Stashbusting… or not

It could be worse – there could be purchases to foil my stashbusting progress, but no, simply no sewing this week.  So nothing purchased and nothing used.  Several EQ designs have been taking up my evenings this week but I hope to get a little sewing done later today.  I’ve got a few stacks of HSTs that need trimming before I can get back to sewing.

I did venture into the sewing room last night tho — finally.  I’ve been procrasinating on cleaning it.  Now this photo may not look to you like it is a “nearly” clean sewing room.  But trust me, the fact that you can see the table and the floor is a major improvement. 

Just those few things scattered about that need to be put back in their home, a couple quilts to be washed and sent to my niece and nephew, a basket of fabric that has been awaiting washing (I forgot when I bought those – like discovering new fabric) and the wedding quilt to start quilting on.  So should be totally cleaned out, vacuumed and dusted, and the design wall really needs the lint brush taken to it to clear off all the threads stuck to it.

 

 

But look at these lovely shelves — they were definitely NOT so orderly yesterday. 

But order has returned to them once again so that I can actually close the closet doors.  Hmmm. there a whole lot of quilt tops in that closet waiting to be quilted.  I really need to make a bit of  a dent in them.  Once the wedding quilt is done, that will be my next project – pull some of those charity tops out and get them finished off.

 

 

I ventured into my little garden this morning, and look what I picked.  Isn’t it lovely.

And no, it wasn’t that foggy outside this morning.   The camera lens fogged when I took it from the air conditioning to the heat and humidity outside.  I have no idea if I like Kale – I planted it cause it’s pretty. 🙂  But found an interesting recipe for roasted kale so am going to try that for dinner.  There’s three more of these growing in the garden.

Now back to the final cleaning touches on that sewing room.

Denise

Socks – their lonely “single” life

Yes, there are lonely socks at my house, they are single and looking for a mate.  They need to find a dating service for socks  – or they need me to stop trying out all the new lovely yarns and actually make them a mate!!  Here they are – aren’t they pretty.

   The dark one on the bottom just needs it’s toe woven together and it will be finished too.  But I have vowed I will finish their mates – well may not all of them – but a few of them before trying out any new yarn… well I’ll finish at least one of them… before trying out any new yarn.  I really like the way the ones with the all ribbed tops fit tho they look a bit odd when they are finished but that ribbing is very stretchy.

But yes I shall make them some mates so they don’t have to be lonely forever.  However, there is this…..

 

 

 Yes, it’s new sock yarn!  A dear friend who knows of my fairly recent fetish with making socks gave it to me for my birthday last week.  It’s such pretty shades of green – one of my favorite colors – and she wasn’t sure how much I needed so got two skeins which is enough for two pairs of socks.  I know she’d dearly love hand knit socks so she may get a pair for christmas made from this yarn.  Will power – I shall not break open the wrapper on this yarn until at least one sock above has a mate!  Maybe……

 

 

On the gardening front – in my little patio garden – look at the shiny green peppers peaking out from under these leaves. 

There’s at least six of them peaking out and several more that are hidden among the leaves on these two plants alone.  I’ll have to give them a drink and see if there’s any ready for harvesting.

 

Here’s the rest of my little garden.

It’s a bit hard to make out the plants form all the weeks and grass growing on the other side behind them but they are doing well with lots of tomatoes hanging on the vines too.  I had to get creative and pull the hanging basket crooks to put in behind them to tie the tomatoes to so they don’t fall over from the weight of the tomatoes at the ends of some of the vines.  I’m anxiously awaiting some ripe tomatoes!

More progress

It’s been a busy week so I haven’t been on the computer but tonight I finally had time to get a little sewing done and got another round of blocks added to the top I have been working on.  I had to turn it sideways on the design wall so I had room to work.  Here it is with it’s latest addition.

I’m hoping to get the whole top together this weekend but we’ll see.

In the meantime, I started another sock – no I didn’t stick to my resolve to make the mates to the other two single socks I’ve got.  I had a lovely new yarn I wanted to try.  But I’ll start on one of the mates this weekend on the extra set of needles so can leave one in my bag to work on while going to and from work, and the other I’ll work on at home.

Here’s the latest one I’m working on with ribbed top – I just love the colors in it- it’s Mini Mochi color 103  – and with the merino wool in it, is lovely and soft.

It’s been raining off and on for days – but my little garden pots are doing well.  There’s a least 15 little bell peppers now and I keep finding a few more baby tomatoes have sprouted every day. I’m anxiously awaiting the first ripe ones.

Garden – near disaster!

The garden pots are looking great.  However I came home tonight and my giant tomato pot had tipped over!  It had been sitting on top of two big landscape square logs but it was really windy and the wind must have caught it.  Luckily when I tipped it back up (and set it on level ground instead of the logs) it appears it’s no worse for the tumble.  It’s got one lonely little tomatoe on it so fawr.  The yellow pear as several clusters of them now growing and  one pepper plant in particular is loaded with tiny little bell peppers.    Obviously they are not as protected from the wind as I thought they were down below the hill here and they’re a bit top heavy since the plants are so tall.  Oops  – actually there is one little broken branch on one of tomatoes that took the fall I notice now but not the main stalk so that’s a good thing.  I got a delivery today from a coworker of fresh raspberries and lettuce out of their garden which look really good so think there will be some berries for dinner tonight.

No sewing progress the past couple of nights since I’ve been busy with other things but the latest sock I’m knitting I’ve just rounded the heel  so have made it past the half way mark! LOL  It’s lime green, shades of blue and if I remember right a little gray mixed in.  Yes, everyone is going to have very bright socks!

Heat and Humidity

It’s been a week of hot and very humid weather which is finally letting up a bit.  But one good thing about it, I think my tomatoes and peppers are growing several inches each night in this weather.  Both have started blossoming  – so far so good – and my pot grown veggie plants look much healthier than those growing in the apartment garden plot which were planted at the same time – so maybe it’s to my advantage they forgot to make me a garden space. 

                                                                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend there’s a birthday party for my OLDER brother — much OLDER since he’s now 50! 🙂  And my parents are making the visiting rounds in Wisconsin and Iowa having tried to escape the Arizona heat.  So there will be a gathering of most of the family – with the exception of my younger brother and his family who couldn’t come back from Georgia rigth now.

Now see this pile of quilts – well actually lap quilts and wallhangings of various sizes and shapes – little do they (the family) know it but we’re going to have the great quilt giveaway tomorrow.  This is only a portion of what was hanging finished in the closet.  How many quilts and wallhangings does one quilter need to keep!  So I figure we’ll put everyone’s name in a hat, and whoever’s name we draw, gets to choose first which, if any, quilt they want.  Now don’t you wish you were going to be at this gathering!  But first I have to go check the stack (see below) again to make sure I haven’t included any in there that I truly want to keep.  I think there’s about 15-17 different projects in that stack.

A garden – sort of

I posted a photo a few days ago of the new little garden plots they put in at the apartment complex.  Unfortunately I found out they forgot I wanted one so didn’t create enough. 😦  Oh well, I’ve got plants, I’ve got pots, so I potted them.  I think they’ll get enough sun where they are sitting and some may need to be potted into larger containers a bit later but I planted them in the pots I currently had. Besides, who knows if they shall survive or not!  I may have lots of empty pots if the rains don’t cease and the sun shine doesn’t start soon.  So here’s my little container garden – even got the flowers finally potted last night.  One of the pots holds a really neat fern – in the asparagus fern family – and it looks like bottle brush bristles.  I just liked the way it looks.  And it’s got a really neat white and green ornamental cabbage in front of it.  The textures of the two are very interesting.  So Mr. Sun, come on out and shine on my plants!   It’s  mostly peppers and tomatoes of different varieties and a cauliflower thrown in just for good measure.

  

 

Now I’ve got to go find those beads I want to sew on a little wallhanging so I can attach those, call it finished, and get it in the mail.  Plus I finished off a pair of socks last night – first full pair done. I just need to stitch the toe shut and bury the tails.  And miraculously, they even appear to have ended up the same size! 🙂

It IS A Garden!

Contrary to my skepticism yesterday, this area is a garden afterall.  Look at the improvements I found today when I got home compared to yesterday’s progress.

Yesterday

  

Today

Gone are the clumps of dug up sod.  Edging logs have been laid, it has been tilled and raked and fencing erected – not that we have to worry about deer, but to keep unsuspecting dog owners and their dogs from stumbling into it after dark.  Each section is marked off at about 5′ x 6′.  Now I just have to wait to find out which section in mine. 🙂 and figure out what I want to plant.

Here’s last night’s sewing progress on the Wizard of Oz wallhanging.  Now to layer it and quilt it this weekend.

Is it a garden?

Hmmm… is it a garden plot??   The apartment complex had asked who was interested in having a little garden plot.  They planned to have it ready by Memorial Day weekend but when I saw the lines the gas company had marked – crisscrossing this area – I thought maybe they wouldn’t be able to do it since Memorial Day and come and gone and I hadn’t heard anything and there were a LOT of lines crossing this area.  Today when I looked out my sewing room window, I see this area devoid of grass, in front of the mound of clumps of grass that used to cover it.  Not a great photo since it was taken through the window and the area is sort of downhill from me but trust me, there’s a dug up area down there by the fence. (Note the large power boxes to the side of the photo – yep lots of lines crossing that corner.)  I haven’t walked out there but it appears to be marked off with string in four sections about 4′ x 6′ – not huge but big enough for me to plant a couple tomato plants in my section.  So I imagine I should be hearing soon from the apt manager that those of us who wanted one can go ahead and plant.  I figured there wouldn’t be too many people – it’s a large complex of buildings but I think the majority of tenants are college students and not everyone likes to garden either.  But if I can get a few home grown tomatos, I’ll be happy.  And on the upside, I do have power so apparently it’s in the small area that was “line free”.

I added this project to the design wall to contemplate and work on.  I’ve been procrastinating on this Oz wallhanging (for over a year!) and so while on treadmill last night – located right across from the design wall so good design contemplating time – decided I didn’t really like what I had so far (which truthfully wasn’t much).  I had thought about leaving the main part of the panel all together as seen in this photo. The rest of the pieces are just some border sections I was hoping would lend some inspiration as to how they wanted to be used.

But after a bit on the treadmill and contemplating, decided I didn’t like that middle section all as one.  The downside of using panel sections – I’ve yet to come across one that is actually printed straight on the fabric.  They always seem to be just a bit off so you can’t get a good square or rectangular shape when you cut them.  But, ended up chopping it apart, taking yellow braid sections off some areas, adding them in other places, shifting things around, adding sashing stips – you get the idea, a major overhaul – anyway  I now have the main center of it pieced and just need to add a top and bottom border section and the wallhanging top will be done.  You’ll have to wait to see a picture of it until I add the final sections.

The fabrics were purchased by a friend who has one of her spare bedrooms all decorated in Wizard of Oz stuff so this will hang on the wall in there.  I’ve got enough of some of the coordinates to make a pillowcase for the bed and maybe a throw pillow or two.