Quilting

I thought I’d better post something before the end of October, just so my poor old blog didn’t fall into the category of lost-and-forgotten and start falling off everyone’s reading lists.

I did start a number of blog posts over the last month and a half, but they either got too boring, or something else interrupted, and I could never quite finish. The same could be said for most of my sewing and crafting projects!

However, I did have one success, at least in terms of completion.



A quilt!

This was a multi-purpose project. Originally, its raison d'être was to use up the acres of quilting cotton in odd colors that had inexplicably accumulated in my stash. Then, as I piled up the bits of brown and gold and plum and rust, I saw a nice trend toward earth tones (my version of earth tones), which started me thinking about living room décor rather than bedding. So the quilt’s second purpose was to camouflage the couch.



My couch in its original state

My dog in his preferred spot on the couch back

 

The couch after 7 years with the dog
(that's the other dog - she can't believe it, either)

 

I recently added a couch cover
(hard to say whether this is an improvement, but at least it's washable)

 

Quilt totally distracts from misshapen couch back
and tacky cover!

Matching pillows

 

And just a general comment on quilting: now I remember why I don’t do it. It’s a huge pain! The planning, cutting, and sewing together are all very enjoyable, but the quilting itself? It’s a horror of lifting, turning, pulling, puckering, running out of thread, and getting stuck by pins. I can see why most people use long-arm quilting services, but it’s too expensive for me. I priced a few local services and even for this small (48” x 80”) piece, the very lowest price I could find was $58. Imagine doing a bed-sized quilt!

Anyway, my next quilt will either be done by quilt-as-you-go, or a rag quilt, so there will be no dragging of gigantic, heavy pieces through my little home sewing machine.

 

Katrina

 

The Cuddly Cacti

These fabulous new additions to my cactus collection do not have thorns, spines, glochids, trichomes, hooks, needles, or any other exterior unpleasantness. They are soft, squishy and perfectly huggable!



Outside on a visit with their spiny cousins

They are crocheted cactus made by the amazing Urban Rustic. Visit her blog here, but I warn you, after viewing the results of her talent and energy, you will end up with an uncontrollable urge to sew, knit, crochet, hook rugs, do quilting, photography, needlepoint, and have more cats, dogs, lush English gardens, and clever turn of phrase.

Completely crocheted, from the pots all the way to the flowers

Happily (for me), she developed a case of compulsive cactus-crocheting earlier this summer and ended up surrounded by them. I was thrilled to be the recipient of some of her incredible handiwork.


This is Cornelius, who resembles
Carnegiea gigantea, the saguaro cactus.




The saguaro Source





This is Stanley - his shape is similar to
Stenocereus thurberi, the organ pipe cactus.



The organ pipe cactus Source

 

So I now have miniature representatives of the two iconic cacti of the great and beautiful place that I live – the Sonoran Desert. And I can keep them inside, and I don’t have to worry about over- or underwatering them.

Thank you, lovely blog friend Urban Rustic, for the beautiful cacti!

 

 

 

Have you received an unexpected and/or hand-crafted gift recently?

Katrina

Lost and Found – Part 6

Did you think that you'd have to look at those poor wet dogs for the rest of the year? Yes, I shirked my blogging duties for quite a while.

I do have a few new things to share, but while I get organized, I will finish up my Lost and Found Series.

I have a weakness for old books – have you noticed? Children’s books and picture books are especially hard to resist.

Here are two books that I recently found. One is a grade school songbook, quite the worse for wear.

Published in 1947, it clearly belonged to Elizabeth and was very well-loved.

end papers

 

The best thing is that each song has little drawings with it.

 

[You can try click-to-enlarge, but I don't know if it will work. Picasa is being a pain right now.]

 

 

Today's other treasure is a 1952 edition of the Girl Scout Guide.

 

I love the illustrations that accompany the enthusiastic instructions for being a healthy person and a contributing member of society.

Pristine uniforms

No TV or computer!



So many ways to serve the community

Year-round activities

 

 

There’s not much in common between the two books, except for a certain charm and wholesomeness in the illustrations. This was still a pre-television generation - only 9% of U.S. households had them in 1950 (www. tvhistory.tv).

 

I wonder what a modern-day kid would do if faced with the entertainment choices from the 1940s or 50s?!

 

 

 

 

Katrina

Blog Housekeeping

I'm still investigating the alternatives to Google Reader. I'll probably use Bloglovin for a while and see how I like it.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Katrina

Is It May Already?

Looks like two whole weeks flew by while I snoozed (actually sneezed, mostly).

There are a few things going on, but my daily activities don’t lend themselves to photography or blog updates. Examples:

I sat in a spot of shade on the patio, while a hummingbird visited the flowers on my bright red shorts.

Of course I did not have my camera at the time.

 

After two weeks of daily workouts and no pie (okay, minimal pie), this number refuses to get any smaller.

 The scale must be broken.
 

I pulled this dress out of a pile of UFOs from last year, made some progress on it, then ground to a halt again.

It should be cute though, if it ever gets finished.

We have hit our first 100-degree day already, so I’ll just use the summer sun as my excuse ... for everything.

 

Katrina

A Garden Journal

One of the projects that has been devouring all my time the last few weeks is garden-related.

Recently, someone asked how I was getting such an incredible carrot harvest (20-30 carrots per week), and wanted all the details, from the soil in the raised beds and the sun exposure, to the type of seeds and fertilizer I used.

carrots at Dec. 7, 2012

carrot plants at Dec. 20

carrots at Jan. 7, 2013

I decided this might be a good time to settle down to a task I’ve been putting off for some time: compiling all my planting and harvest notes from the beginning of the vegetable garden.

I thought it had been at least ten years, but it turns out that we built the raised beds in 2006, so we just finished the sixth year. With two seasons each year, that still adds up to twelve possible planting seasons so far.

 

My gardening records are graphic (literally) and very brief. I have a simple map of the garden area, with each raised bed divided into square-f00t sections.

 

When I plant seeds, I just write the seed name in each box or area of my map.

If and when the seedlings grow, I make notes about the plant, the harvest, and any problems. Supposedly, I keep all these sheets together in a binder so I can refer to them later.

Unfortunately, when I went to the binder to compile all the information, I was missing half of the sheets. I know I didn’t plant for a couple of fall/winter seasons, but the other sheets could be anywhere. Maybe I stuffed them into the wrong binder, or they blew away, or maybe they’ve long since been composted.

Blogging helped, as well as the hundreds of photos I have cluttering up my hard drive. Sometimes I found dated photos or a blog post to fill in missing information from a previous year.

At least I was able to get enough information on the carrots to provide a pretty complete story to my fellow gardener.

carrots at Jan. 31

Here’s an example of my multi-year garden notes for carrots:

Cosmic Purple	Seed	Fall	2012	Excellent companion for Scarlet Nantes, same size and shape, harvest time. More of a dark wine-red than purple skin, orange inside.
Scarlet Nantes	Seed	Fall	2006	sprouted > 2 mos after planting. Dozens of carrots only 1 1/2" long and 1/8" wide
Scarlet Nantes	Seed	Fall	2010	100+ days to harvest, delicious 4"-6" carrots. Hundreds!
Scarlet Nantes	Seed	Fall	2011	120 - 140 days to harvest - big sweet carrots
Scarlet Nantes	Seed	Fall	2012	Perfect carrot - high germination rate, good shape, excellent flavor. Takes 4 mos to get to full size of 4 - 5".
Tonda di Parigi	Seed	Fall	2006	no germination
Tonda di Parigi	Seed	Fall	2010	120+ days to harvest, cute round carrots

 

And with all of the other information I gleaned from my records, I decided that it might be useful to others, if there are any people out there who are new to the desert and wondering if anything will grow here. So I’ve added a new page to the blog – Grown – where I will post this information. It’s not really a How-To guide, it’s just what worked for me.

I’d recommend that every gardener keep some sort of journal, even if it is like mine, with just the names and a few quick notes. It is invaluable when you see that you've had almost 100% success with one seed company and less than 10% with another. Or that you’ve tried twelve different varieties of tomato plant from the nursery over six years and only had success with one of them.

Valentine carrots, Feb. 14

Do you keep a garden journal?
 

Katrina

Hey, This Looks Different

Don’t worry, it’s still me!

It’s been a few months since I switched to a new Internet service, and the time has come to face facts: it’s just not going to get any faster. If I’m lucky, it won’t get any slower!

It was so slow that I was actually waiting for my own blog graphics to load. So, I have sadly said good-bye to my beautiful birds and antique documents in the background and my aging ladies in the header, and traded them for a standard Blogger background.

Farewell, Ladies

At some point I suppose I will get around to creating a much less weighty custom background, or maybe I’ll give in and pay for a faster Internet speed. In the interim, I’ll try this.

Katrina

200th Post: I've Got the Pictures to Show For It

Here we go with the last few photos that I love but haven't managed to fit into the first 200 blog posts:

Flowers of Desert Willow, Chilopsis linearis, the perfect desert landscaping tree

 

 An Arabian friend

 

My hibiscus put on a big show last spring

Manny likes his sweater, even though it doesn’t quite fit over his round belly.

I just loved this image, but I felt it needed some witty aphorism as a caption. Now I’ve realized I’m just not witty enough, so here it is.

Next week I hope to be productive and get something – anything – done. Ten days til Christmas, people!

Katrina

200th Post: I've Seen Some Things

I wanted to share a few images I captured in my travels, but which didn’t quite fit into my earlier blog posts for whatever reason.

Why doesn’t anyone ever photograph the back  of a peacock?

  

An old piece of honeycomb in a field – how did it get there?

Really cool graphics in a Healdsburg, CA shop window (too bad about the poor photo quality!)

Normally I wouldn’t be happy to see a vegetable garden pest, but I like this ghostly image of a cabbage white moth floating over someone else’s broccoli.

On Friday I will have a few more flora and fauna pics to share.

Katrina

200th Post: I've Made Some Mistakes

Okay, time is flying by way too fast now.

Source

Last week I was just getting used to the fact that it was December already, and now another whole week has gone by.

I’m rushing around trying to finish all the things that need to be done every year – doctor and dentist appointments, car and dog registrations, income tax and property tax, insurance payments, yardwork, home repairs, etc.

All of which means that I’m not getting around to the holiday stuff! I still haven’t sent out my cards. I still haven’t sewn up the Christmas gifts. I haven’t gotten a Christmas tree yet, although my box of ornaments is sitting conspicuously in the middle of the living room floor.

Now I see that I’m on my 200^th blog post already! Somehow I’ve been doing this for more than a year. How did that happen?

In honor of my 200^th post and in gratitude for you all putting up with my ramblings for this long, I think we should now look back and…

Laugh at my mistakes!

Yep, I know some of my blog entries have inspired an eyeroll or two, but believe me, there were some things that even I thought were bad.  Here are a few photos of projects that didn’t make it into the blog for GOOD REASON!

Plum Pleather Purse

This "ostrich" vinyl was awful to start with: cheap-looking, thin, easily scarred, and already crinkled and torn from shipping. Why did I bother trying to make a bag? It was supposed to be a practice run (a muslin, I suppose) for the pattern, but I put so much effort into it and it looked so ugly that it resulted in a strong vote against the pattern.

Lace Bumblebee

Some things you just don’t realize until you see the photo. This black and ivory lace was pretty but too formal for me, so I wanted to make it more casual by underlining it with a bright cotton. In hindsight, yellow is certainly the worst choice I could have made. Also, I guess it was temporary insanity that made me think a floor-length straight skirt was the way to go casual.

Scrappy Jacket



I do love rayon. I love the old, heavy rayon that had some texture and drape to it, and I even love the modern, thin challis that they sell these days. I have bags and bags of rayon scraps from all my projects and once in a while I think I should do something with them. Where I went wrong with that thinking was in the vertical stripes. For one thing, it’s rayon! Almost impossible to sew a straight seam, much less multiple, parallel seams.

But the bigger problem is that the alternating colors that looked so pretty laid out on the table ended up looking more like a referee’s jersey on the jacket. Why didn’t I make a simple quilt top? That would have been so nice!

More photos next time: nice subjects, but they never got posted because they didn’t quite fit anywhere.

Katrina