Wonderful Wednesday

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It's the best kind of day for me.  It's a stay-at-home day, and it's the first chance I've had in quite some time to really immerse myself in sewing.  Wahoo!  

Yesterday I finished all of the top-stitching on the Line Dancing quilt, and I was able to start on the embellishing.  I stitched window panes for the windows on the two houses.

Wonky.  This designer is all about the wonk.

Then I made a drawstring on the shorts using Knit Cro-Sheen crochet thread.  I tried to tie it in a tiny bow, but that didn't work out.  A knot will have to do.

Then I stitched a little lace onto one of the brassieres and gave it a little bead right in the center.  One of the things I like about my new sewing machine is that I can change both the width and the length of my fancy stitches without distorting them.  I can distort them if I want, but I can also keep them looking pretty much like their default version.  The sewing machine can stitch a full 9mm in width, and so I have quite a bit of play to work with.  For a standard stitch, I thought this got the point across.  I'm experimenting with other stitches too.

That's as far as I got with that yesterday.  This morning I went out to the greenhouse and gave the tomato starts some attention.  Honestly, they are not looking good at all.

They don't look any worse since moving them to the greenhouse, and in fact, the basil is starting to look a little better.  Those are the ones lowest in the image above.  

The tomato starts began turning yellow a couple of weeks ago.  Although I've been watering them with instant plant food, they haven't perked up at all.  This morning I added some granular fertilizer to their little pots.  Hopefully, they will green up and start growing again.

Also, I repotted and staked the tallest among them and gave them some fertilizer as well.  They have all new soil now too, and so that should help perk them up.

And the dill never did very well inside the house.  Here's what's left of it now.  Pretty pathetic.  Possibly it feels it deserves more than in-the-house horticulture.  Perhaps it only feels outstanding if it is outside.  So...out with these scrawny little things.  I started over with them.

New seeds, new soil, granular fertilizer and spiffy (if dirty) bright new pots.  Maybe these perky colors will be more to their liking.

Also, I planted the first round of lettuce.  For lettuce, I use these pots that are intended to be for window boxes.  This will be my third year growing lettuce in the greenhouse, and these have worked great.  I can fit five heads in each pot, which is plenty of lettuce for the two of us.  Once these get going pretty well, I'll plant another five heads in each of the two pots I have left.  This year I'm planting Red Sails red leaf lettuce.  I've been growing that one for years, and it is a really nice red leaf lettuce that we both love.  Also, I planted a Butter Crunch butterhead lettuce.  I've always planted Esmerelda in the past, but that seed is no longer available.  That's a shame because it always did very well for us.  Hopefully, this new one will do well too.

Lettuce seeds are only barely covered with dirt.  To keep them wet while they germinate, I cover the pots with plastic wrap.  Then the moisture collects on the plastic wrap and drips back onto the soil, keeping them wet without me worrying.  The garden stakes under the plastic wrap keep the moisture-laden wrap from falling back into the soil.  This method has worked well for me in the past, and so I'll just keep it up.

And as a person who thrives on instant gratification, I'm always disappointed when I post these pictures of my newly planted "crops" and notice that nothing has sprouted yet.  I suppose it takes a little longer than a few seconds, but I'm not happy about it.

So now, I'm going to take off my wet clothes (because a day of potting is not complete until one has sprayed oneself with one's hose) and take a shower to rinse off the potting soil.  Then, I'm hitting the sewing room.  I'm hoping to get up a good head of steam on the Line Dancing quilt.  

I hope your day is going well.  Anything fun planned at your end?