Days 29 & 28 - Slowly Crankin' Away

The past two days have been spent mostly just working on odds and ends; here and there.  Worked out in the garden a little each day.  The herbs are looking very nice.  The pumpkins have completely taken over the back yard.  These would be the pumpkins that came up from seed left over from rotted out 2009 pumpkins.  And the gourd seeds that Clark scattered everywhere by taking a hammer to the old gourds around the yard earlier this spring (this was a hoot to watch).  My rule of thumb is - if they aren't completely in the way they can stay.  Often these do better than the ones in my garden anyway.  Case in point - as I looked over my summer squash collection today I realized almost every single one has a European corn borer bored into the stem.  Arghh - I detest those things!  I may have done a science fair project on them that won me great honors back in the day but it doesn't mean I like them!

The beans are coming along nicely - have some little baby beans on most of the plants.  The dahlias are coming along; although there seems no way they'll be big enough by the ISF.  My glads are doing fine - other than the grasshoppers that are putting LARGE HOLES in them.  I even have some lovely little baby glads that  actually overwintered from last year's crop.  I am looking forward to seeing how they do.  The egg plant and marigolds I planted last week - eaten.  As a person that holds a degree in entomology from ISU you would think my garden would be less over ridden with bugs.  Ahh, now that I have kids that like to frequent the garden my spraying days have taken a back seat to trying to do it with as few chemicals as possible.  Which for exhibition flowers and veggies isn't always the greatest thing but not everything is about competition.

Today I actually completely finished one of my sewing projects.  Today was a good day to spend with the boys in much cooler basement.  I have decided sewing is somewhat like home improvement.  It's easy to get the big picture thing done to the point where a project looks OK to good; but the finishing takes the longest to accomplish.  At least this is my issue (with both).  I have so many projects sitting here just waiting to be finished - a little hand sewing here, a little trimming and seam finishing there.

This apron that before children would have taken me 2 - 3 hours ended up taking 2-3 days (In 15 - 20 minute increments here and there).  Oh well, it is finished and I think it is so cute.  Can't wait to wear it after the fair.  Which this sums up why I wanted to enter Fabrics and Threads - to actually finish some projects that quite frankly have been on the sewing bench for years!

Look - completely reversible!

Today Clark was in the sewing room with me watching the machine.  He told me that he was older today.  I told him he was right but the light didn't click on right away.  I realized I had told him when he was older I would teach him how to use the sewing machine.  I had to explain I mean when he is 5 or 6 I will teach him how to use the sewing machine.  This was disappointing news so I told him maybe we could do some hand sewing with yarn.  Tonight I need to make up some little card stock animals and punch holes in them to make sewing cards he can lace with yarn.  I'll do that while waiting for my pies to bake.  These are charity auction pies for tomorrow - more on that in tomorrow's post.