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| Completed pillow from last week’s goals is on the left. The pillow was made from unbleached muslin that I got for free from my grandmother’s stash. The stuffing was part of an old bed pillow. The pillow cover was made from drop cloth, and I hand-embroidered a red “S” on it. I printed out the “S” first at 200% in Edwardian Script and traced it onto the fabric. (Yes, I did make the baby’s dress [for another daughter] and bow [the bow belongs to my 6-year-old). |
You can always tell how smoothly naptime/quiet time went each week at my house my how much/how little sewing I get done. I still haven’t had a chance to get back to sewing my daughter’s green dress. I was able to work on some hand-sewing projects at night while watching a few shows with my husband, and a quick pillow (quick projects always yield a sense of accomplishment!), but the dress is still eluding me. She needs new clothes, though, so I keep trying. I’m going to try to finish a quick skirt for her this week just for everyday wear, too.
Last Week’s Goals
1. Continue to prune trees and grape vines. The trash man comes twice a week here. My goal is to have the cans filled each time with cuttings (in addition to any trash that we have). I pruned some grape vines, some trees, and all of the hedges in the garden. I filled the trashcans for last Monday, Thursday, and today.
2. Cage tomato. I had 2 tomatoes left that grew from seeds that self-seeded in my garden, long after the other tomatoes were growing. These 2 small plants were sprawling on the ground, and one of them seems to have escaped the caterpillars. I caged that one last week. The other one is still doing well. I will cage that one this week and carefully look for caterpillars. These plants are still small and will hopefully give us a fall crop of yellow pear tomatoes. There were actually 2 tomato plants that had grown from self-seeding. I caged both of them.
3. Edit new photos and remeasure for the new recipe for the website. Get recipe up on the website.
4. Continue to work on reorganizing the laundry room, by doing some each day. I worked on this last week, but not every day, and I didn’t finish.
5. Finish counterchange smocking on dress.
6. Sew pillow and pillow cover for the living room. This is the cover that I embroidered last week. You can see the pillow in the photos.
7. Finish Winter’s green dress–somehow! Nope.
8. Finish embroidering handkerchief. Start embroidering another handkerchief for a Christmas gift.
9. Start planting fall garden. I planted arugula, leeks, beets, onions (from seed) and several varieties of lettuce.
This Week’s Goals
1. Can pears. I purchased 72 pounds of pears last week for $35.28, thanks to a gift card that my husband received from a friend (this is also how I purchased the 100 pounds of potatoes for $8.80). If this is the only thing that happens this week, that’s okay, because the pears won’t wait! I intend to can some as baby food (pear sauce).
2. Continue pruning trees and vines. Fill up trash cans each time this week before the trash man comes. I have a lot of trees that need to be topped, and it’s going to take a long time to get the trees to where I can reach the fruit next year.
3. Work on green dress for Winter!
4. Finish embroidering handkerchief from last week. I’ll work on this at night while watching something free on Hulu.
5. Spread manure in the garden.
6. Plant more Swiss chard in the garden to replace the seedlings that were eaten by bugs.
7. Spray the grape vines with an organic spray for fungus.
8. Make waistband and finsh skirt for Winter.
What kind of drop cloth Brandy? Does it have the thin film of plastic backing? I have one that I used as a table cloth (covered in plastic from Joann’s) but it doesn’t fit my bigger table. It would be nice to repurpose it.
Probably a easy question for you but how do you trace the S onto the fabric -with a special pencil – I think this would make a great giftthanksvickie
You did a great job on the pillow. The baby dress you made is amazing.
Painter’s drop cloth that you can get at Lowe’s or Home Depot. I used the lightest weight. No plastic; it’s more like a thin canvas.
You could use a regular pencil. I used a blue Mark B Gone pen. When you’re done, you just get it wet with plain water, and it rinses out. Don’t use soap or it will set brown. You can get one at Walmart for about half the price of Joann’s, or you can get one at Wawak for even less. If you look at my Sewing post obout Wawak, you can still get it on the September special for ordering.
It took me a second to realize you were talking about your leg and not a baby cow! I was thinking, ” That’s one HUGE zucchini!”
Thanks!
Thanks I’ll do that vickie
Hi, your pillow is beautiful. Did you put a zipper in the pillow cover so that it can be changed or washed? I have not done that, but just stuffed the final pillow cover I guess, and blind stitched closed. I wonder if I should add a zipper and an inner pillow. Zippers are so expensive, and I do not have enough needs to make an order from walk seem woth it.Thanks.
It WAS a huge zucchini, but the skin was still very tender, & even though I scooped out the seeds, I really didn’t need to, since they were not that developed. The last of 30 pint jars of mixed summer squash in tomato sauce are processing in the pressure canner, & I still had a few saucer-sized slices of zucchini from the end to slice & mix in with sliced apples in an apple crisp, plus one medium crookneck to grate into a squash gratin for dinner.-Marivene
So my goals for the week – Work wise: close 5 more sales. I have at least 3 for sure. I just need to pray really hard that two more close. God is providing! Home: Stay on top of laundry. There’s only 4 of us. There is no reason I should have this much! Fold those darn socks too. They’re my nemesis. I want to get a pot of peppers fermenting for hot sauce. If I start now, it will be ready to bottle by Christmas. 🙂 I also have a cooked hot sauce recipe to make. Habanero peach!make tomatillo salsamake regular salsaGet green beans blanched and frozenget broccoli blanched and frozenBake some banana bread. Get onions strung up in pantyhose in the basementTransfer my wine from primary ferment to secondary. Start another batch of wine – white this time. Last until payday!Continue to praise Whom through all blessings flow! 🙂
Hooray, Hooray! I am so excited to discover that you started a blog! I have been hoping you would for a couple of years. Your website has been such an encouragement to me. Thank you!-Mandy W.(in Arizona)
Your blog is an inspiration to me! I check it each day to see if you have posted anything new. Here are a few goals I am going to work on this week.- Switch girls summer clothes to winter clothes that are in the garage. – Finish reading current read outloud book to girls (On the Banks of Plum Creek).- Read 100 pages in my current book.- Bake a loaf of banana bread for a friend for her birthday.- Clean out hall closet. (This has became a huge mess!)
If you’re just coming to my blog, there is a bit of reading for you to do! Enjoy!
Banana bread sounds like an excellent birthday gift for a friend. I will have to do that sometime!It sounds so good right now that just the thought of it is making my mouth water. I think I;ll make some for breakfast tomorrow!
I did an envelope closure on the back. I’ve just sewn them closed before (I have a black velvet one I did like that years ago) but now I make an envelope closure–no zippers needed. Google “envelope closure tutorial” or “envelope pillow tutorial” and you can find instructions for the back.As far as the order from Wawak, you could always get friends to go in on an order together with you. My mother-in-law does that when she buys thread. She has a whole bunch of women order together and then she gets their bulk discount.
I’m glad to see that you specified “organic” spray for fungus. Before, it was making me wince each time I read your gardening entries about spraying.
Well, it’s either spray or lose my grape vines. Organic gardeners use sprays too; it’s a myth that organic means “not sprayed.” Sprays are there for a reason; without them, you may get nothing, or lose trees and vines completely that takes years to regrow. Grape vines take 3 years to produce.The only non-organic spray I use is Malathion, and that is only used for severe infestations of white flies and squash bugs, and I rarely use it.I didn’t spray at all this year (dormant oil) (because I was too sick to get up, and pregnant as well) and because of it, I am in danger of losing everything (trees and grape vines). This is the first year that I have EVER seen grape-leaf skeleteonizers. I’ve never had them before, but since I didn’t spray, I have them. They can kill my vines. I also have seen borers in my trees; I may lose my fruit trees to them because of not having sprayed this year. Spraying when trees are dormant is important to kill overwintering bugs; we had a mild winter this year, which made it even worse.You can also mix diotamaceous earth with water and spray that. Some people even EAT that stuff, so that’s not a problem to spray, either.The spray for the grapes is a fixed-copper spray.Do you garden?
Malathion is highly toxic to bees. I know sometimes non-organic pesticides have to be used, but I wonder if there is an alternative.
Andrea, California does aerial sprayings of malathion because the whiteflies are so destructive. I haven’t found anything else that has worked against whiteflies. I didn’t try the new spray yet that my friend suggested against squash bugs, and I want to, because so far, everything else but malathion is a waste of money. We don’t have many bees out here during the summer; I have to hand-pollinate most of the squash, anyway. It’s still so hot that my zucchini isn’t setting any flowers, but the bugs have been killing them.
Brandy, When my oldest daughter had problems with borers in her fruit trees, one of her friends when with her to the local smoke shop & asked for some of the waste tobacco leaves in which the cigars come packed. She used a pair of scissors to shred the leaves & scattered them around the base of the trees, then watered. Something in the tobacco leaves kills the borers. The smoke shop owner did laughed at her, but she is in eastern Utah, & he enjoyed having 2 “good little LDS girls” come into his shop, looking for tobacco as an insecticide. He didn’t charge them for the leaves, tho – – just chuckled, & it worked for her. I don’t know how the friend knew it would. – Marivene
Beautiful baby! Very nice handwork on pillow.I did not keep a list of frugal things I did although I did do some. Probably the most frugal thing I did was to do some freezer cooking and make sure we ate at home every day. I also walked and stretched on my own each day to keep from having back surgery. I also took us out of town and only spent $20 which was really, really cheap. I planned my next freezer cooking day with mainly ingredients from my pantry and I will be shopping the sales and getting some really good deals this weekend. Finally, I bought a bunch of produce at the Farmer’s Market and cut up the veggies and froze them for the next few months. Lastly, I started sewing and crocheting Xmas gifts and making cross stitch Halloween ornaments for the house. I already had all the supplies for no OOP.I hope you can make a posting for making Xmas gifts. I am making bookmarks for all the kiddos and getting them books too for Xmas.
Wow, this is the first time I’ve revisited this comment page. Brandy, yes, I know organic gardening includes the use of biological sprays. Garden pests can be greedy and destructive. When I last had a garden (when I last had a yard), I used companion planting to control pests to a degree. Putting culinary herbs among your plants can deter some pests. Otherwise, I used non-intervention, even on the pecan trees. The birds and falling tree junk break up the worm webs, and the wasps eat the worms. The falling tassels and dead leaves compost the lawn. Anonymous’s tobacco waste trick is a good one too. A friend of mine, whose parents were farmers back in the day, told me that they would put piles of tobacco between the crop rows. You can tell why nicotinic acid is an ingredient in some pesticides. Using non-intervention, I never lost anything except the parsley, which some fat worm or caterpillar gobbled up so fast it made my head spin. I did have to dig up and move things from one area to another sometimes, to get better results. A plant has to like the spot it’s in, the sun and wind exposure, etc. Anyway, I won’t criticize you. Anybody who grows their own food at home has my admiration. I prefer farmers market produce over organic that has been trucked long distance, though I wish the farmers market had more organic produce, which would be the perfect combination.
Bliss, Some of us do not have blogs, but we can post using anonymous. When we do that, we put our names at the end of the post, so Brandy knows who we are. I don’t know that I would be comfortable using tobacco between the crops in the garden, but I would use it to save a fruit tree from borers. – Marivene
Hi!This week I plan on going to the local Wegman store to take a look at their products.Pat