A Finish and a Start

Good morning, my friends. There was quite a bit of progress made yesterday on both the sewing and kitchen fronts. My slow-stitching was devoted to hand-stitching the binding on the challenge piece. It took about an hour, and then it was finished. Here's your peek.

Here's how it looks from the back.

And here's your last look at it until the reveal on November 1st. It ended up at 22 x 22 inches.

I'd committed my morning to slaying some more zucchini. When the binding was finished, I went to work first thing trying to cull the herd. First, I checked out the recipes I have planned for the next week's menus and separated them into labeled containers before returning them to the vegetable crisper.

The rest went into the shredder. The four zip-lock bags are measured out in 2-cup portions. Those went into the freezer. The measuring cup was holding what was to go into the zucchini bread.

And let's not forget this 4-cup portion set aside for last night's dinner.

When all of that was done, I had just these three big boys left. If I don't figure out something else first, we'll probably slice these the long way and grill them. They're so good brushed with a little bit of olive oil and minced garlic, and then grilled until nice grill marks appear.

After that, I mixed up some zucchini bread and put it into the oven. It had to bake for an hour and 15 minutes, and that gave me time to hoe the garden. On my way, I noticed the cherry tomatoes are ripening.

The plant was slow to produce, but it's going to win out over the zucchini for productivity. It's covered in these clusters of about a dozen tomatoes each. There are probably hundreds of tomatoes on this one plant.

The Firefighter dahlia still hasn't opened all the way. I'm not sure what's holding it up. The petals look fine where they're still tightly held. Oh well. There will be more flowers, and it's pretty just as it is.

There were some new sunflowers in the garden. This is the Procut White Nite.

Contrast it with the other white one, the Procut White Lite with a yellow center.

This one hasn't opened all the way yet. It's called Starburst Panache. 

This one is called Red Sun.

And here's a better picture of the Infrared Mix. The lighting was strange on the earlier picture.

So I spent some time hoeing weeds and harvesting more vegetables. I got a handful of green beans, a few more pickling cucumbers, and more zucchini. I'm harvesting the little ones now. There was one larger one that I'd missed from the day before. 

Speaking of making mountains out of molehills...the mole seems to be doing just that. You can see our rainbird sprinkler there for scale. Sheesh. This isn't the guy who's been doing all the damage in the garden, but he's just as pesky.

Back inside, there were just a few minutes left on my bread bake. When I took it out of the oven...mmm, mmm, mmm.

We each had a slice with our coffee this morning.

In the sewing room yesterday, I had lots of kitty help. Smitty came first. It was his day to snoopervise the papurr-piecing.

Under his watchful eye, I was able to complete four more sections.

There are still three to go, and I should have no problem finishing this one today.

When my hour was up, I went to work cutting the component pieces for the Sweet Dreams baby quilt.

The next step was to make and trim the half square triangles.

It was nearing dinner time by then, and so I laid out the pieces for the four-patches beside the sewing machine.

I was thinking I'd quit for the day then, but Sadie showed up and offered her assistance.

Pawssibly you could do a little more with my assistance.

Okay, well, she talked me into making the 2-patches. I'll sew them into 4-patches before the end of today.

There was more zucchini on last night's menu. Our main course was this Farfalle with Yogurt and Zucchini. I've made this dish before, and it's surprisingly good. It's pretty easy to make too. On the side, the Canal House's Marinated Zucchini. It's served cold like a salad. I use the baby zucchini in this dish, and I'm going to try some prepared a different way in a few days.

And that was a nice green way to end a busy day. 

It's a grocery shopping day. Fortunately, I purchased quite a few things from the list when I drove into town a few days ago. Today's list is fairly short. Yes, there will be more zucchini on next week's menu, but I'm ready to give up the fight soon. I'm aborting their young now. Soon there will be no more "soldiers" to battle, and this year's zucchini harvest will be vanquished. (Overly optimistic much?) There are a couple of short items on my to-do list, but the afternoon will be spent in the sewing room. 

We're expecting a coolish day at just 79°F. for a high. So far this summer, we've had very nice weather. We've only run the AC a couple of days. It's been good for the garden to have plenty of bright sunshine and not too much heat. If any of you are reading from Hawaii, I'm so sorry about what's happening on Maui. My mom and I met up with my dad while he was on R&R from Vietnam one year, and that was my one and only visit to Lahaina. I was said to hear of the destruction. Stay safe my friends.