More Big Dreams

There was a lot on yesterday morning's agenda. Since there was much to accomplish, while still leaving time for quilting, I was out early to water the annuals. While I was out, I noticed some new reasons to get excited. The echinacea are really taking off now. It's one of my favorite flowers.

The bees love it too.

I have three colors, and I notice the third color is starting to open. I wasn't sure it had survived the winter.

In the greenhouse, the first tomatoes are beginning to ripen. I'm hoping to get plenty for making salsa this year. We've used our last jar, and so it's practically a salsa emergency.

Also, there are lots of ears of corn beginning to show now. I'm very happy about this because it will have plenty of time to ripen before we leave on our September trip. In addition to just eating it straight from the cob, I have some other things I'd like to try doing this year.

The melon plant continues to produce scads of flowers, but so far, I don't see anything that looks like a melon. Ya gotta think there will be melons with so many flowers, right? I'll keep looking.

Here's a better picture of this flower in the bee garden. The one I posted a few days ago was a little blurry. I have trouble with the focus on my camera because it wants to focus on the background of things rather than on the subject. I'm learning to use the "manual focus," but I haven't mastered it yet. The bee garden is a good place to practice. My friend Christine tells me these are known as "corn poppies." Thank you, Christine. Always nice to have a name for something.

Near the front door, the Black-eyed Susan is finally starting to open. This has taken its sweet time, for sure. I thought it would be open a week ago.

Okay, and then it was time to dispense with the tomatillos I got at the farmer's market on Saturday. I made 7 half-pints of Tomatillo-Apple Salsa.

This is a delicious salsa verde. I've tried making salsa verde primarily with tomatillos before (minus the apples). It doesn't seem to matter how long I cook it, it always ends up watery. My theory about this is that adding the apples adds just a little bit of natural pectin that helps thicken it. Whatever the case, this is an easy recipe, and it only takes about 20 minutes of simmering before it's ready to be ladled into jars.

Okay, and so finally I could get to my quilting. This first petal was oddly shaped, and so I didn't do much there. I was trying to do something fancy around the border, and it didn't work out anything like I'd envisioned it. No worries. It's fine.

For the next petal, I did a flower motif I've done before, filling in any gaps with some pebbling.

Then I used a motif I did once before when I was participating in Jeanne Harrison's quilt-along challenge some years back.

Oh look! It's the paws that refresh!

We had to take a break there so I could love up on my kitty. 

When we were finished, I stitched one more petal. I was trying to do something fancy with a feather.

When I finished with that, I remembered I have a whole book of inspiration from Patsy Thompson. She has some beautiful ideas in her book.

I noticed this book says "Volume One," and so I went in search of more volumes. I could only find DVD's, which I don't want. There's probably plenty of inspiration in this one book, and so I'll spend some time with it today and see what other fun feathery flowery motifs I can some up with. There was a time when I didn't like feathers, and I thought they were overdone. They've kind of grown on me, and I can see their versatility when it comes to machine quilting, especially.

Okay, and so that was as far as I went. I'm about halfway through the petals now, just doing them a few at a time. I'm happy working on this in little bits, and I'd like to get back to some more of my other projects too.

When I went downstairs, I found a dead cat. Wait...is she really dead???

Oh no...not to worry...just very sleepy.

This morning, Sue and I are meeting up for breakfast and a walk. Before I head for home I need to pick up a few items for some more salsa I'm going to make tomorrow. It's a new recipe to me, made with plums and tomatoes. Erik and Mae gave me a bunch of plums from their tree, and Erik requested a spicy salsa. Okay, well...challenge accepted! This recipe has habanero peppers. That oughta get his taste buds standing up and saying Whoopie! No whining though. If you ask for spicy salsa, I will deliver. 

Okay, and while I was waiting for yesterday's salsa to process, I pureed some watermelon flesh for watermelon sorbet. It needs to chill overnight, but it's ready for churning today. I'll get back to my quilting, but I'd like to start sewing Jenny's Flower Garden into a flimsy. 

As I mentioned recently, I'm going to sandwich a pile of quilt tops during August, and I'd like to get this one into the mix. So there's plenty to do, as usual. Time to get going.