Crazy Sunday

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Today's post is a crazy mish mash of different things I have to tell you about.  I'm hoping to get some sewing in today, but first I need to drive down to Newberg to pick up some sulfur dust for my tomatoes.  One of them is severely afflicted with leaf curl, and some of the others are showing signs of it.  As I wrote those words, I decided I should really go down and take some pictures of it so you could see.  Maybe one of you knows what to do.  I have done some reading on the internet, and from what I can tell, this can be caused by a variety of factors.  I'm hoping it's not a virus, because that could spell doom for the plant.

Mike seems to think that sulfur dust will do the trick, for a lot of different reasons.  He learned tomato farming from my father-in-law, who grew the best tomatoes ever.  He was a tomato farmer during the Great Depression.  I sure could use his advice right about now, but I'll have to take it from the mouth of Mike.  (Sure do miss you Old Dad.) 

Here's how it looks close-up.  Ugly, huh?

Does it seem I'm always telling you about the most recent reason my tomato crop will fail?  Actually, they're looking pretty good.  These are the largest among them.

Then there are these in smaller pots that I'm planning to transplant into larger pots today.

Look at all the flowers on this one.

They all have flowers now.  Being greenhouse tomatoes, we maximize their chances of pollination by fondling them often with a soft make-up brush.  Also, we leave the door and window open as much as possible to encourage bug fly-throughs.  I've read that just shaking the stems on tomatoes is enough to pollinate them, but we give them every opportunity for tomato love.

These are my dill and basil plants.  I'm growing the basil for fresh pesto, which I could eat by the bowlful.  No bread or anything else required.  Just a big spoon.  The dill is getting large enough that I can begin to harvest small quantities.  I love fresh dill.  I have a really good salad that uses fresh dill that I will tell you about next time I make it...and that should be very soon. 

Finally, after much gnashing of teeth and disappointment, we have red leaf lettuce.  It's still tiny, but at least it has germinated.  

We've been harvesting the butter lettuce below.  This variety is called Butter Crunch, and it's a new variety for us.  I've always planted Esmerelda in the past, and we loved it.  I wasn't able to get that seed this year, and so tried something different.  This is at least as good.  Sometimes I think garden lettuce is a little too floppy, and so I like a nice firm leaf.

When I left the greenhouse, I noticed the dianthus has started to bloom.

Smitty stopped to smell the flowers.  The sun has been shining and so Smitty is spending almost all of his time outdoors.  When he comes in at the end of the day for his dinner, he is a pooped pup.

Gracie stopped for a little nip.  They're keeping the nip pretty well trimmed back.

Speaking of Smitty and Gracie, they're getting along pretty well these days.  Last night, they sat at the window together for a good half hour.  Smitty is learning to curb his enthusiasm a little, and she's becoming a little more appreciative of his company.  She likes being outside with him.  When George disappeared, she really missed him as an outdoor companion.  She's a fearful cat, and she's much more willing to go outside when she has another cat with her.

Let's see.  What else?  Oh yes, I finished off my chive blossom vinegar.  The bottle in front is for my friend Sue.  She gets another bottle this year in exchange for returning her bottle from last year.  The other two small bottles will be for other friends.  The large bottle is for us.  We still have tons of chive blossoms, but since I poured out some from last year, I don't think I need to make any more.  One can only consume so much vinegar.  Although if one is weird like someone I know, one might be known to drink vinegar straight from the bottle.  Now, who would do such a thing?

Incidentally, if you'd like to know how to make chive blossom vinegar, you can read my mini-tutorials here and here.  It's the simplest thing you'll ever do.  Oh!  And I think I'll link up to:

So that's about it for the non-sewing related stuff.  Next I want to tell you about a tip I read in Creative Machine Embroidery magazine for keeping sewing machine needles organized.  I use different needles for different applications, and sometimes the needle is still good for another round of sewing when I'm ready to switch it out again.  I don't necessarily want to put it back into the little plastic case with the new needles because I like to keep my used needles separate.  So here is the idea.

In the magazine, they used a metallic ruler for this along with some little magnets that were labeled.  I found this little magnetic strip bulletin board at The Container Store (which is a store I love almost as much as I love fabric stores).

I paid $6.99 for this one and the magnets came with it.  It's 2 x 14 inches, which was plenty large enough for me.  You can get larger ones, and you can get them in different colors.  You can even get them with little slots for storage.

The magazine tip showed it with the little magnets (smaller than a dime) labeled, but I kind of like this post-it note method.

I have it on the wall right next to my sewing machine.  No more poked fingers for me!  None, today, anyway.  As for tomorrow, who knows?  I'm sure I could figure out some way to injure myself with this arrangement.

Also, yesterday I made three more petunia blocks for the Quiltmaker's Garden quilt.  It takes about 40 minutes to make each one of these.

I still need to make one more yellow one, and then I'll be ready to move on to the sky blocks.  There are 12 of them.  They use the same block pattern, but they are made with three different blues.  I'm a little tired of these, however, and so I think I will set this aside and move on to the blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  

I totally neglected my little ladies last month.  I didn't make the blue ones yet.

And now we're on to the yellow ones.

I'll make both blocks at the same time, and then I'll add them to the little ladies I have so far.  Blue and Yellow are just what they need.

Also, I'm making progress on my Quilted Snowlady.  This project has been neglected a little bit over the past week as well.  I've felt too busy and distracted to do embroidery in the morning, but I'm determined to get back at it and get her finished.

My other embroidery projects are getting impatient waiting their turn.

And I'll be linking this post to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

The wind turbine crew is here to raise the tower back up again, and Mike is here to lend a hand.  It'll be good to have that back online.

So, time's awastin'...not that it's ever a waste of time to talk with all of you.  I hope you have a crazy Sunday planned.  Crazy in a good way, of course.