Four Down

Yesterday, after eating my healthy breakfast of CSA goodies, I decided to test out my theory that I should be able to leap tall buildings with a single bound by heading out to the greenhouse. The greenhouse isn't particularly tall, and I didn't jump over it. However, I did negotiate the threshold nicely. That's gotta count for something, right?

When I got inside, I discovered the first flowers on the tomatoes. Furry little things, aren't they? And the tomatoes are growing like mad. 

I only just put them in larger pots a couple of weeks ago, but I'm afraid they'll need transplanting again very soon. It's starting to make me wonder if that middle pot is really worth the effort. Mike thinks it helps keep the roots from staying too wet, since a larger volume of soil would stay wet longer. 

I've also heard a theory that a plant will fill the pot with roots before it grows taller above the surface of the soil, and therefore putting it in too large a pot too soon could stunt its growth. As I'm writing that it doesn't make a lot of sense to me since planting a start in the actual ground would be like planting it in a pot the size of the universe. Oh well...all this speculation about it will do me no good until next year. For now, it is what it is, and that means I'm going to have to repot these again before we go to Whistler, B.C., next month. If I wait until we get back, the plants are going to be so large that it will be hard to manage them without doing them harm.

After that (and to Smitty's great delight...he doesn't like the greenhouse), we took a little walk around the yard. More of the iris are opening. This first one appears white, but it is actually the lightest shade of blue.

There are only a few of these apricot-colored ones.

And I love these two shades of purple ones. 

My favorites have yet to open, however. They are blue and yellow. We've had quite a bit of rain over the past week, and that does the iris no good. The blossoms fill up with water and rot before they even open. I'm afraid it won't be a good year for the iris. Plus, our plants need very badly to be divided. I'm going to have to read up on that because we are getting fewer stalks each year. It's very noticeable this year. I've resisted dividing them up until now, but I'm afraid the time has come.

The new plantings in the culinary herb garden are doing well. I noticed the lavender are heading up. Can Bees Knees cocktails be far behind?

It was cloudy while we were out for our walkabout, and so I was able to get a better picture of the purple rhododendron. When the sun is bright, it's hard to get the color in the image nicely saturated.

Its neighbor across the sidewalk is in full bloom now too.

I procrastinated hard all day trying to avoid doing any more paper-piecing. Eventually, there was no choice, and I headed into the sewing room to the paper-piecing project of doom. I made a purple tulip.

And then a pink one.

So...take a careful look at that image above. Do you see the mistake? Scroll down to the bottom and I'll show you what I did.

Okay, now that I've confessed my quilting sins, here's what I did with those first four tulips. They are sewn into a four-patch of tulips. There is one of these in the quilt.

You can see it there at the top of the gazebo, just left of center.

That was all the sewing I did yesterday. It takes me a solid hour to make one of those tulips. I still have three small ones and three large ones to go, and I don't seem to be picking up any steam as I go. I am making a huge mess, however, and so I suppose that counts for something.

This morning, in my continuing quest to use my CSA veggies, I tried this little breakfast sandwich. First, I toasted an English muffin and spread it with some of the tomato chutney from last year. If you don't have tomato chutney, salsa will do nicely for this. 

Then I fried up some Canadian bacon. You could use regular bacon or sausage too....or none. 

Then I added some olive oil to the same pan I used for the Canadian bacon and sauteed another handful of spinach until it was wilted. 

Then I poured in a lightly beaten egg. Think of the egg as the mortar for your brick of spinach.

I used my spatula to shape it into a round pancake about the size of my English muffin, and then flipped it over.

Then I put it on top of the Canadian Bacon...that fries up so quick, your bacon will still be plenty warm.

And there you go...one breakfast sandwich. Usually I use avocado on this, but the spinach was nice too.

And now...faster than a speeding bullet...I'm heading into the sewing room to sew a label on the Rubber Duckies quilt I made for my friends' first grandchild:

The baby was born last week. She has a much longer name, but her nickname is Zevee...cute, huh?

Just now, I found this picture of the happy grandparents on Facebook. They are just too cute with their new little granddaughter.

I'm wanting to get this into today's mail. Also today I'm heading out to the grocery store and then doing some housework. We're leaving to go to the beach on Saturday, and so there's lots to do. And if all of that doesn't take too long, I'll get back to my tulips.

For those of you who can't resist a horror story, here's the mistake:

And this is only one reason I detest paper piecing. No matter how careful I am, I often end up cutting my pieces a little short. They seem large enough until I fold them over some angled line. Then, I realize they aren't going to stretch into the seam allowance. And if you're like me, you only notice this when you've already sewn on the next several pieces.

So I looked at this carefully, and it's only about 1/4-inch short. The quilt police were looking over my shoulder and tut-tutting, but I ignored them and just sewed a little extra on right there. You didn't see it did you? By the time the whole quilt is sewn together, quilted, and bound, I'll forget it's there, and so will you. And quilt police...get out of my sewing room!