Monday’s How Does Your Garden Grow

Tomatoes! Hurray! But I’m about to be overrun by them. I actually don’t have a photo of the first one because… um… I ate it. I made a super delicious tomato, basil, & mozzarella toasted sandwich for yesterday’s lunch and I had a tomato, basil & mozzarella salad for lunch today.

The Sad tomatoes aren’t as sad but they are still pitiful. They are showing signs of hope though.

The pumpkin has now reached the ground on the opposite side of the porch and has offshoots that are trying to take over the front of the porch.

The pepper is still going strong and the second pumpkin plant is growing very quickly. Very soon the giant pumpkin will reach the second pumpkin.

The neighbor kitty came to visit with me while I was snapping photos.

My rose bush, that bloomed forever ago, has a random bloom. It’s small and pretty. This bush has been known to bloom twice in a year. I’m not sure what happens to cause it to bloom again two-three months later but it’s very nice.

I won’t be posting for awhile while I’m preparing for the festival, attending the festival, and then recovering from the festival. So, I leave you with Puppy Feet.

Etsy Sunday – Popcorn

Popcorn Finger Puppet – samarrakhaja

Fair Food Cards – cagedtomato

Buttered Popcorn Hand Painted Merino Bamboo Spinning Fiber – moonlightbaker

POPCORN Hairpin Barettes – BlackIceDesigns

Popcorn TTV 5×5 – obscuredetails

Storm’s a brewin’

Just an hour ago, I was outside taking photos of my plants in the beautiful evening sunshine. I made myself a bit of dinner and noticed that my neighbor’s antenna was moving like someone was standing there shaking it. I poked my head outside to find the most amazing storm clouds. I’m so glad that my camera could kind of pick up all the lights & darks. There’s a huge storm coming. Looks like I might be binding books by candlelight in a little bit.

Monday’s How Does Your Garden Grow

The pumpkin has officially grown off the end of the porch. Who knows what will happen now.

If it’s anything like my tomatoes, it will just topple over everything in it’s way and try to pull itself out of the ground by it’s own roots. I have no idea why the things in this flower box are growing to ridiculous sizes but they are quite amazing.

I hope this one will be ready to eat later this week.

The sad tomatoes are still sad and pathetic. I’m going to just leave them where they are until they either finally die or maybe they’ll decide to grow.

The other pumpkin (I’m pretty certain now that it is a pumpkin) is growing nicely and so is the pepper plant. The other pepper plant is still hanging in there, though I don’t see how.

Raisin decided it was playtime when I came back in from checking the plants. This was taken during a split second that she stood still. She loves to be chased.

Etsy Sunday – Banjo

Did I ever tell you that my daddy is a banjo player?

SQUIRREL BANJO art print by Susie Ghahremani, signed edition, 5×7 artwork – boygirlparty

Banjo Chronicles – onlyoddsocks

Sounds of Appalachia – Large 3D Sphere – katiediditglass

Appalachian Bluegrass Banjo Earrings Blue Sterling Silver – favoritebeagle

2 Sterling Silver Guitar or Banjo Fingerpicks, Tattoo Engraving – FeelGoodFashion

Meeting Miss Violet

*Squeeeee*

Ok, Here’s the story. I’ll try to not squee too much.

While I was teaching a class on How The Other Half Knits today at A Likely Yarn, I offered help to customer passing by the table. A very familiar voice responded to me. That voice was, of course, the lovely Miss Violet of the Lime & Violet podcast. I tried very hard to not get all Squee-y Fangirly.  I was keeping my composure the best I could until I heard Karen, who was running the register, squeeing. Then my excitement could no longer be contained… I Squeed. For real. (I think this may be the most I’ve ever used the word Squee.)

Miss Violet is awesome. She was a good sport about our excitement. Photos were taken and all was good. I even got to see a huge bag of Intentions yarn in person. They are all drool worthy. There is one called Courage that is mainly gorgeous red tones with gray that I really really want.

So, how did Miss Violet happen to wonder into our shop in Southwestern Virginia when, if you listen to the podcast, we all know she’s living in Iowa? Well, she is currently traveling The Crooked Road while writing a book & developing patterns inspired by her experience here.  It’s called the Mountain Sole Project and there will be accompanying yarn from Dizzy Blonde Studios.  I cannot wait for the book & yarn!

EDIT:  You can read Elli”s version of the tale here at the Mountain Sole Project blog.

Friday FO’s

I apologize for missing the Wednesday WIP post this week. I was a bit busy with this…

That is 30 of the 34 books I bound this week. Four of them are needle books that aren’t quite finished just yet. They’ve gone into the finishing box to await ribbon closures.

I counted my in progress books just before posting and I currently have 61 in progress books. That means that there were some books that I hadn’t counted last week and last Friday’s in progress number was actually 91 not 80. I’m hoping that I’ll have the majority of these completed before the festival on the 31st. This is how my days have been going. Drag myself out of bed, get myself dressed and to my day job, work til lunch, bind 3-5 books during lunch, work the afternoon, come home, cook dinner, work on books until 11:00-11:30, and then go to bed only to get up and do it all again the next day. I’m a bit tired.

Now I’m off to bind a few more books before heading to bed.

Raisin Loves Peanut Butter

Resolution

Remember my post about the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Etsy Transaction?

Well, actions were taken and some victory was achieved. The good news, Etsy banned the seller and they will no longer be ruining anyone’s shopping experience. The bad news, PayPal was only able to recover $.59. The PayPal message did state that they would attempt to recover the rest of the money but I’ve already given up on ever seeing a penny more of it.

Monday How Does Your Garden Grow?

Ok, this pumpkin has become ridiculous. It grows 8-10 inches a day. It has almost grown the entire length of my porch and it doesn’t seem as if it is going to stop. There are lots of little tiny pumpkins growing on it. I just hope that it will produce something big enough to become Halloween decorations.

I have the Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde of tomato plants. One set of tomatoes has become such a beast that it didn’t pull the tomato cages out of the ground; they bent them! The other set is so pathetic looking that I don’t think they are going to produce anything. I’m attempting some home remedies for plant food. I’m not a coffee person anymore but I do have some tea packs around. I’m not putting it in all three. I’m just trying one for a couple of days to see what happens.

My pepper plant is still healthy and the pepper plant that has been barely hanging on is still doing just that. It just will not give up. I’m not sure now if the volunteer plant is a pumpkin plant or not. The leaves are slightly different than the pumpkin on the porch and they should be the same since the seeds came from the same pumpkin plant from last year. I’ll be excited to see what it ends up being even if it is another pumpkin.