On Hold

My day of making quilt sandwiches was cut short when I ran out of batting. I suppose I could have gone to JoAnn to get some more, but JoAnn always puts me in a bad mood, and so I just stopped. Just how many quilt sandwiches did I get through, you ask? Exactly 25% of my total...in other words, one. It was the most important one, however. Quiltemala is ready to go. I'll start the quilting on this next week.

Here's the back I pieced together from the leftover fabrics. With them fraying so badly, I tried to keep any raw edges sewn to the domestic homespun.

And I laid out the backing for the Snow Globes quilt and had it clamped and taped down, but I didn't have a piece of batting large enough. Probably, I had some pieces I could stitch together, but I worried on a mostly white quilt the seam might show through. So I quit with that, ordered some more batting from Amazon.com. I'm told JoAnn is no longer carrying my favorite Warm & White (or Warm & Natural). Fortunately, Amazon has it, and it should be here tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll just leave the sawhorse tables set up in the garage and get back to it as soon as the batting arrives.

While I considered what to do next, I spent some time in the garden. The flower pots needed watering, and the bird feeders needed to be filled. You might recall I tried planting Gerbera daisies in a new spot since I have trouble getting them to rebloom in the shady spot where they usually live. Finally, one has rebloomed. They all would have rebloomed by now except that the squirrels thought the previous flower buds made a tasty snack. For whatever reason, they left this one alone.

Its neighbor to the right also has a bud. 

The catnip is blooming. The bees love it, and I imagine the kitties would love it too, but they are still indoor kitties. We're still hoping this won't be a permanent change of life for them, but until the danger passes, they're inside full time.

There are a few tomatoes ripening. These are the San Marzanos. I like the Romas better, but I couldn't find them when I went tomato shopping this year.

There's another one over here. There are also lots of green ones. I still have plenty of pasta sauce and salsa left over from last year. I'm not sure how much I'll do with these beyond just canning regular tomatoes in their own juices. The farmers will have bulk tomatoes too, and I'll probably get some from them a little later.

The plums are nowhere near ripe. I'm hoping they hold off until late September. We're planning a trip (as we often do) just about the time they should be ripening. I can't even count how many years I've missed them altogether. I used to give them to our neighbor, but she passed away two years ago, and now I'm afraid they'll just ripen and fall off the tree. I might convince Mae to come up and pick some. Or maybe we'll just get lucky and they'll hold off until we get back from our trip. The weather has been weird this year. Hot one day, raining the next. I'm not sure what the plums think about that.

Also, I counted nine apples on our scrawny apple tree. Not a bad showing for such a sad little tree.

Finally, the calla lily put out one last gasp of a flower. The lady bugs look right at home there. It's a nice little shady spot out of the sun for them.

From there, I headed into the sewing room since I couldn't make sandwiches, and I finished the binding on the mystery project. If you're on Instagram, you might have seen it. Here's how it looks from the back. I'm putting it in this morning's mail, and so my friend will have it in a few days and I'll be able to show you the whole thing.

But I'm not finished being a woman of mystery because I decided to start on this little project...a gift for another friend. All I need to do is hand-stitch the binding.

I'm going to start on yet another gift for yet another friend, but I don't yet have any pictures to entice you.

The thing Smitty misses most about being an indoor kitty is his grass, and so I've been going outside to harvest some and then bringing it in for him. He loves it. Each time I go out the back door, he waits inside to see if I'll be back with grass, and he gets very excited when that part of the day arrives. Yesterday Mike and I were discussing how we hadn't seen any coyotes in a while and whether it was safe to let the kitties out again. I was feeling more confident than Mike, and so we decided to keep them in a while longer. When I went out to get Smitty's grass in the late afternoon, I saw this guy. He looks like a young one to me...big ears and a small body. So, okay...kitties are still in. As I'm writing this, I can hear the coyotes yipping off in the distance.

We had a mostly CSA dinner last night. One of the real treasures from our CSA shares are these shishito peppers. I'd never heard of them before the CSA, and they are delicious. A few have started showing up in grocery stores, and I see them at the Farmer's Market too. They have all the delicious flavor of a jalapeno without any of the heat. They're super simple too. I just blister mine in a hot cast iron skillet with a little extra-virgin olive oil. When they're soft and spotty brown, I sprinkle them with kosher salt and a little dribble of lime juice. Yum.

Also, this chilled Cucumber and Avocado Soup with Tomato and Basil Salad. This is a great meal on a hot day. The soup can be made up ahead of time, and then I just needed to fry up the prosciutto (or bacon) for the topping, and to put together a small tomato and basil salad. It also has a little dollop of plain yogurt. It's surprisingly filling, and it went well with the blistered shishitos.

So today I have some canning to do. I picked up some beautiful tomatillos at the Farmer's Market the other day. I'm going to make some tomatillo and apple salsa. It's a recipe I tried for the first time last year, and it's a really delicious salsa verde. I'll say more about that when I have a picture to post tomorrow. Aside from that, a short trip into town and then I'll just continue on with my mystery projects and whatever else I can scrounge up in the sewing room.