Monthly Archives: July 2014
Aurifill BOM
The July block of the month is done. It was very easy and I enjoyed it.
Here are all 7 months for 2014. I think it will be a great Christmas quilt.
I’d like to show you that I made progress on the knitting and I did -= until I had to take out 8 rows due to a couple dropped stitches as I was doing cables. So I went back to where I was at the last photo and am ready to start again.
Rug cleaning
This is the rug the dogs love to sleep on when they have to be in the house at night. Since it is a heavy woven, cotton rug, I can’t just toss it in the washing machine. Out on the deck it went with dawn and a very good stream of water from the hose. We spent about 2 hours out there working on this, which is also why we enjoy some of the good, warm days. Yes, we got wet and it felt good.
It was so wet and heavy, we left it there for the night and it rained a bit this morning. So it stayed out there all day. This evening, it was dry so came in and was rolled up for the summer. No, it’s not perfectly clean, but I can live with it and it is much better after cleaning.
It’s a Jungle!
The greenhouse has literally become a jungle – well nearly so. 
The front half of the middle row consists of 4 large banana trees each with several young sprouts that will need to be split this coming spring.
This celery, I purchased as a 12 pack from the health food store. Each pod had more than one start, so I just planted all 70 of them. They are all doing great and we will have plenty of celery all winter. Today I removed the last of last summer’s celery
These are volunteer tomatoes which are mostly sweet 100 type and very prolific
These tomatoes are for the most part standard sized tomatoes I started the seed before I knew so many would volunteer.
Across from these tomatoes is the row I worked on today. I cleaned out the weeds and the tops that I was saving for seed. There are still 5 red cabbages down near the other end. Next week I will plant seeds in the other half of the row. There were also many toad holes and even one toad about 3″ long. Then I planted some basil and kale that should have been transplanted two weeks ago. Also I added carrot and lettuce seed.
There is a row across the back that is still half full of potatoes (we ate the other half) and I will probably put more carrots, possibly some beets etc back there.
mistake quilted
Lesson learned: If I don’t wish to make a quilt and my whole being says “no”, don’t say yes. This was such a quilt. And when my heart isn’t in it, it just doesn’t turn out like it could have.
I will bind it later and someone will be toasty warm.
This quilt has been a challenge from the beginning and quilting has caused more problems than the rest. I did end up getting the machine cleaned and now it runs much more smoothly. So while that was happening the quilt stayed on the machine partly done.
Stars of Honor BOM
All the interior blocks are now finished and I’m guessing she will have us do the star points and rectangles next time. But I’m liking how it has gone together. It will easily be finished by Thanksgiving which is the goal.
Again I took time to practice spinning, but can you tell me why is it when we have longer, sunnier days, it seems I get less done. Oh, wait, it must be because my body thinks it’s vacation time. And then again, perhaps it is because we went grocery shopping and to the chiropractor. That does eat into time. Or shall I blame it on this Fitbit that wants me to walk 10,000 steps daily.
And the bad news is that one of the neighbor’s house was broken into sometime between 8:30 and 2. She has dogs and a locked gate. I guess whoever could see the dogs are locked in the back yard. Perhaps the most immediate neighbors didn’t notice any barking – that is if the dogs did bark. That doesn’t make me feel better. I have big dogs, but they bark enough off and on at coyotes that I’m reasonably sure my neighbors on either side would not come running to see at what they were barking..
Stars of Honor July
It was an equipment failure day. I just brought my quilting machine back from the local store that cleaned it. When I turned it on, the computer didn’t work. Not their problem, they didn’t work on the computer (even though the computer was attached while they had it) So after talking to the repair man at the company, we removed the computer portions and sent it to him in Utah. But all of the trying to get it to work, doing what they said etc., took us several hours. We will see what the repair man at headquarters thinks went wrong.
This one little block is my accomplishment for today. Tomorrow (hopefully) I will get the other three done to show you.
And I nearly forgot to send you to this site, which I think is marvelous with the videos and instructions. http://thecrochetcrowd.com/stitch-cation/
July socks 2
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I’m not sure what pattern I want to use on the stripped socks that I started yesterday, so I put them aside and started these purple ones instead. As you can see, I’ll have to be a speed demon to get them done by the end of the month and since there is gardening and watering to do, they probably won’t get finished this month. But then, I did get a cowl done this month, so maybe that counts as 1/2 a pair of socks.
These are from the volunteer tomatoes that I left in the greenhouse. This is a 2 gallon container, half full. I swore I would not keep anymore volunteers, but I’m about to relent and maybe keep 6 plants. They are so much earlier than the other tomatoes.
I bought a clove of Elephant garlic at the grocery store and saved 6 pieces to plant (outside) It did so well, I plant to put in even more this year. I’ll save back from these plants.
This normal looking garlic grouping has both some red and some white. I’m thinking I bought a small package of it for planting. But that was last fall and my mental computer fails me.
These little things are on the side of the normal garlic. Do you know, can I just plant them and expect garlic next year from them or are they seed and take two years. Maybe I should look that one up. OK looked that up and yes, I can plant it, but somewhere that it will have two years to grow. So that might be among other plants since the garlic does give off odor of which many bugs are not fond.
I put cabbage in the greenhouse this spring. My guess is that it was too warm in there for it as it didn’t grow well. So these are rather cute little “personal” sized cabbages. Next year after I get it started, I’ll put it out in the garden and put slug bait around it daily. Slugs got all the broccoli that I put out this year. But then I only put the bait out on a weekly basis and it rained profusely.
The lettuce is needing to be replanted this week in a different spot as it has become leggy with other plants shading it too much. So I’ll plant it where I took the cabbage out.
I could show you the raspberries, but I’m afraid the didn’t even hit the bowl. They were directly consumed. I like these plants that produce year after year without replanting.
July socks
It’s nearly the middle of the month and I am just starting this month’s socks. I’m hoping to get them finished.
Spinning practice has been taking a fair amount of time
And I should show you how our livestock wash their own fleece – lol – we still have to wash it after shearing
asd
Summer and chick update
Summer has come! And in full force with 90 degree weather, which we usually don’t get until August. The report is that the heat will stay around for awhile. And that means lots of watering. But I’m not complaining.
She doesn’t know, nor does the chick that she’s the foster mother. And it really doesn’t matter. She and the other mother have been sharing duties and doing a terrific job with this little one. It’s been too warm during the day for little one to want to be under mom, but she stays very close and both moms are very protective.
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