Wednesday in the Garden

Another Wednesday in the garden, in the top right hand corner we have an owl guarding the plants. The birds and squirrels have been busy with the tomatoes in the last week. I picked a 1/2 pound tomato from one of the potted plants yesterday.

Wednesday in the garden

This is the first tomato out of the garden this year, there is a quarter beside it. The plant was marked cherry tomato, it's the largest cherry tomato we have ever seen. We're wondering if the plants were mismarked.

Once again it's Wednesday in the garden. Some animal(s) has dug around in the okra row and broken 4 of the plants. The tomatoes look wonderful and I haven't seen any green beans. The cucumbers and bell peppers are doing well. The top of the PVC is about 7' tall. The celebrity tomato plants are the tallest right now. We have never grown those before.(below) These are the celebrity tomato plants.

(below) This is supposed to be a cherry tomato plant. There are about 20 tomatoes on that one branch. We've added extra support for that branch.

Lucille's Friendship Quilt

I should have taken more pictures when I was working on this quilt last week. I wasn't totally sure how the blocks were going to go together until they were on the floor Thursday morning. That morning I was waiting for the last block to arrive, I laid the blocks out. The blocks were about half light background and half medium to dark background. I decided to go with a negative positive effect. I started with the black first. The blocks were trimmed (if necessary) square, strips were added and then the blocks were trimmed to 16 1/2" square. The top was pieced Thursday and quilted Thursday night. The binding was done over the weekend. The label was done with reverse applique. The cut out was the shape of a heart. The theme of the quilt was lady bugs. The white background fabric has lady bugs on it. The black is a stripe. The backing is hearts with a black background. The following picture is of the quilt after it was quilted. I forgot to get a picture of it with the binding. I used the leftover backing fabric for the binding. I took the quilt to Lucille today. She was meeting with her bee in Dayton. It was really good to see her. She was thrilled with the quilt.

Quick Water Color Quilts

Has anyone seen the quick water color techniques? I saw a demo at Sue's Quilt Shop in Sugarland a few years ago. You cut up the entire piece of fabric into 2" squares and then rearrange the pieces. I've been looking for the right fabrics for this technique for years and I'm having trouble finding the right fabric.
Recently I found a fabric that would work but, I would have to fussy cut the squares. I gave it a try. Last Saturday I spent the entire afternoon cutting my fabric into swiss cheese. I decided to reserve the leftover piece for the backing. I got 2 blocks out of it.
Today I went to the quilt shop, the Quilt Room in Huffman, TX, and bought fabric to finish the quilt. They had fat quarters of the background fabric, too. This quilt is going to be mine. I've made a couple of them from other fabrics and I've given them away.

Wednesday in the garden

Once again it's Wednesday in the garden. The green bean plants have grown taller and there are several bell peppers. The squirrels have been causing trouble. They're been picking and eating the green tomatoes. I tried keeping them out with coffee grounds but, that only worked for about 2 days. Then I tried a cayenne papper and Murphy's oil soap recipe. We also put up nylon netting around the tomato plants. So far so good, the squirrels have left the plants alone. We have 1 small cucumber. This is a view from the other side, the onions are on the far left. The okra will be thinned and mulched today. The tomato plants are getting taller and taller. It looks like some of the tomato plant tags were wrong variety. They won't go to waste, we eat a lot of tomaotes.

Wednesday in the garden

In the last week the tomato and green bean plants have really grown. The squirrels have taken interest in the tomatoes in the garden. I'm trying to keep them out with coffee grounds. I got the coffee grounds from Starbuck's. The okra is on the next to last row and is just coming up. We should have fresh green beans by mid June and okra by the 4th of July. If you click on the picture, it will enlarge and you may be able to see the green bean runners going up the cords on the frame and the coffee grounds on the ground. My husband and I built the frame. It's screwed together so we can take it apart for storage. I've put out another bag of mulch and watered the plants with 12 gallons of fertilizer. The mosquitoes are bad but, I haven't seen a squirrel in the backyard today.

Sharpie Experiment

This is my 1st Sharpie experiment. There was a post on the quiltart list earlier this week about using Sharpie markers on t-shirts. I do not remember the name of the original poster. The idea got me to thinking and I had some time to spare yesterday. The following is the first piece of muslin with designs drawn on it. Then I got to thinking about a 2nd piece. Tie dye came to mine. I folded the piece for tie dye and applied Sharpie markers to it.

This is the tie dye piece a few hours after the 1st alcohol spraying. I decided to spray it again, this time while open.

The following is the results (not pressed) of the experiment. It was fun and I know I will try it again