It's A Big One

 The combination of high temps (we're nearing the record for the number of 100 degree or above days) and very low precipitation (it's the middle of August and we're at 0.11 inches according to the news) has NOT made for a very good garden this year.

Mine didn't really start out well anyhow. I got started late then a crazy rainstorm came through and destroyed everything except one little watermelon sprout. I replanted and then came a hail storm that damaged a baby watermelon and sliced the top of one of my tomato plants right off. So my garden has really had to persevere this year.

I have my trusty timer going so it was getting watered for 10 minutes every morning. But even with the regular watering, it wasn't doing so great. Every tomato I've gotten has been split -- badly. I've read that over 95 degrees, tomato plants go into survival mode.

And, after we got the whole 0.11 inches during the one rain we had last week, one of my smaller watermelons cracked too. That makes two that I've lost. The first had decided to grow off my tomato trellis. I made a sling for it but it got large enough that it broke the sling on one side, fell out, and broke right off the stem.

I've changed my timer now to 5 minutes every 8 hours and I've got our patio umbrella in the middle of the garden to help offset the heat and water evaporation some. Just a few days of doing that has made some of the plants look a little better.

But, suffice to say, I wasn't hoping for much this year (and most of my gardening friends are having the same kind of luck).

I have, however, been anxiously watching the largest of my watermelons closely. I figured it surely might make it because it seemed pretty large and the plant seemed healthy still. I've checked that little tendril so many times to see if it was ready, just hoping it would make it. 

And, last night, was finally the time.

It was ready to harvest. And it was big -- 30 pounds as it turned out. Twice as big as both of our two little dogs put together.

Check out this scar left from the hail storm that came through when it was a baby. 

But it still made it! Now for some chilling and to cut in to it. Here's to perseverance!

Prayer Quilt Follow-Up

 You might remember that I had begun a prayer quilt. That post is here. I decided to try putting it together even though some of my corners were off. After all, taking a hint from the women of the past, only God is perfect. I just didn't have to purposely put any mistakes in -- I am already skilled at doing that naturally. Ha ha.

So I made my quilt sandwich and secured it with as many pins as I could stand to put in. I tried to stretch each of the layers tight but still ended up with a wrinkle here or there. Quilting is really not my forte.

Then, I added the ties (without tying them). Not tying the strings kind of drove me nuts. I didn't realize it would bother me but it really did. I guess it's something about leaving it unfinished. But, of course, that's the point of the prayer quilt. Each knot is tied by someone who has prayed for you.

Then, I squared it off and added my binding. Still really not my forte. I tried to pull it taut as I added the binding too so it got a little better.

It wasn't too bad when I was done. I still told our leader not to fix anything if it wasn't good, just to return it to me and I would use it for a tv blanket. I didn't want her to have to redo anything or spend time trying to make it right.

I haven't gotten it back yet so I am assuming she was okay with it. I'll let you know.

Mini-s

 I think I may be a little obsessed with the pyramid pin cushions. My mom visited us at the beginning of July for a week. Before I went to get her, I whipped up one for her that I thought turned out quite cute.

Her favorite color is red and this pattern combo is just whimsical enough to fit her personality. 

Of course, my invisible stitches are still not that invisible -- one reason I hate hand sewing -- but my mama doesn't care. :)

Then, Chick mentioned that she might make one for herself. She thought the design was better too, I think.

I happened to have a Beauty and the Beast fat quarter piece from making her a tissue holder so, when I was bored one day, I made one up.

My goal was to put a picture on each side. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough pieces spaced well to do so. 

Therefore, three sides have different scenes from the fabric and the fourth is a tilted castle (kind of like the Ripley's Believe It or Not we went to in Florida). 

That's okay though. It turned out well.

I thought I might have made all of these I could for now. Then, recently, I was going through my small scraps fabric bin and realized it was getting too full.


It occurred to me that there was a mini version of the pyramid pin cushion with the pattern. So I took a look and decided I had plenty of time to make some minis for my sewing group.

I don't know if they'll get them or not. You could tell I was getting tired of stuffing them because some of them are a little ... lean - y. And, of course, my invisible stitching has a problem being invisible.  

Maybe I've gotten these out of my system now.

Prosperity Hens

 I had never heard of prosperity hens until recently. Prosperity hens come from a tradition in India. Owning a flock of chickens there meant you were prosperous or, at the very least, doing well. So poorer people began to hang strings of cloth chickens on doorways in their homes in an effort to invite prosperity to their own household. At least that's the short and dirty of the tradition.

It caught on as a crafty decoration and more people began to hang them in their homes. Now it is kind of considered a 'vintage' decoration, particularly if you find one that was made decades before. 

A friend of mine absolutely loves vintage things and antiques. She also happens to have been a leader in 4-H for many years. And is totally into gardening and raising farm animals. Her children raised and showed many animals in fairs and such.

Prosperity hens just struck me as something she might like. She may not but it seems right up her alley. So, I thought I might make that my next project just for kicks.

And, bonus, they take such small scraps of fabric that it can clean out my scrap bin some too. So, I got to work.

They are super duper simple. Just 4-inch squares folded into a triangle. Add a scruff of fabric for a beak and one for a tail. Then sew closed, leaving a space for turning.

Trim off corners and then turn. This became my tv time work again. Because I pulled those hemostats out and stuffed them after turning.

Stuffing the head and tail particularly well causes that little bow in the back. Very nice! It seemed like I would have needed to cut that curve in there but nope. It does it on its own.

After some tv time, I had a nice full box 'o chickens.

Next, I just had to string them with some beads. I wanted natural colored beads (rather than the red, white, and blue I had just gotten). Fortunately, I had a jar with some I had cannibalized off of something I bought for a wreath I was making. They were extra pieces that I had just kept thinking I might use them. How often does it work out that you actually do? Hey, hey!

Pushing that needle through was probably the hardest part of the whole thing. I was tempted to get some pliers to pull it through but I just worked it until it popped on out.

I didn't have enough of the brown beads to do the whole thing despite only making 9 chickens rather than the 16 from the tutorial I used. But the other beads were very natural looking red, green, yellow, and a darker brown. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until after I had started stringing them on  the jute. So, I ended up taking it apart and restringing it in a pattern I liked. The holes I had made initially made it easier to string the chickens back on.

The beads and stringing also help it have that curve to its backside as well so they really look like little hens.

Then I had to wait. The redo kept me from delivering it that night as I had planned so I figured I would order some 'cowbell' looking bells rather than just using a large jingle bell.

When they finally arrived, I tied one on the end. And just for more kicks, printed out the backstory for her.

Fun, fun! And cute! I think she's gonna love it and I can't wait to give it to her.

If you want to make some, the tutorial is here. Let me see yours if you try it.

Banner Times

It's my birthday today. So this post is appropriate. 

 I saw a tutorial for this really cute birthday banner. I didn't really want to buy a pattern for it though since it seemed to be just U-shaped pieces and block letters. So I tried to make my own.

I started by cutting out my flags. I used my word processing program to print out a large flag in the shape I wanted. I could have also gone with a triangular shape or with the classic pennant or banner shape (straight top with two triangles hanging down) but I really liked the rounded bottom on this one and figured it would be easier to sew.

Then I printed out my letters and transferred them to the paper backing of some fusible web. The trick is to transfer them in reverse. The letter style I used only required a few of them to be reversed so that was handy.

Once I did that, it was a matter of ironing them on to the fabric I chose, cutting them out, and then ironing them on to the flags. I used a ruler to make sure they were all the same distance from the top (I think it was 2 1/2 inches) and centered them by eyeballing it.

After that, I sewed around the edge with a dark thread. I didn't really think this would help them stand out as much as it actually did.

I got this really cute, colorful donut fabric off the clearance at Hobby Lobby several weeks ago. It was so fun, and I thought it would make a great banner. The challenge was using fabrics for the letters that would show against it.

Once all those letters were done, I pinned backs on each flag (I used a solid color I had enough of but you could use the same fabric too if you have enough.

And sewed them all together.

Before I turned them, I used my pinking shears to clip around the curved part and reduce bulk.

I'm wondering now if I could just do that all the time. It always makes me nervous clipping curves 'to the stitching.' If so, I might just try that from now on.

Then, I turned them all and ironed them flat.

And, of course, lay them out in order making sure I was happy with it. I think I switched around a different color of the same letter here or there.

Next, I ran a basting stitch along the top of the whole thing after pinning them together with each flag overlapping the next a tiny bit.

Add a binding across the top and ties (I just tucked in more sewn together binding but she used rick rack strings or ribbon would have worked too).

And we now have a really cute banner that will last much longer than the cardboard or plastic ones from the store.

I think I ended up making both my flags and my letters larger than hers but I don't care because I loved how it turned out.

And I'm looking forward to being the first one to use it.

Make It Work

 One of the sewing series my favorite Youtuber does that I've been interested in is something she calls "What would make me wear this?"  

She basically takes things from her closet that she doesn't wear for some reason and figures out what the problem is then tries to fix it.

Some of them have been fairly simple fixes and some more complex but each becomes something wearable for her that is no longer just taking up space in her closet.

Recently, I have had some issues with some of my dresses. Specifically, it seems to be primarily ones with shirred elastic waistbands.

This dress is one of them. I think it's very pretty. The fabric is very soft and flowy. And it is long like I prefer. And not cut too low.

Although you can't really see it in this picture, though, it has a shirred elastic waistband. And while it isn't quite an empire waist, it's pretty high.

In case you didn't know, empire waists don't work with larger busted women. 

Particularly with shirred elastic waists which end up seeming to climb up the bottom of your bust because there's really no room for them.

It occurred to me that I should just chop off that top part that didn't really fit my top part and make it into a skirt.

So I did.

Not too shabby. I love it. And I'll get more wear out of it now.

My own little version of "What would make me wear this?"

At least on this one, I figured it out.

2026 Pass-It-Outs

 I mentioned that I had been working on my pass-it-outs for this year's Christmas. And I finally finished them. These were slightly more labor intensive than last year's.

I actually found this tutorial last Christmas but I had already done my pass-it-outs. Now I'm kind of wondering what I might find this Christmas for next year.

You have to start out by cutting out 4 trees for every 1 ornament you plan to make. That by itself can take a while, especially since I planned on making about 35 ornaments.

Then, of course, you have to sew them together in pairs. I messed up and put two of the same for each pair. It would have been cuter if I had used different fabrics for each pair but I didn't really stop to think it through.

Next was something that kept my tv time full. I had to trim all the curves and corners on each one.

And turn them right side out, being sure to poke out all the corners and curves very carefully. I wasn't careful enough and ended up with one casualty. Oh, well.

Then to iron them flat.

After that, I paired up two of each of the turned trees and pulled out my trusty iron-off pen to mark the center.

I connected them by sewing right down that line. And, with that, my work on the sewing machine for these was done. 

Now I had a 3D tree that had no body to it. 

So, guess what came next. Yep, more tv time.

The author's little tip about using hemostats to put stuffing into a small space are a keeper. They made this whole task SOOO much easier. And I've since used them for another project too.

Then it was simply a matter of hand sewing the bottoms closed.

And suddenly you're holding a tiny tree in your hand.

These little trees are pretty darn cute.

But they weren't done yet.

I actually had to order some red wooden beads. I didn't really expect Wal-mart to have any (they didn't) but I sure thought I'd be able to find some at Hobby Lobby. I know it's a little early for Christmas but I really thought they'd have some for Independence Day.

And that would have worked. I had plenty of Christmas sets online but I ended up liking the patriotic set I bought more. And they work just fine.

So, once the beads arrived, I coupled them with a thin red ribbon and VOILA!

Aren't they adorable? I think they'll be a hit. Just like last year's. And I hope to keep my Christmas in June vibe going next year too.

This was, as expected, from my current favorite Youtube channel -- Pin, Cut, Sew. You can find the tutorial here.

Let me know if you give them a try. Are you working on anything Christmas right now?