Craft Hope Bracelets

So, we did make some bracelets for the Craft Hope project back over Memorial Day weekend.  Given that we were working with three fairly little kids, it actually went really well.

The five year old made one bracelet to keep for himself, and then decided that he'd rather do other things.  The two three year olds were all over making bracelets, though.  My niece made quite a few, all with certain friends in mind, so ended up taking all of hers home.  Bug decided that he wanted to make a few for specific people, one for himself, for me and his uncle, and the rest went into pile to mail.  So, mostly my sister and I made bracelets for Craft Hope.  The kids did seem to think it was a really neat idea though.  They asked lots of questions about "the kids who don't have stuff" and Bug wants to know who - exactly - will be getting the bracelets that he made.

We ended up with 24 to put into the mail.



We all worked on the big pony bead bracelets.



It was fun watching the little kids pick out their favorite colors and color combinations.  And trying to make nice looking bracelets with combinations of colors that the little ones weren't picking for themselves.



These smiley face beads were fun, but the holes were too little to work with the big not-sharp needles that the three year olds were using, so I ended up putting these two together after bedtime.



And I love these.  I may have to go back and make myself one or two like this with the beads that I have left.



I'm looking forward to seeing the recap at Craft Hope.  It sounds like a LOT of people have been sending in a LOT of bracelets.

Chrysalis #1 - More Blocks and a Completed Top

I finally uploaded the rest of the Chrysalis blocks.

















(I seem to be missing a photo of one of the blue blocks.  Hrm...)

Once the blocks were done, I got them all trimmed up.  That's always fun.  It makes for pretty trash. :)



And then I started playing with the layout for the top.  I knew that I wanted the squares to alternate yellow and blue, but with some of the inner squares being green, there was the chance that it was going to end up looking kind of clumped by color.

Bug took the camera and got this shot while I was laying things out.  Not a bad photo for a three year old!



The final layout.

Miscellaneous June Gardening

Mom found a giant zucchini last week.  This sucker was tucked away beneath a tomato plant.



(And that's Bug's "Whoa.  This is heavy." face.)



This is a good example of what we're picking on a daily basis.  Less zucchini and squash.  Mom usually picks those (3-4 a day!) in the morning.  That bowl of yellow tomatoes is not small.  I think it's a 3 quart bowl?  I'll try to remember to look next time.

Still not coming up with many green beans, though the cucumbers are starting to come along nicely.

And, look!  Green bean teepee!



It's filled out quite a bit more this week, and the little sweet pea flowers that Mom planted in there are starting to bloom.  So there are some pretty little purple flowers tucked in there now.  Those are carrots in front, radishes on the side and cucumbers on the back.  And, behind the sunflowers, potatoes.  Awesome, isn't it?  My mom's green thumb just blows me away.

And look at how tall the sunflowers have gotten!



They're 11-12 feet tall, now.

I loved seeing this guy tucked in with the bright yellow ones.



And a better picture of the corn.



Puts my little dirt patch to shame.

And Summer is Here

There is absolutely NO denying it.  Summer is here.



That photo was taken in the evening.  In the shade.  It's getting stupid-hot and we've got a long way to go yet.  WHY does anyone live in the desert?

Fossils

Richard walked into the house the other day, paused and asked "Why is my child wearing skulls on his shirt?"

"Because he says they're fossils."
 


Is it just me, or does he look much older than 3.5 in this picture?  When did he get so big?

Corn

There's corn in my mom's garden!  Corn!



This is particularly impressive given that my mom's backyard is not all that large, and the corn itself takes up something like 16 square feet of garden space.  It's a tiny spot, really.

This picture was taken earlier this month, when we were happy-dancing that there were three little ears of corn coming up.  We thought that might be all there was.  At last count, about four days ago, there were 41 ears of corn.  Forty one.  There had been 35 when I'd counted three or four days earlier.  Looks like we might be feasting after all!

And that's not even considering the tomatoes.  There are two tomatoe plants and it's possible that one of them is related to kudzu.  It's taking over everything.  It's completely overpowered a rosemary bush, is stretching over the second tomato plant and into the sunflowers on one side, and is just about to choke the life out of a zucchini plant in the other direction.  It's crawling up the fence and has spilled over the garden wall to cover half of a large planting of lantana.  I'm picking tomatos every other day and routinely filling a large mixing bowl just off of the one plant.  It's insane.

Mom and my sister are both off of nightshades for the time being, and there are way too many tomatoes for me and my family to eat by ourselves.  We're snacking on as many as we can, but I've started cutting them up and freezing them, too.  So far we've put away 13 pints, and I'm pretty sure that I have about that many still sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me to deal with them.

In terribly exciting news, the sad, sad little tomato plants in my garden have actually bloomed.  I noticed today that one of them actually has four tiny green tomatoes on it.  I was so excited that I almost fell over.  Tomatoes from my own backyard!  I mentioned it to Bug while we were making dinner and it stopped him in his tracks.  He wanted to go see and pick them rightthatverysecond.  I'll try to get some pictures of these plants for comparison.

Barnslig Skirts for the Store

In this last little burst of sewing, I've gotten a few new skirts in the store.  (They're listed at both froglovesmonkey.com and on Etsy.)


I love this Barnslig print from Ikea.  LOVE it.



Every time I think I've decided which part of the print I love the most, I move my eyes and land on another bit that makes me happy and THAT'S my favorite bit. (The lion!  No...the elephant!  Wait.  Is that a giraffe?  I love the giraffe!)  I am pretty partial to that lion, though. ;)

I've only listed skirts in a few girl's sizes, but have plenty of fabric in case anyone needs a different size.

I'm tempted to make another mei tai out of it, too.  I so love Boo's.

Chrysalis #1

I've been working on a new, crib-sized quilt.  As much as starting another project kind of makes me cringe a little, I'm pushing ahead with this one, anyway.  It's actually for the shop, so its work and not just play. ;)

I bought some of Moda's fabulous Chrysalis fabrics and just love them.  I was kind of worried that they were going to be too girly or too...something...but they're really quite awesome.  Butterflies and flowers, but the prints and colors are just great.

I wanted to do something that would really focus on the prints, so decided to pair them with solids.  After much hemming and hawing, I chose yellow, turquoise and green.  It was a difficult choice.  The orange and brown are great.  Perhaps I'll use orange and brown for the second quilt.  Hmm...

The squares are simple - again, to focus on the prints.







I'm not sure that the individual blocks really give a good idea of what the quilt looks like put together.  And the quilting is adding something nice.  I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I wasn't able to get it quilted all at once but, well, real life and all that.  I'm quite please with how it's coming together, and can't wait until I can post a picture of the finished product.