Some of my favorite things...

My first attempt at a blooming flower. I saw the most beautiful pic of something similar on Pinterest and I am determined to figure out a pretty one for myself. I think this will be the end of a pillow (like those round cylinder type ones, can't think of the name).

Pretty pincushions

This is a huge scale motif originally from a 1970 era crochet pattern. It is done in red and yellow, but for some reason, the red really burns out the image and it's hard to see the stitch.

 A sweet zinnia sent to me from my doctor, it was waiting in my room as soon as I got out of surgery on Wednesday.
Peeking from behind is my sewing machine and awesome dust cover. To the right is an old spice rack I use for holding my thread and bobbins.

 Pretty, pretty purse that I made for a little girl in the neighborhood. Its a very deep color plum (which I just couldn't get to show in the pictures".

 

A humming bird sipping from my beloved zinnias.

 This is a playtpus and netbook cover I made for my sis for her birthday. Both are my first attempts at designing patterns. I have duplicated the platypus, so I think it is a useable pattern. I haven't done the netbook cover again so I am not sure if it makes sense to anyone else.

 Lots more of my pretty flowers.

 T Rex at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. I took this on our trip to NYC in June of this year.

 Another Iconic image from NYC.

 An awesome tile mosaic from the wall of a subway entrance in the middle of Times Square.

 Much better shots of my sewing machine cover: Front

 Back

So far, so good.

As you can see, the garden is growing almost faster than I can keep up with it. Luckily, I was vigilant about weeds in the beginning, because things are growing so quickly now that I can hardly walk down a few of the rows. Also luckily, most of the grass/weeds have decided that they don't stand much of a chance around me, and have fled for greener pastures.

Yesterday, my mom and I built a nice trellis type thingy (very technical, I know) to hold the cantelope in and to encourage it to grow up instead of out. The cantelope has adapted quite well and is happily climbing the ropes and wood now. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow if I can remember to.

My yellow squash and zucchini have produced like mad for the past 2 weeks or so and we have been eating squash like it is going out of style. Quite delicious, I must say.

My tomatoes have been struck by a terrible infestation of what I can only guess are mites. I've used my awesome Rodale's Garden Problem solver and it seems to describe mites as my problem, though the mites I have are white, not red or black as the book describes. I don't know what they are really. Tiny white plump spiders. They seem to suck holes in the leaves and then the leaves sort of curl into a long tube or something when it gets several mites on the leaf. Anyhow, I finally broke down yesterday and sprayed pytherins on it (tomatoes, eggplants--they have flea beetles again, and a few of my pepper plants that were experiencing some flea beetles too). Anyhow, I always loathe to spray anything, even an organic pesticide, because I know if a beneficial bug comes along, it too will be killed.

Anyway, hopefully that will solve this onslaught of bugs.

I've come to realize that planting the greenbeans wasn't the best idea. My bushes are doing great, but I only have 5-6 of them and they just don't produce enough beans to justify the space they are taking up, though I have enjoyed picking the fresh beans and eating them raw. Too bad there isn't enough to ever steam for dinner.

My sunflowers are very gratifying. They are going like crazy and are over my head now. I cannot wait until the flowers form.

Otherwise, everything's going great, the garden is taking over pretty much most of my daylight time, but I don't mind one bit.