done so I don't have to bore you with a complete post about them over and over again.

Spring Has Taken Over

I have a confession to make, when I read different bloggers who start out a post something along the lines of "Life has gotten in the way of my blogging" I have always judged the blogger rather harshly. Who doesn't have the time to sew, I always make time to sew.  So this this an apology to all those bloggers, because this Spring has taken over my life, and has caused me not to even take a step in the direction of sewing,  quilting and then blogging about it.

I started a new task  hobby, that I thought would not take up  as much time.  Ha! Ha! It  really turned out to have gobbled up time and more time and even more time as the hobby progressed.   If you remember, my wonderful hubby built me a greenhouse last fall, just in time to use it in around mid winter and early spring.  Little did I know how much time would be spent starting over 500 seedlings from scratch and then the effort it takes to get them from seed into the ground is monumental.  The learning curve was rather large, and hopefully I can do better in time management next year. (I have pondered this some, and it is not looking too good right now.)

But the end result is all my new plants in the garden have been either saved from previous years and planted directly in the ground, or seeds that have been grown and nurtured in the greenhouse and then planted in the garden boxes.

Here is a picture of the garden as it stands last week when I planted 56 tomato starts.  (I even gave away several plants to my neighbors and my hubby's coworkers.)

This picture is a pano pic of the whole one side of my back yard.  Starting at the left is my chicken house and yard, then the garden is in the middle, then the greenhouse is next to the back of the house.  It is all nicely fenced off and in sections, making it nice to keep out the dogs, and gives the chickens some area to live freely as well.  

This is just the food garden area,  I have three large flower beds around the property that I also grew annual and perennial flowers and plants that have been set out and planted as well.

So, in closing, while I am so delighted in the outcome of this endeavor, I have also had to sacrifice time in the sewing room to accomplish this new hobby of mine.

P.S.  I did sneak an evening of sewing one day last week, but I worked on the pieced sashings for the the Prairie Primrose quilt that I have been working on since last fall.  I did't want to bore you again with a single post about them, as you have seen several posts on the progress already.

What I like about this little project is that, I can just sit down and start sewing without thinking about how to sew them up, as I already have the pieces cut out, and I know how to sew them without looking at a pattern and it gives me a sense of accomplishment in the area of my sewing life.

These are old pictures you have see before, but it gives you an idea of what I worked on the other night.  My box of pre cut pieces is almost empty, I think I have 6 sets left to get sewn up, and then I will be ready to piece it together.

Warmest...

Spring Outside Work

I have been so busy this spring working on getting our property ready for summer.  The garden is coming up with lettuce, peas, carrots, beets, spinach, chard and strawberries.  I only have the first four boxes planted or partially planted.

This box has peas and onions,

This is the lettuce, spinach, and peas box.  Oh yeah, that plant in the upper left hand corner is a voluntary potato that came up this year.

And this box has the carrots and more peas.  I planted several different colors of carrots this year, yellow, red, purple, and of course orange.

Here are my pallet planters that hubby made for my strawberries.  They already have flowers which will produce a strawberry later, and has a total of 50 plants in two of these planters.

Look at how my greenhouse plants are doing.  I have hundreds of seedlings that have turned into real live big plants!  I am so happy that it is such a success for my first year at trying this greenhouse work.

Flowers are blooming in my porch planters,

My son spread three yards of 3/4" gravel in our big driveway.  

My hubby was so nice, and bought me a new work toy to help me with all my work outside and around our house.  WhooHoo!!!

Warmest...

Greenhouse Spring Update

I started seedlings in my new green house before I had surgery on my wrists.  I wanted to get them started six weeks before the final frost for this area, although this year, we have been having April and May weather in February and March.  Normally, this would be an ideal time to start the seedlings, so I am sticking to what is the norm for my zone.

And now here is the progress so far.  This is the result of taking the seedlings from the egg cartons to bigger pots, because they have the third leaf on them and they need more room to grow.  I wasn't sure of the viability of the seeds that I had (some were three and four years old) so I double and triple planted seeds in the egg carton pockets.  Well, all or most of the seeds were very viable, and sprouted, so I have three and four time the amount of plants that will fit in my garden.  I am planning on sharing these starts with my neighborhood gardeners.

I have all kinds of veggies, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, and some herbs.

Also did some different flowers, marigolds, carnations, bachelor buttons, snap dragons, coleus, nasturtiums, moss rose, lupine, etc.

I find it interesting that many quilters are also gardeners.  I personally like the self accomplishment in starting plants and growing my own food and knowing it is free of pesticides, and chemicals.

I will be back with an update in about three weeks, when they will be ready to go outside into the garden.

Warmest...