Short Attention Span Girl

Birthday Finish

Posted December 1st, 2011 by marcella and filed in garden

Last December I gave my husband half a gift for his birthday. I know, tacky. However, try as I might I just could not finish the quilt in time. Instead of a lovely finished quilt, he got a basted together quilt for his birthday.

He was gracious about it, but still, not a very exciting gift.

Now you know I am not the swiftest quilter. A quilt a year is my goal; two quilts is a fantasy. I marvel at those quilting bloggers who whip up a quilt in mere days. Quilters who complete dozens of quilts in a year – or a month. That’s just not me. I get distracted too. I start working on one thing and then something else comes up and the current project gets pushed aside.

That happened to the birthday quilt many times this year.

Then I decided that I really, really needed to finish his quilt before his birthday hit again. It would just be too sad to still have last birthdays gift unfinished when this years birthday rolls around.

So, I set a goal to get it quilted and bound by the end of November.

Here’s a close up so you can see that it really is quilted. I did double straight lines through the checker board and cables in the navy strips. All the checker board fabrics are batiks, mostly from a bali pop. The navy is a mode marble fabric. The quilt is bound in the same navy. The backing is an ivory and tan pin striped flannel.

Here’s the whole thing from a wonky floor view. I made the quilt for my husband to wrap up in so there’s no hanging sleeve which makes photographing it tricky.

The pattern is Cobblestones from Debbie Caffery’s book Open a Can of Worms – which really has nothing to do with worms – but uses 2 1/2″ wide strips of fabrics. The finished quilt measures 68″ x 81″

The quilt is in the washing machine right now to remove all the quilting design marks. It should be really ready for my husband when he gets home from work tonight.

Now, time for a finished quilt happy dance!

- – marcella

Garden

Posted June 24th, 2011 by marcella and filed in garden

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People around here have been complaining about the weather. Our usually hot week in May? Didn’t happen. What happened instead was cold and wet and filled with too much rain. Even June started out cold and dreary.

It’s one of those years where the garden harvest is uncertain because of the late start.

The past two weeks have been really nice with even some hot days tossed in for good measure. I went out to water the plants and saw this,

I have never had a ripe tomato before mid-July.

Weird

- – marcella

Out in the Garden

Posted June 27th, 2010 by marcella and filed in garden

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Well, not in my garden. That would be a short entry with many weeds and a few deer.

This was a real garden tour put on by the local Master Gardner’s group. They apparently do this once a year, but this was the first time we had heard about it. We were able to tour 5 different gardens near our home.

While they were incredible to see, mostly they made me tired. All I could think of looking around was how I would need to spend all day every day all year working in the yard to have yards like theirs. Sure, all of these people had staff to tend their gardens. Some of the gardeners were even on hand to talk about what they did. I have no staff. My yard will never be like that, but that’s ok. It’s more fun to peek into others’ yards and enjoy what they have and not have any weeding to do nor pests to contend with.

I admit it. I’m not really a flower person. Sure, I see them and think they’re pretty and then my brain flits off onto other things. This dahlia caught my eye though. The colors look like a pineapple tomato. See? There I go with the food thing again.

There were lots of animals on the tour as well. I particularly liked the chickens. I have no idea why, but I’ve always had a thing for chickens. When I was in elementary school my friend had chickens (and turkeys which may be the dumbest of all animals) and I loved to visit the chicken coop. Maybe it was that book about chickens my mother gave me. Whatever it was, I love chickens. We also saw quite a few horses and I was surprised to see an elephant.

I was so busy looking down at the amazing vegetable garden that it took me by surprise to look up and see this huge ivy elephant. Talk about a garden ornament. The sign told us that he will be underplanted with sweet potatoes soon.

Several of the houses also had orchards. I love walking through fruit trees.

This reminds me that I should get outside and see if we have any pears growing.

These gardens were probably only 5 miles south of us, but their vegetables were so much farther along. It’s really quite a bit warmer there than at our house. The tomatoes all had fruit on them while mine are still just blossoms. There were lettuces, green beans and even the start of squashes. Don’t you just want to reach out and pick these raspberries?

The homes all had different ways to manage pests of the four legged variety. There were fences both tall and electrical. Some trees had been netted. I think to be successful at our house I might need something like this house has:

Isn’t it amazing? A screened in house. The screening is small enough that even birds are kept out. It had two rows of planter beds and lovely gravel walkways. In the back was a sink! I cannot even imagine a house like this with plumbing too.

At several of the homes they had short lectures. We learned about keeping chickens as well as beekeeping and container gardening. The bee man will also set up a hive in your yard, tend it and give you a share of the honey. I think that’s the way to go if we ever get a fence. I used to think I’d take the beekeepers class they teach near me, but realistic me says it would be better to let a pro do it and just have fun watching the bees and enjoy a little honey from our neighborhood. The container teacher said she is really successful with her container veggies because she really crowds the plants. She said if the plants have to compete for space and resources they grow bigger and produce more fruit so that their offspring will have a better chance. I’m going to try adding some herbs and flowers to one of my tomato pots. I’ll let you know if we can see a difference.

– marcella

Big Lettuce

Posted September 28th, 2009 by marcella and filed in food, garden

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How did this happen in a week?

We just cut this all back last Sunday and now look how huge it is! Time for another salad.

Caesar Salad Dressing

I like this one because it makes a small amount and is fairly low in calories (about 32 per tablespoon). I believe Julia Child who says that the original caesar dressing didn’t contain anchovies but rather worcestershire, so that’s what you’ll find in this recipe.

1 small clove garlic

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon reduced-fat mayonnaise

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Mince the garlic and salt together until a paste is formed. Place garlic-salt mixture into a bowl and add in the lemon juice, mayo, mustard, worchestershire and pepper and whisk to combine. Slowly drizzle in oil, whisking constantly until thickened. Stir in cheese.

Here’s the printable version: caesardressing.pdf

– marcella

Time for a Haircut

Posted September 20th, 2009 by marcella and filed in garden

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The lettuce has been growing like crazy!

We had to move the lights up a notch to give them room. The lettuce leaves are totally blocking the herbs from the light. It was time to make some salad!

Now there’s more room for the light to shine down on the herbs.

The parsley is doing pretty well. It’s about 4 inches high and has quite a few leaves going.

The basil is finally growing. I’m hoping it does well, because it’s one of my favorites!

– marcella

Week 4

Posted September 14th, 2009 by marcella and filed in garden

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The parsley is working to catch up with the lettuce. It finally is getting some true leaves.

Most of the lettuce is looking great. One set of seeds is just sprouting, but the rest are really growing well. It’s nearly time to trim off some of the larger leaves to add to a salad. The chives are still sad and spindly like three skinny blades of grass. No basil yet either.

– marcella

Week 3

Posted September 8th, 2009 by marcella and filed in garden

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Boy, I leave town for a week and the lettuce just shot up!

It’s now about 4 inches tall.

The chives are a bit taller, the parsley is finally sprouting. However, one lettuce is just starting to sprout and the basil is still doing nothing. Hopefully the basil will sprout soon.

– marcella

Week 2

Posted August 31st, 2009 by marcella and filed in garden

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The little seeds have already started growing!

Three of the lettuce seed pods were sprouted by Tuesday. It’s amazing how quickly the seeds get moving in this contraption. The seedlings are about 1/2 inch high and have their first sets of true leaves.

By Friday a couple scraggly chive sprouts were going as well. I’m hoping they grow well; whenever I try to grow chives outside the aphids attack.

Looks like there will be salads and fresh herbs in our near future.

– marcella

When Gardens Attack

Posted August 28th, 2009 by marcella and filed in garden

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Last Christmas my husband bought me an Aerogarden. We went right out and looked for a variety of seeds to try. For our first venture we decided to attempt a salsa garden and purchased cilantro, jalapeno, serrano and patio tomato seeds. The tomato seed packet assured us that it would produce small tomatoes on a plant not to exceed 24 inches.

It lied.

We ended up with a huge plant that shaded out all other plants, needed to be pruned nearly daily, and then wrapped itself around the light pole and grew over six feet high. Oh, and those “little” tomatoes were four inches across.

After wrestling with that little plant of horrors, I ignored the gift for many months.

Last Sunday we sat down, sanitized it and started again. This time we’re sticking to some salad items. We planted basil, parsley and chives along with romaine lettuce. We’re naive enough to believe that none of these plants will grow to the heights of the dwarf tomato. This time we decided to take a picture each week so others can see how things grow.

The first shot is less then exciting I know, but we all have to start somewhere.

– marcella

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