Things I completed, pondered, and puzzled over this past weekend....

Quick Change Trousers from Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings

So Cute!

They're reversible....fun eh?

Trader Joe's is thanking me.

Isn't pie perfect for summer?

I need a job to afford the bulb.

Thankfully I have enough sun to grow these babies.

Sick lemon tree = trip to the nursery

Triple-cheese spinach strata with sun-dried tomatoes & peppers

Transport Your Dreams quilt with the Walking Foot

Here are a few pictures around my garden/yard:

Tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers  zucchini, cilantro and basil.

Tomatillos

         

San Marzano Tomato

Lavender intertwined with ?? enjoying the late afternoon sun

Thank you all for listening, taking the time to comment and sticking around while I finish up the last few weeks of Student Teaching.  Cannot believe I am almost done.  Alright, now back to WWII and Pearl Harbor.

Stupice, Genovese and Roma Tomatoes

This is my larger garden plot which now has Cabbage, Cheddar Cauliflower, Romaine Lettuce, Carrots, two different kinds of Kale, Red and Yellow Onions, Scallions and a couple of different tomatoes.  The tallest tomato - a Roma is the tomato plant that just keeps on giving.  I planted it in July and as you can see from the photo above, it is still giving me red tomatoes.  Yea it looks a bit haggard but I'm not pulling it out until it stops producing.
Every few days I go "leaf picking" and spend a good 15 minutes or so hand picking all of the leaves out of the garden.  Probably only one more week of this left before the trees are done dropping their leaves.

Do you have anything growing in your December garden?  Please share as I would love to know.  
Enjoy your Friday~
Susan

Happy Sunday to you all,

I'll be headed out to my local farmer's market shortly to stock up on vegetables and fruits for my Thanksgiving "meals" but before that I wanted to share that I recorded History Quilter Podcast Episode 33 where I talk about 100 Wishes Quilts, and it is now available on Podbean, Stitcher Radio and hopefully up on iTunes by this afternoon.  

I was unaware of what a 100 Wishes Quilt was until Darla from the Scientific Quilter Podcast and blog tweeted me about it a couple of months back.  (Thank you Darla!)   According to Dr. Dolly of the Travelling With Baby blog, 100 Wishes Quilts are a northern Chinese tradition given to new babies when they are born.  She says, "friends and family shower the beautiful new life with pieces of cloth and their hopes, wishes, and prayers for blessings of prosperity, longevity, and happiness".   How wonderful is that?

Here in the United States this tradition is crossing cultures and technology by being picked up in the International Adoption community and online.  Adoptive families here in the United States have been collecting fabric and wishes from friends and relatives for quilts to make for their newly adopted children for many years.  I found the earliest reference to 100 Wishes Quilts online as of 2005.  Dr. Dolly, whom I mentioned above, is currently asking for "good wishes" from anybody in the blogging community. If you are intrigued, as I am, please visit Dr. Dolly at Traveling With Baby to see how far she has come with receiving fabric and wishes for her newest addition to her family.

Darla was asked to participate in a 100 Wishes Quilt by sending a piece of fabric along with a wish/blessing for the new baby.  I mistakenly said on the podcast that the 100 Wishes Quilt Darla had participated in, did not have a completed quilt posted online.  I was viewing a different website at that time and have no idea if Darla ever saw the quilt she participated in.  Darla?

There are many 100 Wishes Quilts images online to view, here is one that I especially enjoyed because I read through the entire history of the adoption process of this family.  What a wonderful gift baby Addison will read and understand someday about how her parents wanted her, went to get her and brought her home.  Read the journey to Addison here...it's just lovely.

the journey to Addison 100 Wishes Quilt

Gardening:
Newly planted Cauliflower (Cheddar variety) and Cabbage.  Yea, I'm going to be picking up leaves every day for the next month or so.

Food:
I talked about what I will be serving for my two different Thanksgiving meals.  No links today - I'll have posts about what I make and serve later in the week.

Quilting:
Ocean Waves quilt top made it to yoga class with me yesterday.

Ocean Waves quilt top in shavasana

Bag of goodies I received from Kate Spain after being chosen as a November Newsletter reader of the month.  What a treat!  Go here to sign up for her newsletter.  http://katespaindesigns.blogspot.com/

Kate Spain's Cuzco: jelly roll strips and scraps

It's 8am and time for me to head for the farmer's market.  Hope you all have an enjoyable day,
Susan  

Happy Saturday everybody - be safe and have fun,
Susan

P.S. The title of today's post is courtesy of my 14 yr old.  He walked by as I was writing the post and I asked him what he thought I should title the post with...."fresh greens" he replied with a smile.  Love that boy.

Attended the CSULB Department of History Awards Banquet to receive the scholarship I won. Had a great time and was very pleased to visit with the instructor who insisted that I apply.  She is a gem.


Worked on a cake for a guest blogpost coming up this Wednesday at Sew Bittersweet Designs.
 Planted my new "babies" as I like to call them.  Three different tomatoes, four different peppers, zucchini, eggplant and a Big Max pumpkin.  I'll explain it all on the next podcast.
 Got the younger son out in the front yard with me to add a bit more color.  He added the muscle to work on tree roots growing from the big tree to the right.

What did you do over the weekend?
Susan

I have two garden plots, one that has soil which is as good as gold and one that is not.

My older, tiny plot will grow anything as I've been working the soil for over sixteen years. Right now I've got a San Marzano tomato and an Early Girl tomato growing alongside three different types of lettuce. I love my "back 40" as I like to call it.

San Marzano Tomato

Early Girl tomato and assorted lettuce

Last summer because of how small this plot is, I had my older son dig up a large patch of grass in my backyard grass area so I could a) say goodbye to the garden plot I had at a local community garden b) grow more vegetables in my own backyard.  I had high hopes for this new plot as it was south facing and thought the soil was in pretty good shape because the grass always looked so good.....my mistake.  Nothing is growing here. Cabbage, broccoli, kale, tomatoes, onions, garlic, shallots have all floundered.

I know, so bare!  Someday a cute red barn will be in the corner.

It could be the lack of sun but since I cannot make the sun change it's course to orbit directly over my house (and avoid the neighbors trees) I'm going to work on the soil.  Mr. UPS man brought me my new garden toy yesterday...yay!

Yes, I have a cultivator/tiller!  Once I till the soil, I will test it to see what amendments I need and try again.  I'm still hoping for canning multiple quarts of tomatoes late this summer...I'm such a dreamer.

I'm off to a much needed yoga class. Hope you all have a great day,
Susan

Happy Saturday to all,

I've just uploaded History Quilter Podcast Episode 22 Life Changes to Podbean and hopefully iTunes will have it shortly.

Here are a few photos of things I spoke about:
My garden - about to plant cauliflower, cabbage, more tomatoes, lettuce and spinach.

My "back 40" - approximately 15' x 20'

Block 10 of the Sew Happy Quilt QAL

HST Diamond 12"x 12"

One last photo of School Yard held up by younger son.  Silly boy. 

Potatoes & Tomatoes

Fireflies Block  12" x 12"

School Yard enjoying the 80 degree weather

My first pieced label!

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, hope you are having a great day~

Wouldn't it be great if we could take our thoughts and have them nicely laid out here in Blogger/WordPress/etc automatically? I think it would be so cool if there was a way we could dictate our thoughts and creative ideas directly to our computers so that the time it takes to find a pen or have a moment to sit down and type out that thought, is not lost.  I write awesome blog posts in my head while washing dishes or driving kids around but sometimes when I sit down here to start typing, nothing flows.  I guess my brain is more creative when I am working on something else at the same time. Any of you have this same issue?

Enough Sci Fi.  Earlier this morning I remembered that I had the fabric cut for Block Eight of the of the FQS Designer Mystery Block of the Month 2010 so I sewed it up while enjoying the sun streaming in my front windows across my sewing table.  I'm not a huge fan of the time change in the Spring but I love it in the Fall.

Block Eight

Four more to go

I  had a lovely surprise in my backyard yesterday when walking around and assessing my citrus trees ~ my Mexican lime tree has actually given me some limes!  I first planted this tree in the whiskey barrel you see in the photo below where it barely limped along for two years.  After two years I decided to put it in the ground in my north facing portion of my yard which is not ideal as it doesn't receive enough sun but at the time that was the best choice.

Mexican Lime Tree

This darn tree has grown and flowered but has never given up one lime until now.  So happy to add the lime to my citrus hunt yesterday.

Eureka Lemon, Mandarin Tangerine and Mexican Lime

Linking up with the Manic Monday Linky Party and {Sew}Modern Monday so go check out what others have posted.