Pickling a Peck of Peppers

Peppers soaking in their briny/vinegar goodness



More garlic!
Finishing the hot bath...
Done!

Picking Peppers to Pickle

Summer evening, no shoes. Wicker baskets, ripe peppers.

Into the garden we go.








Filling up the wheelbarrow to take them up to the house.


Next: pickling!

Sophie's Quilt

Sophie's become a favorite toy as of late. And any self-respecting giraffe needs a quilt of her very own.

Sophie's Quilt

Sophie's become a favorite toy as of late. And any self-respecting giraffe needs a quilt of her very own to snuggle under.

I chose a fun Japanese print of Ed Emberly's animals and made a simple patch quilt using some scraps of Amy Butler (they looked like a giraffe's spots to me) and a bit of Kona orange solid and a green textured print from the scrap bin.



The back is a fun black and white swirly-spotty print.

It's in the wash at the moment, so I will update with better pictures later.

Puzzles

Bennett has been WAAAY into puzzles lately. Ignore the mountains of fabric in the background. Oh, and the ugly looking scrape on his nose.
Instead focus on the 12 and 20 piece puzzles this kid can complete with no help.

Quilt Done!!!

This quilt was begun about 10 years ago. At the time I needed a machine with a walking foot and was just so broke I couldn't afford to buy one. I did find a free-motion foot, but my machine's feed dogs didn't lower, and the cover kept popping off. So, after trying a couple different methods with little success, (I had in fact grown way beyond the capabilities of my machine) I got frustrated and sick of looking at it. Into the closet it went, unceremoniously shoved in a bag.

Well, now that we've got a local Modern Quilt Guild I've resurrected several old quilts and am determined to finish them. And here one is!!!

The center panels are an Alexander Henry print bought at St. Theresa's Textile Trove back in the day. I wanted it to look like an Asian shoji screen and used a traditional Amish pattern.

The geishas are hand quilted, the rest is machine quilted.
Here's an image of the pieced back, which is all the rage these 10 years later!
It is made for a full size bed, which we got rid of 4 years ago. Ha!

Quilt Block Swap

The plan:
A finished block: 9 more to go:
And the aftermath:


I had so much fun making these I left them hanging on the dining room curtains for weeks!

It's been a few weeks here of hints, clues, nudges and prods from the past. Some were private things, like running across the blanket we held Burke in while he passed away, and some a little more public, like attending the blessingway for another babylostmama, but all are pointing back to the grief and ache.

I've been trying to ignore them, pretending it's "just a little emotional bump." But I realized last night while crying and laughing with a new lostbabymama friend that it's time to do a little more Work. Time to reflect, maybe pull out some photos.

Take some long walks. Talk a little more. Tune in and listen. Spend some time getting to know the quiet space in our little family where our eldest son should be.

So thank you for this...

Little wheelbarrow

Bennett's favorite garden tool, he uses it to haul anything and everything around the yard, even trying to give the cat a ride.

What to do with crap?

Once your family is sick of zucchini bread, cupcakes, risotto, Barbara Kingsolver's Disappearing Zucchini Orzo, fried zucchini, sauteed zucchini, zucchini in fajitas/quesadillas, you shred that mountain of zucchinis into manageable amounts and freeze them. 22 cups worth to be precise.

And there are still more setting on.

In other news, our neighborhood deer has been spotted sleeping in a backyard across the street. Awesome. No wonder he's visited several times, tearing up more tomatoes, nibbling more cukes, and razing the peppers back to the stems YET AGAIN.


Let's hope eating hot peppers gave him some indigestion. Grumble.Last weekend we finally took some heavy-handed measures and installed a mesh fence around the entire garden.


You can barely see it, but there it is in all it's 8 foot glory. Just try it again mister deer.