You know that pretty picture I posted with the blueberry bush with all the flowers on it?
At lunchtime I went outside to get some fresh herbs for my lunch salad and discovered it COVERED with brown tail caterpillars happily munching away at all the leaves on the two bushes. They have nearly been denuded.
I had just put diatomaceous dirt (which looks like a white powder) on the new blueberry bushes, which were suffering the same fate, and had dusted the new raspberry canes and the strawberries, which are blooming heavily and forming fruit. Yes, some of the new raspberry canes showed signs of being chewed, and I could see some of the caterpillars in the strawberries.
I brought the herbs inside and turned right around to get more diatomaceous dirt for the big blueberry bushes. LOTS of caterpillars on them. Ugh! I did my best. Now I just have to wait and see. I came inside to wash up (again) and found a caterpillar on my shirt. More Ugh!
Here was my reward, topped with fresh dill, chive flowers, chopped chive stalks, and tarragon. The lettuce is from my garden, too. The protein is roasted chicken.
June is not quite “summer” in Maine. Summer usually comes around July 4th. But everything outside is so lush and green, and it is definitely warmer. I put some houseplants outside just yesterday.
I spent a lot of this week cleaning. I can’t even begin to tell you how much grease had accumulated in my kitchen cabinets near the stove. And, everywhere else in the kitchen too. I would not dare take a picture of what they looked like before I cleaned as I would be way too ashamed.
Everything has been washed and scrubbed now, and the whole kitchen looks so sparkly and pretty! Looky, looky! How shiny.
There is a kind of contemplative value in this physical work, a kind of karma yoga. And, of course, enormous satisfaction after the work is done.
Inspired, I went around the garden and organized a new crop of flowers for the kitchen window: Star of Bethlehem (white), red clover, and chive blossoms. The darker blue/purple plant is blooming, too, but I always forget its name. A porcupine ate it to the ground two summers ago. I planted the Star of Bethlehem because WAY back in the day my grandmother planted this one in the yard in the front of her house. The last time I saw her house in the spring, which now out of the family, the entire front yard was covered with this little white flower. Now, every spring I am strongly reminded of her and reminded how much I miss her.
Outside, the brown tail caterpillar is being terribly destructive. Look at these totally denuded oaks near the house:
Trees can withstand a pruning like this for a time or two, but likely not three years running. I have a friend who has lost 20+ acres of her hardwood trees. Last year there was some damage here, but this year… There are caterpillars EVERYWHERE outside.
And if you missed my descriptions before now, these guys have bristles that are incredibly toxic and can produce itchy blisters. The bristles break loose and float in the air. They can get on laundry on the line, on cushions left outside, on YOU as you walk around, etc. You can breathe them in. The toxins remain potent for as long as three years. Ugh!
On a happier note, the creeping phlox has been so pretty this spring:
And I love the quiet beauty of the smaller blooming things in my yard, like this Sweet Woodruff plant:
The one established blueberry high-bush blueberry plant is LOADED with blossoms this year. It often takes 5 to 7 years for blueberry plants to fully come into their own. Something has eaten all the leaves on four of the new blueberry bushes. I’ll put diatomaceous dirt on them today.
I can’t get enough blueberries and raspberries this spring—they aren’t here yet but are in our markets. I eat a big bowl of them every night—with about a tablespoon of local maple syrup drizzled over the top.
The black flies are mostly gone now, so I’ll be able to get outside and to start putting beds out there back in order. Mowing the other day was pleasant.
This winter I fell in love with an herb mixture from Penzey’s Spices. I CAN eat most herbs, onions, garlic, etc., and Sunny Paris REALLY floats my boat. I order dried herbs from Penzey’s in the fall for the winter—I have tons of fresh herbs in my garden here in the summer. Sunny Paris was new to me, and I fell in love so much that I just ordered it again for the summer!
Purple shallots, chives, green peppercorn, French gasil, French tarragon, chervil, bay leaf, and dill weed.
We finally got a decent RAIN last night. A lot of it apparently. Every growing thing outside will be so grateful because it has been so dry.
Be safe! Be well! Take care of yourselves in these very challenging times we are…enduring.
Tara Faughnan of The Color Collective, Season 2, designed these blocks (there are 6 different ones to use and combine), assembled her own quilted version, and curated the color palette. The block pieces are printed on to cardstock, cut out, covered with fabric, and sewn together with English Paper Piecing. With each project, Tara makes a video to show us up close how to make the project, and I have found the videos to be really helpful.
There will be a Season 3, starting in October. The online class is hosted by Amy Newbold of Sewtopia, and Amy mails each month’s fabrics to class members. Plus, Amy discounts any extra fabrics one needs if members’ projects start to get bigger. (If you go to Tara’s web site, you can join her newsletter and get details on this class when details are available.)
I quilted with matchstick lines, which I have never done before. And I have to say that I think this quilting gave the quilt a lovely texture. I’ll be doing this type of quilting again, for sure.
The backing was in my stash. The print is an older Carolyn Friedlander fabric that I had left over from another quilt. It’s PERFECT for this quilt.
I hung my Gumdrops downstairs in the room where my tv lives. (My quilt room—which is where I do most of my sewing—is off this room and houses my longarm, design wall, and another sewing machine.) This space where Gumdrops is hanging had a bookcase, but remember from recent posts, I cleared out most of my books a week or so ago. I plan to house my Janome, on its Sewezi table, permanently in this little nook. It’s all set up with a walking foot ready to put on binding or to quilt a quilt I want to grid in some way. I also often use this machine for making knit fabrics as well, and I have two dresses cut out and needing to be sewn together.
I thought a long time before moving a machine to this spot and keeping it there. But most of the time I am here by myself, and I would like to be able to sew at night some times. I can see the tv from this spot, and I actually quilted Gumdrops at night. Usually I hand sew at night, but I was out of handwork at the moment, and there are three quilts in the pile that will need to have binding sewn down.
Everything’s a bit of a mess right now in this spot because I’m quilting another quilt and things are spread out. I can use the back of the couch to help support a quilt as it runs through the sewing machine. I hung the quilt high so it would not get knocked accidentally. (That’s not my kitchen you can see to the left—it’s a laundry sink. My kitchen and living room are upstairs.)
Here’s my view:
So, I’ve now completed four of this season’s 7 quilt projects. Two of the remaining projects will be wall hangings for me, and one will be a lap quilt. The block for the lap quilt was designed by Denyse Schmidt as a guest designer for the seventh month, but was made by Tara with fabric she curated for us.
I have more than these Color Collective projects going on. I’m doing the Sugaridoo QAL in TWO different versions. (Whose idea was that?) And I’ve been catching up with making blocks that will go into an improv quilt one of these days. These blocks are my real Play Time. And, somehow, there is a flying geese project growing on my design wall. Sometimes projects just will NOT leave me alone, and this one is one of those.
But, Tara’s Bedrock quilt is all lined up and ready to be started.
It was a “masky” weekend. SIL in Boston needed some mask help. Like me, she wears hearing aids, and the simple elastic used in masks that loop over the ears do not work well with hearing aids—in that they can dislodge them so that you LOSE them. If you have no idea what hearing aids cost, you are in for a rude shock if you ever need them.
I have been at kind of a loss with what to do with knit scraps—often big pieces—left over from garment making. FLASHLIGHT! Try some in masks. I had already been told that just cutting knit for ties, stretching it so it rolls up, and using it for ties is THE BEST. They stay on your head without slipping for one thing. And they don’t need any pressing, turning, and sewing down to hide raw edges, etc. YES!
The green mask below has a pipe cleaner in the top to cup the nose—which is why it is kind of curved. I found the metal wasn’t really needed. I use an inner layer of quilt batting—not much gets through two knit layers and cotton quilt batting. Of course, the edges leak… But these guys are sturdy as can be. I made one for me, too, with knit ties, and mailed off 8 masks to SIL and her three housemates.
WASH YOUR MASK AFTER EVERY USE! Otherwise the mask harbors a lot of bacteria from YOU and you breathe it deeply into your lungs. Bad idea, especially with these knit masks which are really thick.
Looky! This quilting is really handsome. I’m pleased. I’ve never tried matchstick quilting before—I have to use the domestic of course. But this is HANDSOME!
I have two quilts to quilt on the domestic piled up—and one for the longarm. I moved my stored machine—which has its own SewEzi table—to an area behind the couch so the couch catches the quilt as it moves forward. And I can see the tv.
This machine can live now in a spot vacated by a rehomed bookcase. In the pic below the table is pulled forward so the quilt can go over the couch for support as I quilt. Otherwise, the machine table just tucks back into the bookcase space and does not impede traffic. A pretty bookcase or a nice sewing spot already set up—it’s a no-brainer for me these days. This is “Gumdrops” from Tara Faughnan in the online class, The Color Collective, season 2. Mine will be a wall hanging.
There will be a THIRD season of The Color Collective, hosted by Sewtopia. Go to Tara Faughnan’s web site and sign up for her newsletter for information on this third season. While you are there, take a look at her AWESOME quilts in her gallery.
I have been super busy these past days. I culled the books again. This time I put any book that has not been touched by SOMEONE in the past 16 years in 11 banana boxes and 2 orange boxes—they have lids and are easy to get hold of. (Thank you Hannaford’s, our local grocery store.) I slid the boxes down the stairs—many from the third floor—and used the dolly I bought last year to get the boxes to the van.
Whew!
My kids will thank me someday for this job. There are two bookcases remaining, but all others have been leaned out and other objects put on empty shelves.
Oh Lord!
I more or less escaped this critter last summer. It’s the brown tailed caterpillar, and it is DEVASTATING trees, bushes, ground plants, and so forth here in Maine. I have them on my front porch right and probably elsewhere.
See all those bristles? They are wildly toxic and can cause rashes and blisters and itching like poison ivy. The bristles come loose easily and float about in the air, lodge in the ground, get breathed into our lungs, and so forth. They have a little barb on one end. They can remain toxic for about THREE YEARS. No one is hanging laundry on the line up here these days. And I took down the hammock frame yesterday with the help of a friend.
On a happier note. This fellow guards the front porch. John bought him at the Common Ground Fair the summer before he died the following January.
Of course I have a lot more sewing going on and a lot going on in the garden. But those are posts for another day.
I am very excited to report that—while it took research, days, and a LOT of patience—I was able to clean my old printer’s print head cones successfully.
WHOO HOO!
I like my printer. I know how it works. It does work—there is no learning curve involved. Its an Epson WF 3640. (The ink is horribly expensive in my opinion. Was it always this expensive?)
Anyway, for the past 6 months or more it would print lines in the colors and the black print just wasn’t fresh. I don’t print every day. That’s a factor for sure, as unused ink dries out. But the problem finally just got too bad for the printer’s system maintenance programs that cleans the print head cones to fix.
I researched. I found a cleaning method with a special liquid cleaner, a need tool for the cleaner to get on the head’s cones, and clear instructions. The package was under $20. OK, I thought, $20 is way cheaper than a new printer with tons of glitches until I figured them all out. And, maybe I’ll learn something new.
I did. Starting with how to get to the print head’s cones, how to unblock them, and that the fix would not likely be instant but would require repeating the steps until…suddenly, it all worked.
The resulting print is now like NEW.
I am really pleased—with the whole process and, of course, that it was successful. The latter was the real bonus for me as I didn’t quite expect it to all be successful.
Now if I can just figure out how to get my Bose Sound/Dock XT speaker fixed. The audio suddenly became garbled, and I listen to books from my ipod Touch on it as it has a lightening plug in its dock. The sound quality on this speaker WAS excellent until…in the blink of an eye… It’s too new to go belly up. Just a few years…
I know there are hot spot speakers out there I can use if all else fails. But I do really like the simplicity of this Bose speaker with its dedicated lightening plug where my ipod touch, dedicated to listening to books, lives.
UPDATE: I found on the Bose web site—after I found my speaker’s unique serial number—that sometimes the sound on this Bose speaker gets garbled if there have been updates to the IPod Touch or one’s I phone. If you turn everything off and restart them, it can fix the problem.
Roasting everything in your meal together is such an easy and quick way to produce dinner.
The chicken breasts and potato take longer (total about 45 minutes), but the veggies don’t want to be roasted that long—so I add them when there is about 35 minutes remaining—and drizzle them with olive oil and herbs after they go in the pan.
And LOOK! There is pretty much no mess to clean up. The pan usually just needs a quick swish with a soapy rag and a rinse.
Here’s my dinner.
There is another meal and more left over. I cut the breasts in half so I have meat for other meals (gently reheated probably) and roasted meat for my lunch salads.
Here’s another meal made in this fashion about a week later:
It was delicious too. The extra drumsticks were reheated and topped a lunch salad.
I don’t usually eat a lot of baked white potato. This just happened…
I could use a sweet potato, pieces of winter squash in the fall/winter, cauliflower, or medley of veggies including carrot, or add a separately-cooked grain (rice, quinoa for me). I use what I have on hand. Since I often have a HUGE lunch salad with lots of raw veggies, I don’t bother with a dinner salad. I do add some cut-up raw fruit for a dessert.
Tara Faughnan designed this quilt block and chose the color palette for this project in her online class hosted by Sewtopia, The Color Collective, season 2. How we used the colors was up to each maker.
I hand quilted with the Wonderfil GlaMour rayon/metallic 12 weight thread that Tara Faughnan also used on her Galactic quilt. I used 5 different colors—and justified that cost by the fact that I have a smaller block version that I’ll quilt with it as well. And…just because we all need some treats in the middle of a pandemic where we are “staying home.” I also used a Tulip Sashiko needle (found online easily)—the thin, coated version.
I knew from the beginning that I wanted a wall hanging for a wall on a stairwell landing between two floors. Galactic replaced these duck prints—and it’s so nice not to have to think how I can make these pics hang straight anymore:
It’s hard to get a good picture of a quilt hanging in a stairwell, but…
Look at my beautiful cold frame lettuce. It’s still growing—as it has been so cool here in Maine this spring. But I gathered some lettuce—thinning the clumps to give some plants more room to grow—for my first cold-frame lettuce salad.
To remind, I set up this cold frame in the fall with new compost and seed and cover it for the winter. Left alone, it does its own thing when the longer daylight hours return. I’m still covering it most nights—remember that it SNOWED all day last Saturday, with no accumulation, but…
Here’s my first lettuce, rinsed and headed for the lettuce spinner.
I’m making a lunch salad, of course. And the protein will be one of the cube steaks I keep on hand. These steaks have a lot of flavor, defrost quickly, and cook in a very few minutes—just about two minutes a side, or less, in a hot cast iron frying pan.
Here’s my beautiful salad:
Lettuce from cold frame, sweet red pepper, roasted beets, cucumber, leftover asparagus, carrot, spring onion, red onion, apple, leftover forbidden black rice, cubed steak, olive oil, salt, and dried dill.
The daffodils this year have been glorious. I’ve planted so many now, each year choosing more and different varieties. Some of them are so frilly—they look almost like peonies.
I bring some inside to the kitchen window and so enjoy them there. Here’s the most recent selection.
Tom Jackson’s crew came and cut up the GIANT ash tree that fell over the stone wall property line last fall. It is a monster. I tried through the winter to donate the wood to anyone who would cut it and take it, but had no takers. It is just in a very difficult spot where getting the wood out would be way too hard.
There is a wetland below the stone wall and the tree, which would not allow for any equipment to come in that way.
I really need to get a picture of the daffodils in the little meadow this year. They are so beautiful and continue to naturalize over this area. They brighten the heart and soul, and I look forward to seeing them each year.
I finished hand quilting the big block Galactic wallhanging last night. I’ll trim and put on the binding/hanging sleeve/label today. And yesterday I finished the smaller block version—just two rounds. I love this block and could quite easily go down a rabbit hole with making the big block in a different palate. But I need to move on to the remaining three projects in The Color Collective, season 2, each of which look exciting to make.
And, today, which is THURSDAY already, is going to be much warmer. It is a bright, sunny day with little wind. I’m eager to get out into it.
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