July and August 2021

July was hot but nice for about 2 weeks. Then the smoke arrived from all the forest fires from the western states. The western slope of Colorado also contributed. Combine that to another infestation of grasshoppers and I just stayed inside. 

I put a new zipper in a pair of leather pants for a friend. That was an interesting job. I was able to use my treadle sewing machine to sew one side of the zipper but the other side I had to stitch by hand since it couldn't go through to the outside of the pants. My biker customer was very happy with the result.

August is also hot and smokey so I have been, again, staying inside. Other that an occasional trip outside to the garden to pick vegies, I only go to the grocery store. And I go fully masked. Because.

My DIL had two older chairs that were really rough but had good bones. She bought all the supplies and I recovered them for her. It was interesting because the seat cushion and the back cushion were essentially feather pillows. These chairs are really comfortable. I don't know if I'll recover anything else, though. What a process!

 

I've started cleaning out years of accumulation. Here's one thing:

This is a formal muumuu that my daddy gave to me in the 1960s. The front has princess seams and inside are ties at the waist to tie at the lower back. That cinches up the waistline and the back of the muumuu forms a slight train. I love the fabric and I think that is why I've kept this for so long. I went back into the closet.

This time of year brings out the cook in me. So far this week I've made krautburgers/Runzas/cabbageburgers (they are know by different names), cinnamon rolls and a wilted cucumber salad.

No picture of the cinnamon rolls as they disappeared!

Gardening

 Do you remember all the vegetable starts I had? Well this is what happened to them

And then it was totally decimated by hordes of grasshoppers. Other than the tomatoes which I've been picking and canning. I currently am up to 38 pints of tomatoes.

Who had a plague of grasshoppers on their 2020 Bingo Card?

No more gardening

I do believe winter is here.

Denver Botanic Gardens and Dale Chihuly

On Friday, I went to the Denver Botanic Gardens where the Dale Chihuly exhibit is installed until November 30, 2014. To say the glass and plant combination was stunning would be an understatement. Here are some of my favorites in no particular order. Click on the photo to make it bigger.

Such lovely shades of blue in amongst the plants.

These looked like wintergreen candy with the yellow hollyhocks.

Black and white in front of the Indian Blanket flower.

There is almost an alien feel to this one. It reminds me of frog 'hands' reaching over the side of the boat.

I ♥ ♥ ♥ this red and yellow glass and pink single hollyhocks together.

A boatload of colorful glass balls.

It was a perfect day to shoot the water lilies. Not too bright with just a bit of overcast.

I had a grand time in the gardens.

Well hello Mr. Toad

I was weeding the rock garden recently. It's tough on gloves.And then something moved in the rocks! I squealed before I noticed what it was. I don't know who was more startled: the toad or me.

The Promise of Spring

Hot August Days

August Calendar:
• 40th high school reunion
• county fair
• company
• sculpture show
• car show
• trip to Denver-town to see Auntie
• quilt show
• catch breath before the next round
• in between the weekends: work

It's no wonder there has been no quilting accomplished! But the photo opportunities abound! And knitting on the Plain Vanilla vest progresses -- what else would you call the pile of off-white stocking knit vest fabric that lays in the lap as one knits?

This daylily is growing in the garden and has nothing to do with quilting. Unfortunately, the garden is suffering from inattention and the weeds are out of control.

The item in the last post was a purple cone flower (echinacea) and VickyW made a palette from the photo. How cool!

For the Birds

It has been a spring for the birds. First it was woodpeckers. They decided that the north wall of the garage would make an admirable home and proceeded to drill multiple holes and one very large hole in the cedar siding. After pulling out insulation, a nest was built, eggs laid, the young reared and then they moved on, at least until this fall when they visit us again on their migratory path. But they will be outfoxed at least on that wall -- we are installing cement board siding on that side of the garage.

Next, a pair of turtle doves thought the newly planted window boxes looked inviting and kept trying to build a nest. Some judicially placed overturned beer mugs solved that problem.

More recently a pair of mallard ducks have been spotting in the back yard. Even with no source of food or water, she has been most insistent about nesting in the flower border. She built the nest and laid four eggs, but something got all the eggs. We have skunk, fox and coyote in the area and something got the eggs. Wish it would get some of these rabbits.

I Found Them

I am so much happier now! I found them!!! Yipee.

I looked out at the ranch. Nope.
I looked in the trunk of my car. Nope.
When I got home from work, I looked in my bucket. In fact, I took out the liner and everything else from the bucket. I found them under the liner. Huh? how did that happen. I almost kissed them, but I didn't because there were men there watching me. The Felcos went into the house for cleaning and disinfecting and are now ready to rock 'n roll.

Felcos #2

have been misplaced, wah! If you do any type of hand pruning in the yarden these are the top of the line and so easy to use! Last time I had them was out at my employer's ranch. I volunteered (to get me out from behind that desk) to go plant flowers and do a bit of flowerbed cleanup. That was on Thursday. Friday, my day off, was crappy weather, so I spent it sewing. Saturday was a meeting of Quilty Friends and afterward I got out into my yarden to do some of my own cleanup and planting and no Felcos!! Called my boss and he went and looked but came up empty handed.

I am so mad at myself! These pruners were a present from CarGuy, my sweetie, many years ago and I have taken such good care of them until now. Sob! I want my Felcos!

Did you notice the price to replace them? Gulp.

Amaryllis

Auntie received two of these at Christmas time. I thought I'd try to revive them for her for next Christmas. Here is a page from my journal to jog my memory.

It says:

• treat it like an onion after the blooms
• plant in vegetable garden after threat of frost
• set bulb with top half out of soil
• let leaves grow long & luxuriant to plump bulb
• just before 1st frost dig it up
• cut off leaves
• put on tray in dark basement
• ignore
• pot it up around Thanksgiving (for my international readers this is at the end of November)
  

Mortar and Pestle

I ground up some herbs and spices this morning using my mortar and pestle, making the kitchen smell delightful. Such a nice combo: sage and sweet basil. Mmmmm.

The sweet basil was mentioned in this post. But the garden sage was recently dried. I make a sage stuffing for our Thanksgiving turkey and I always use my own home-grown organic sage.

As a young bride I was given the wooden one by my friend, Plantwoman. The inside has turned green from all the herbs that have been crushed in it. Several years ago I thought that a marble one would be nice. I don't like it: it is cold heavy stone and I almost gave up crushing my own herbs. I have gone back to the wooden one and just love the feel of it in my hands: the smoothness, the warmth and lightness of the turned wood brings back memories of past feasts shared with good friends.

The smells of the season are upon us.

Basil: an essentual herb

Do you do basil? I love the stuff. I have grown it off and on over the years with varying results. In the past, I have never had a place to properly dry herbs: a dry, warm place with air circulation. This year we installed a Tuff Shed because we needed to get a lot of things out of the garage so CarGuy could work on the latest car. Yipee! I finally have a place to store all my tools and what-not. Plus it has the added benefit of being a drying shed.

Back to basil. I know that basil is best used fresh, but let's get real: I live in Colorado. Basil is an annual and it really only grows here for the months of July and August. June is a chancy month because of hail storms. I have made fresh pesto and I love to take a few leaves and chop them up into a green salad. Mmmm... But I have too much basil to use so I am drying it. Do you know how good that shed smells? Heaven!

I pull the plant out of the ground and rinse both it and the roots well. I then I tye a string around a bundle of plants just above the roots using a slip knot. To tighten it well, I swing it in a circle over my head which has the added benefit of flinging the water off the leaves. I then hang it from a nail in the shed.

You know, this reminds me of when I was a child. There was an old Victorian house in my grandfather's neighborhood. A pretty yellow house with white gingerbread trim. The old lady who lived there used to dry things on a string strung between the pillars on the front porch. I'm thinking that this lady was probably about the age I am now and not really an old lady. Every time I dry herbs or use my dehydrator to make fruit leather I think of this lady and the things she used to dry. I remember one thing that looked like human ears. Scared the daylights out of this 10 year old girl, I tell you. I wonder what it was she was drying that looked like ears? Any ideas?

Paula's Pesto
4 cups tightly packed basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup pine nuts, walnuts or almonds
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
6 sprigs parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Place the basil in a food blender, not a food processor. (Don't try this with dried basil, it won't work.) Add the oil, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper and nuts. Blend until all are chopped very fine but not smooth. Remove from the blender and stir in the grated cheese.

Use in soups and on pasta.

Approaching Lavender

I really do not know where the week has gone! It has just sped by.

I have been out in the yarden catching up on dead-heading the flowers. The carnations are the worst ones because there are hundreds of dead flower heads to be removed. At least with lavender you can use the dried ones in sachets and potpourris. I have always wanted to make some Lavender Wands but never think of it in time. Lavender grows exceedingly well in my garden and therefore I have a lot. The bees are happy because there is a lot of nectar in lavender flowers.

One batch of company has left and I'm getting ready for another. The sculpture show is also fast approaching. I am not looking forward to working for 12 days straight; no, indeed not. Everyone at work has this nasty summer cold except me. The guys tease me about using my disinfectant all the time, but I just look at them and ask "Who is the sick one?". Everyone, and I mean everyone at work will sit at my desk sometime during the day. My can of disinfectant spray is always close at hand. CarGuy and I are going to Denver-town today to finish up the last bits of Auntie's condo: hanging doors, cleaning the shelves in the cabinets, washing windows, etc. Then I can hand it over to a Realtor, yay!

My local yarn shop had a sidewalk sale yesterday. Yes, I indulged in a total of 9 skeins of yarn all at 50% off. I also picked up a rice basket to use as a new yarn basket beside the sofa, 20% off.

I dropped this quilt off at my long arm quilter on Thursday. Now 'dropped' is a decieving term. I have to drive about 30 miles to get to Quilted Expressions. It is a special trip, a destination if you will. Ill get the quilt back in about 3-4 weeks. I'm in no hurry. I've moved on to another project, but will return to this when it is time to do the binding.

That Wascally Wabbit!

I planted a wee vegetable garden this year. Just a couple of tomato plants, some green onions, basil and of course lettuce. And since my home is in a quasi-rural location, I knew I would have to protect it from the rabbits.

O my! we are over run with those cute little long eared fur-covered eating machines. We have no natural predators around here except hawks and I doubt if a hawk will swoop down out of the sky to nab on of these hoppers. They are almost tame, it seems, and will let you get to within 2-3 feet before they hop away switching those white cotton ball tails at you.

Back to the garden. The other evening, CarGuy helped me erect a chicken wire fence around a section of the garden that contains the lettuce which was already showing signs of being nibbled.

My reward came this morning as I stood at the kitchen window sipping my coffee and gazing out at the backyard. I saw a rabbit hop toward the garden. It got to the fence and stopped, then hopped down the fence a bit and stopped, then it hopped a bit further and stopped. Finally, it turned in what I could only assume was disgust at loosing it's free meal ticket, and hopped out of the yard.

ALQS Sneak Peek and other Wednesday Happenings

Here is a teaser for the quilt I am making for Another Little Quilt Swap. I have been working diligently and it is actually quilted now. In fact, all I have left to do is bind it and label it. I have enjoyed the research and the 'stretch' this little quilt has made me do. I do not know if you do this, but in the swaps in which I participate, I stalk my swap partner. What I mean by that, is I read her blog and look at her flickr site(s) to discern likes, dislikes, style, etc. This little quilt is basically an abstraction of one photo that I saw on my partner's blog. I hope she likes it.

In other news, I have been working on the PI shawl. O. My. I have to unknit about every third row. What made me think that I could knit lace? I had this same problem when I knit this item. I guess I really need NO distractions when I knit lace. But sometimes that doesn't even help because I find my mind wandering and then Oops! there is a mistake about 3 rounds back.

I started riding my bicycle to work again this week. Remember how far it is? It is 10 miles (16 km) round trip. It felt good to be moving again. I have been sedentary for far too long. I guess I subconsciously felt that if CarGuy couldn't do it (move around, walk, etc) then I wouldn't do it. I need to change that way of thinking because it really, really felt good to exercise. Now how often do you hear that? I cut my riding time by five minutes this morning. This is a good thing because it means that I'm not coasting as often. But the bike needs to go to my peeps at the shop to get the front brakes adjusted. Boy are they loud!

Have any great and exciting plans for the weekend? Me? I'm going to finish up a paving project TheKid started, reconfigure two zones of a drip irrigation system, plant some tomatoes, chop down some weeds and tall grasses and other assorted garden stuff. Once I get the bag of sand for the paving project out of the back of the truck, the pop-up camper can go onto the bed of the truck for the summer. Then I can mow the grass and weeds in the back section. It's one of those domino effects, you know. This can't happen until that happens which can't happen because this other thing didn't get done. I hope that by the end of the weekend I not only will be caught up with the yarden but be a slight bit ahead. Does that ever happen?

If I have any time left over, I do want to get the binding done on the ALQS quilt. And make a bag. I warm up for free-motion quilting on a fairly large quilt sandwich which is almost covered and decided that my practice pieces like this would make excellent quilted bags and use up stash! Maybe I'll have something to show by Monday or Tuesday next week.

Are you ready for the weekend?

Wow! I can't believe that I haven't posted since Monday. Yikes. I really have no good reason. Hmm... let's see what have I been doing? I get up about 6:00am and piddle around until I have to be at work at 10:00am. I get off work at 4:00pm (doncha love those hours?) and run a couple of errands on the way home. After dinner, I sit on the couch and knit. Ok, there it is: I've turned into a couch potato this last week.

That is soon to end, though. Since we got the front of the property hardscaped we decided to rejuvenate the rest of the landscaping. After all, it is about 30 years old and getting overgrown and leggy and sad. Do you know what hardscape is? Its the backbone of your landscaping: concrete, walls, blocks, rock, walks, etc. Later this weekend I plan to start on an area that will be right by the front door. Currently it is dirt but when I'm done it will be pavers.

I am only going to plant the window boxes on the deck this year.

Tomorrow is my Quilty Friends meeting and I plan on working on some postcards. And digging out the paints so I can paint my needed fabric for the challenge quilt. Of course, the painting may have to wait until Sunday afternoon when it is too hot to work in front of the house. More on that later.

O, and get this. Last Monday at the monthly meeting of my small group, there was the normal Show and Tell. The comment was made that my sock knitting didn't count because it wasn't quilting, but then some counted cross-stitch was shown. That is quilting? I think there is a double standard here. I have been a bit dissatisfied with this group for a couple of months now and I am thinking of dropping out at the end of the year.

I rode my bike to work this morning and beat my time from last year. How 'bout that! I did 5 miles in 25 minutes. I'm not saying that I'm a Lance Armstrong, but hey, I think I'm doin' OK. I'm getting exercise, saving both money and the environment, and I enjoy it. I have this commuter bicycle that makes riding a bit easier. And in case you are wondering, my roundtrip ride equals 30,000 steps. Woohoo!

Potpourri # eleventyone

• Cute isn't it? Not too bad of a photo considering I took it with my cell phone.
  
• After several hours of work, the Banana-fana flimsy is pressed & starched flat and all extraneous threads have been removed. Whew! what a job. Next thing to do is to piece the backing. I had to purchase a batt because I didn't have anything big enough. Boy are king-sized batts (121"x121") expensive!
• Here's a photo website for you: Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran. These quilts are from their collaborative book.
• Any Scrabble players out there? Here's a 20 point word for you (depending on where the tiles land it could be more): xeriscape. If you are into xeriscapes then you need to go the High Country Garden's website. In the sidebar on the left side click on Gardens. Here you will find some pre-planned gardens. How nice, David takes all the design work out of it. Of course, if you're like me, you want to add this plant and then that plant. It's a good thing, then, that these gardens vaguely resemble a cottage garden. I already have one xeriscape and am working on another. You see, I live in a high plains desert and am essentially a lazy gardener. Of course, don't tell my friends Grimey and Plantwoman.
• Do y'all (I like that word) watch your blog stats? Do you even have any? I have a Picturetrail.com site that hosts my photos and I get a weekly image viewing stat email. This week I had over 600 hits on my Las Vegas Fremont Street image. And the one of the flower quilt in the same post was even higher. Yesterday's post only generated 67 hits on the image. I also have a Sitemeter account that gives me stats of where people come into my blog from, how long they stay, etc. What does all this mean? I dunno, but it sure satisfies my curiosity.
• Oh! and remember this post The Quilter: What I've been up to lately? I've found a solution to my problem. I've been visiting a masseuse. She has been doing a ton of upper body work. It seems my problem is actually around my collar bones. Think of it this way: when I type, I hunch; when I knit, I hunch; when I sew, I hunch. Everything from my shoulders down has gotten foreshortened. Along with the muscle therapy, I'm doing some exercises and trying to remember to bring my shoulders back, my stomach in and my head high. Posture, posture, posture. I need to remember this.
  

How was your weekend?

Hi everybody! How was your weekend? Fair warning: this is a graphic intensive post.

Did you notice that when you sign into Blogger you are given the choice of either a normal login or a beta login? After what happened to JudyL I decided not to try the beta version. There are enough techies out there that can beta. I'll wait until the bugs are worked out and for the upgrade, thank you very much.

Friday afternoon, I left work early and made a trip to my LAer to drop off another quilttop. This one is the top I worked on at our Guild retreat in April. This puts my quiltop stash down to one. 1! Yipee! My LAer (Jan) asked if I could give her some 2.5" squares so that she wouldn't have all the same fabric in a top she's making. Could I! Yep, that I can do. In fact, OCD that I am, they are already cut and stashed in one of those shoe boxes in this post. More stash reduction. Should I ask for some of her 2.5" squares in exchange? And this Jewelbox Quilt is why I have so many 2.5" squares.

And a closeup.

And in case you want to see it here is the back. The center section of it was, believe it or not, some tablecloth fabric, 100% cotton, that I found for $1.00 a yard. With the addition of a really ugly floral on black fabric it works quite well for a backing.

Saturday, I did two things. My yearly spider/dust chase with the shopvac in the basement. You should see me: dust mask, dewrag and ipod. What a sight, but the basement really looks better for it. The other thing? I put up 32 pints of peaches. Don't they look good?

Sunday, CarGuy and I did domestic type things including installing this WarmWindow© blind in the master bathroom. I have been making these to replace old, worn out window coverings. This is the third one. Next: I have 4 of them to make for the clearstory windows.

A Question of Balance

When we moved into this house 28 years ago we did an expedient landscape in the front by placing lots and lots of washed landscaping rock down. We had that rock removed last fall to the tune of $300. It was 3 dump truck's full. This is what it looked like early this spring.

and this one

I spent a considerable amount of time interviewing landscapers and getting quotes to get this landscaped. I had several things I wanted but the most important things was to keep the amount of rock down. Been there, done that. This little plot of land has a SSW exposure. Full sun, all day. I planned on a xeriscape. Here's what I got (also there was a little meddling in the design by CarGuy):

and this one

Okay, then. Straight lines. CarGuy was definitely involved here! There is some mulch. And my dry creekbed is there. But, oh my, the rock! Lots and lots of rock that absorbs and then retains heat. This was not my vision! It is a good thing we are going to be doing a new privacy fence in the back yard because I will have a ready supply of rock to put along the fence line. A lot of this rock is going to end up 18" out from the fence to keep the weeds down. Harumph. I just can't believe this happened. That's what I get, I suppose for going to work and leaving CarGuy in charge: a changed plan. I will have to pull out rocks and replace with mulch: starting with that little bitty circle of mulch around the far pinyon pine. I want that mulched area and the one in the foreground to combine. I will have to pull back rock and fabric (see I did make it kinda quilt related!) to plant anything along that block wall.

The goal was to get my hardscaping done because I could not physically do it. Well, I guess the goal was met. But, boy. Do I have my work cut out for me this fall and next spring.

I whined to TheKid about this and he said "But Mom, you and Dad compliment each other. He is a straight line kinda guy and you are curves. It balances out."