• Spend time with some quilting friends
• Paint my fingernails and toenails a nice robin-egg blue
• Read part of my book-group book
• Admire my new fabric from Hawthorne Threads

• Bake and eat ham
• Upgrade WordPress (Still working on personalizing my new theme)

I think that covers it. Of course, I’m going to make up for all my R&R with a busy, non-stop week.

I started with my sewing room. First up, I hung some paper craft art that I made last summer. I wish I could find the link to the source. I know that some people are so over owls, but I still like them.

Next, I organized my fabric. This was the biggest undertaking. I have two Expedit shelves: one 4 x 4 unit and one 4 x 2 unit. I decided that the 4 x 4 unit would store books and fabric. I sorted the middle two shelves by color. I was a bit surprised to see my pile of blue and green fabric. I think it’s time to expand my horizons and buy some other colors. My scraps are stored in the baskets on the bottom shelf. My scraps are sorted by:

• 2.5″ squares
• 5″ squares
• 2.5″ strips
• 2″ strips
• 1.5″ or smaller strips
• Felt
• Selvedges
• Leftover bindings

In the spring, it will be time to do something with my 2″ strips.

On the other side of the book shelf, I had a bit of blank wall. It’s behind the door. So I haven’t been able to store anything there. I’ve debating between installing some decorative shelves and installing a design wall. The design wall won out. I made my design wall by covering some sound board with flannel. Then I screwed the panel into the wall. It will leave some ugly marks if I ever take it down, but I’d done wall board work before. I guess I can clean up after myself if necessary.

I went with sounding board versus just hanging up batting or flannel, because I want to be able to stick pins into. Basically, I have a giant bulletin board. In fact, I have enough sound board left over that I can make even more bulletin boards. However, I think I’ll frame any other bulletin boards that I put up. A couple of more things. I wish I covered the board with two layers of flannel. One layer is just too thin. Also if you want to make one for yourself, you’ll find the sound board material next to the foam insulation at the hardware store.

And my last bit of home improvement involves hanging up curtains. Now just outside my sewing room is a door way to the unfinished portion of our basement. Now it doesn’t have a door because it’s a non-standard door size. Also, the litter box is down here. So the area needs to be accessible to the cats.

I decided to try hanging up some curtains over the doorway. So far the cats don’t seem to mind. In fact, they like to jump through the curtain and attack one another. I bought two washable twill panels from Target. They’ll be covered in cat hair in a few days. Now, I hope the curtains cut down on the draft. At the bare minimum, the hall way looks better.

Putting up these curtains made me realize that I need to repaint the hallway. It’s quite beat up. Sadly, I’m the one hauling stuff through the hallway. I can only blame myself. The only good thing is I already have the paint.

OK. Some how I missed blogging the whole month of June. I thought about it, but some how my blog and I didn’t connected. Tonight, I’d like to  make amends and summarize the last 4-5 weeks of my life.

Much of our time was spent in out garden. Despite neglect, our rose bushes looked beautiful. Ross shot this picture, which I love. He’s willing to take the time to set up the tripod and shoot until he gets what he wants. The rose bushes are no longer neglected. Ross has decided to care for them. It is amazing how good the look now. We’re hoping to get a second bloom.

One day in a work meeting we were talking about using games to teach, which lead me to think about my favorite video game from my youth. I loved playing A-Mazing on out TI-99. The video game inspired this maze quilt. When I get it quilted, I’ll post more information on the development process.

Then Father’s Day arrived. I had a hard time thinking of an appropriate Father’s Day gift for my dad. So to hold him over, I gave him some peanut clusters in these neat shirt boxes. I can’t find the link I used. If I do, I’ll post update.

After Father’s Day, I made a big change with my life. I started a new job. So far the change has been all positive. It was sad leaving my co-workers, but it feels really good to stretch my wings and prove to myself that I can do new things.

The veggie garden continues to grow. I think this picture is about a week old. It has grown a ton even from this picture. Green tomatoes are starting to form. Tonight I noticed baby cucumbers starting to form. I can’t wait to eat fresh food from our garden.

The holiday weekend gave me the opportunity to spend some time with some of my favorite people while we waited for fireworks. Laying in a park and reading a magazine is a perfect way to spend a Saturday evening.

I even snagged this picture of Ross washing our car. It looks all nice and spiffy. It’s ready for a road trip.

I didn’t make Ross work all weekend. We did attempt a bike ride on the Jordan Parkway. Unfortunately, about one mile into our ride, Ross’ back tire popped. While we had a patch kit, we didn’t have a spare tube as we put the spare tube on his front tire before we left. Ross has a bit of bad luck with tire tubes. Even though we didn’t get far, Ross does want to ride more. He’s even thinking about a new bike, which he really could use. I will definitely get a picture of our next bike ride.

To top off the weekend, I basted a quilt and started quilting it. I’m quilting an allover loop pattern. It is going quickly. I hope to be done by the end of the week.

Our garden has made it to week nine. Since we don’t know what we’re doing, I’m fairly happy. So far, the radishes are the only real loss. I didn’t thin them out soon enough. In a couple of weeks, I’ll plant a second batch. Hopefully, I’ll do better the second time.

Today, we reined back the tomatoes. They out grew their cages. Now they lived in a tomato prison which is formed with stakes and twine.

We even have our first red cherry tomatoes.

In a week, we could easily be picking tomatoes on a daily basis, at least cherry tomatoes. The other plants are coming along, but by no means are they as prolific as the cherry tomato plant. I’m glad we only planted one. It also makes we wonder why they are so expensive in the store. Each plant produces a lot of tomatoes.

Also in this box, the leeks are ready for us to start to eat. We have one cucumber that is almost ready and lots of itty bitty cucumbers. The eggplant even has one small eggplant. Next year, I’m planting more than one eggplant. I have too much hope riding on this one.

Over in the second box, it is all about climbing stuff.

The beans are growing tall, but have yet to produce beans. I’m not sure what the hold up is. The butternut squash is taking off. I can even find two small squashes starting to form. On the back side the banana squash it taking over the yard.

When I bought the plant, I had no idea it would get so big. I was looking for a second winter squash plant. All I could find in the nursery was the banana squash. It looked small and innocent in the container. Yesterday, I looked up banana squash on the Internet. Apparently, it is a huge plant that produced huge squash ranging between 10-20 lbs. This is what one looks like:

And it is still growing. I’ve also found several other buds that are forming into squash. By the time December rolls around, we’ll be tired of banana squash. Next year, I’m planting something less prolific.

And it the very back of the yard, we have the potato patch.

As near as we can tell, the plants are doing well. They are growing. They should start to flower soon. We didn’t get these into the ground until the beginning of June. So they are a bit behind the curve.

My next garden update will be about eating all the tasty produce.

Sunday at dinner with my family, we were explaining our dilemma. The dirt is nice good dirt. We just didn’t want to dump it at the dump. I mean someone somewhere has to need a lot of good dirt. Luckily, my parent’s neighbor’s needed a lot of dirt for a huge flower plot they’ve started. So this morning at 7 am, I picked up my brother, Moses, and the trailer and headed back to our house.

This is what we started with:

Within minutes, Ross and Moses broke ground.

I can’t believe I didn’t get any pictures of the trailer full of dirt. After filling the trailer the first time, we took the dirt to the lucky recipients. Unfortunately for us, the lucky recipients had a family obligation. So we got to fill up their planter box without their help. Trip #1 was followed by a trip to the dump and a second trip from our house to the lucky recipients.

While we really would have liked a bit more help, we were happy to do it, because we now have level ground. By the way, I should really point out that without my brother’s and my parent’s help, the dirt donation project would be wishful thinking on our part. Thanks!

Now this really should have been enough activity for one weekend, but we decided to tackle one more project. Since we moved into out house, there has been a cast iron table sitting on our patio. We couldn’t move it. It didn’t have wheels, and it was too heavy to move. On Sunday, I almost had Ross talked into getting rid of the table. I wanted the patio back. Well, Ross decided it was just too useful to get rid of. So he found some extra-heavy-duty casters, and we set about to install them.

And here it is with out leaves, dirt, and spider webs.

And even better, it fits nicely into the shed.

And even better than that, we have reclaimed out patio. Now I want to find two adirondack chairs with a cute little side table. Any inexpensive ideas?

Our weekend started with a blank dirt slate.

After a bit of muscle flexing by Ross, the fence-post cement was excavated.

While it wasn’t easy, it did take less then time than we anticipated. This was the only event that took less time than anticipated.

After a trip to Lowes and Western Gardens, our second veggie plot is ready to grow.

The poles are for the beans. I know it’s a wimpy structure. I was trying to use what I had on hand. Next year, I’ll build something stronger. The plans are already brewing in my head. I just need to write them down in my idea notebook.

Lesson learned: Vermiculite is less expensive at Western Gardens than Lowes. Who would have thought?

We have this odd cement square in the middle of our grass. Ross decide to make it a mint garden with spearmint and chocolate mint.

The cement hole is about two feet deep, which should help control the growth. Otherwise, Ross plans on trimming it with the weed eater. I hope it works out for the mint and Ross.

Also, here a week two picture of veggie plot #1.

The plants are growing. It has been a rough two weeks for these plants. It has rained a lot. The nights have been cold. One day it snowed. Miraculously, the plants have flourished. A few tomato plants got a bit of frost bite. We did lose a few plants, but not to the weather. We think a bird came and pulled out a few plants. Since one plant was an anaheim pepper, we hope the bird learned it’s lesson. If not, our cat, Calypso, is totally willing to put the bird population in its place. She asks to go outside everyday.

And one last photo for this post.

This is our honeysuckle. Last  year, we built the trellis. The honeysuckle really didn’t take to it. However, this year looks like a winner. It is growing right up the trellis. I can’t wait to see the blossoms.