Self Sewn

Summer is in full swing now.  I can tell because my air conditioner is broken. A temporary fix is in place, but it looks like we need to buy a new one.  Meanwhile, outside there are plants with minds of their own popping up in areas where I did not originally intend them to be popping.  The morning glories are relentless, twinning around my swiss chard, green onions, or anything that stands in one place too long. I pull them out to get at my vegetables, but there are dozens of little seedlings, laughing up at me, waiting in line to take their place.
A row of sunflowers towers above my tomato plants, casting shade where I do not want it, but I don't have the heart to rip them out. I tried to grow sunflowers from seed last year, but they didn't take hold very well, so I guess they showed me who's boss by moving themselves to a different part of the garden that they like much better.
The compost pile is now bursting with spaghetti squash. I must have thrown the remnants of a cooked squash in there at some point.  The long vines have crashed through the wire farm fencing and were last seen marching eastward across the pasture.
And speaking of pasture, some kind of wild, pale blue flower has sprouted out there, along with yellow mustard,  all courtesy of the additional rain from last winter.

Now onto the fun stuff.  A few years back, I saw a yarny blanket that made me swoon, and set out to make one of my own.  I crocheted 6, twenty round granny squares and sewed them together, ending up with a blanket roughly 40x60 inches.  It's been sitting for ages waiting on those ends to be weaved in, and I'm so happy it's finally done! 

Garden visitor

Right now a big section of my garden looks like this....

But beyond the green lies an area where we used to keep the chickens.   I've been slowly cleaning it up to add more plants, maybe grapes or an orange tree.  It looks like this....

But wait, let's zoom in a bit.

Do you see the eggs?
They belong to a Killdeer.  And Mrs. Killdeer was not happy that I was walking around her nest. If you want to call it a nest.  More like a shallow depression in the dirt.    She was quite nervous and wanted me to follow her away from her babies.

So she pulled the broken wing act, like on the Discovery Channel.

Not going to work on me lady.  I saw that episode.
Nevertheless she continued the fake job.

After a few minutes of me standing perfectly still, except for the sweat dripping down my face, she cautiously came back to hover over her eggs.  I was about 12 feet away, on the other side of a fence.

I left her alone at this point.  Probably enough torture for one day.  Looks like I won't be gardening in this part of the yard until those eggs hatch.
Meanwhile I sewed all these little snowballs together and now I'm just staring at it. I don't know what to do. Wait for some inspiration or just quilt it and sew on a binding and call it done.  Hmmmm.

Heating up slowly

geranium in "watermelon"

repairing the binding on an old quilt

American Robin

new quilt pattern

We've had the nicest rain showers this last week, with thunder rumbling in the distance for dramatic effect.  I haven't had to water the garden as often, which is nice, but the weeds love the rain too, so the battle continues. We are slowly moving out of our nice Enjoy It While You Can spring weather phase and will soon be entering into the blistering hot, Kill All the Plants summer phase, which I endure for about one month, then by July I'm in the house with the air conditioner on drinking buckets of iced tea.  I really want to try and embrace summer this year (I say this every year), take part in more outdoor/summer activities, but it's hard for me.  I inevitably melt into a sweaty limp puddle at backyard barbecues and theme parks, clutching a cold drink in a death grip, crazed eyes darting about for a seat in the shade, my hair plastered around my head like a wet dish cloth.
So attractive.  Meanwhile everyone else continues to party on, seemingly unfazed by the heat. Sigh.
Must buy more pool floaty toys. And cold beer.  And a short haircut.

On the sewing front, I haven't been very diligent lately.  I made a few scrap improv blocks and will probably make some kind of quilt with them, but for now they're just hanging out on the design wall patiently waiting their turn.  Instead of sewing I've been obsessed with listening to knitting pod casts and really learning a lot.  However the patterns I'm drawn to are made with fingering weight yarn and toothpicks, and I'm struggling. Maybe for now I'm better off learning with worsted or dk weight and bigger needles?  I'm both impressed and intimidated by people who jump right in there and whip up a pair of socks a week after they learn to cast on. Knitting feels painfully slow to me, and you have to really pay attention.  Example : K2, yo, knit to marker, yo, sm, k1, sm, knit to last 2 stitches, yo, k2 stitches, touch your nose with your tongue, and scratch your belly with your big toe.  Repeat rows two through nineteen, 175,678 times or until your eyes cross, the phone rings or the dog jumps in your lap in which case you're basically screwed. If your lucky the damn markers will stay where you put them and you can find your place and start over.
 Possibly I have some kind of knitting attention deficit disorder. Or knitting commitment disorder. Whatever it is, it makes me doubt myself.  I run back to the comfort of my crochet hook and think "do I really need another craft, maybe I will just stick with crochet and quilting?"
Again, must buy more cold beer.
Anyway last week I had a give away for a quilt pattern and a stack of 5" squares from my stash.  Pam at CreativeCrazyGirl won, and I hope she can use the extra scraps in her stash, and maybe try out that pattern!  Thanks to everyone who took time to leave a comment.  It's nice to have so many lovely blogging friends out there. Hope you all have time to make something fun this weekend :)

The Raid

Crochet swatch of a baby blanket found on Pinterest.  Maybe make a big one for me?

Orphan blocks found during the cleaning raid and turned into coasters. Knitted washcloth.

I like the way February is starting out.  Lots of little busy work and errands to run, but no pressure from the outside world.  Rain showers and sunshine mixed together, dogs snoozing on the couch, quiet afternoons spent playing with yarn and fabric.
I  devoted three whole days to cleaning my sewing room.  What a scene that was.  Rather like a police raid.  No warning, just rush in and take prisoners.  Every closet, box, bin, drawer and bag was dumped out, searched and sorted.  Spread across the floor, the mess threatened to burst out into the hallway, smothering anything in its path (remember that old movie called The Blob?  It just kind of rolled around and sucked up cars, people, movie theaters.  Like that).   My husband would come in every once in a while, look around at the chaos and walk out without saying a word.  Smart man.  I'm sure he was wondering about dinner, or the lack of it.
 I actually had to leave the room at one point because the fabric/yarn dust caused an allergic sneezing fit, complete with watery eyes.  There was talk of hazmat suits.  Whatever.  I sent three large bags to the Goodwill (should have been more), and painstakingly folded all my fabric and lovingly tucked it back into the drawers.  It was a joy to behold.   Really though, I give it about 4 months before it turns back into a dog's breakfast. 

Now I need a new book to read.  Any recommendations?  I want to keep track of everything I've read this year and so far in January there were five. Katherine, The Hands on Home, Big Magic, The Martian, and Gaia's Garden.  The last one sounds like it could be a romance or fantasy novel, but it's really about understanding Permaculture and how to incorporate it into your yard.  Cool stuff.  To be honest I didn't finish The Martian.  I ended up watching the movie (good!) so there was no motivation to keep reading.  Just as well. The book had several pages of technical scientific NASA speak, which I skipped over with regularity.  I hope some day I don't find myself in a dire situation, where everyone is about to perish, and I am kicking myself for not reading the paragraphs on how to properly release hydrazine over an iridium catalyst and turn it into N2 and H2.  Then burn it without blowing myself up. 
Oh well.  I can make a quilt.  Does that count?

Busy not sewing

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen last week.  In the garden too.  I'm trying to keep up with the weeding because it will mean less clean up come the end of Autumn.
This risotto recipe was delicious.  I added some zucchini and served it with a salad.  I will be making that again for sure.
I bought two nice bowls and a calico apron, (you know the kind that crisscross in the back?) during a thrift store shopping trip. I really like that blue bowl.
Then I made some granola, using a combination of this recipe and this one. I love to see that big jar sitting on the kitchen counter.
The pumpkins that sprouted from the compost pile are slowly ripening (there are 4 so far), and the cantaloupe are ridiculously sweet. 
The cherry tomatoes are plentiful, yet four feet away, my regular tomatoes are struggling.  The yellow and red peppers are doing great, but my jalapeno plant had exactly 3 peppers and looks like it's done.  That's gardening for ya.  You just never know.
I picked basil and sage, dried them in a 200 degree oven on cookie sheets then packed them into old glass spice jars.  Next week I'll dry rosemary, but not in the oven.  The last time I tried it, my oven and everything I cooked in it afterwards reeked of rosemary for at least a week.  It put me off of using rosemary for a while.  
I'm slowly quilting a small basket quilt and made a few pink blocks (more on that later) for my next scrap quilt, but I just haven't been in the sewing room much at all.  I felt like I needed break, so I'm just going with it.  Hopefully I'll get back into some sort of rhythm here soon.
It's August!  Fall is right around the corner.  Yippee! I can't wait :)

Little flag quilt

Every once in a while around the 4th of July, I itch to make something flag-ish. This little quilt was the inspiration, although I changed the block sizes to make them slightly bigger, and drew different birds.  I even tea dyed the white sashing, something I haven't done in years.  You can see in the photo below how the fabric darkened up a bit in the tea bath.  I soaked my quilt top in a big spaghetti pot filled with hot water and 6 black tea bags.  When it got dark enough for my liking I rinsed it under cool water and hung it on the clothesline to dry.

I took these pictures out by the garden, where the tomatoes are really starting to pop out.  I've been eating a toasted tomato and cheese sandwich almost every day this week.

Here's how I make it.
Lightly toast a thick piece of sourdough bread then spread on some mayonnaise.  Next add your just picked tomato slices, salt and pepper, and top with a few slices of your favorite cheese.  I'm really hooked on this one lately.  Put it back in the toaster oven (or under the broiler) for just a few minutes to get it all melty.  Pour some lemonade. If it's nice out, sit on the porch and devour it.  If it's 102 degrees (like yesterday), sit in the air conditioned kitchen.  It tastes good no matter where you eat it.

Almost every closeup I took had a fly on it.  Can you find it?

I ended up tying each flag corner with gold embroidery floss to finish it off.  You can see a few of them above where I was just starting.

Little quilt size 27 x 31 inches
Made with scraps
Backing fabric from French General

Going green

We are at peak "green" season here in the central valley.  June is always so pretty and fresh, the green vibrant.  Sometime towards the middle of this month the heat builds, the grass turns golden, the green gets heavy and darker looking.  Here in my yard the Crepe Myrtle trees are blooming and the lemons are popping out in little bouquets that look more like limes than lemons.  Also last year I had thrown the Halloween pumpkins into the compost pile and never gave them another thought.  Now there are two large vines growing in the corner of the garden.  I love it when that happens.

My stash quilt for June is made up of green log cabin blocks. I'm including a yellowish/gold calico center and sashing to represent the transition from green to gold here in California.  In addition to the ongoing drought and water rationing, we won't see any significant rainfall until the end of October.  Maybe.  So it's going to get very dry and un-green very quickly.
I decided to hand tie the blue May quilt, and cut some navy/white gingham on the bias for the binding. It's turned out to be the perfect "on the porch" project, where I can sit and admire the greenness.