The veggie garden just grew a lot -- because I put in all my seedlings/starts! It's finally consistently 50 and above at night, so I think they'll be okay. Last year I lost all my tomatoes to a late freeze, so this year I'm appropriately paranoid about paying attention to such things.
Be sure to visit my other sites, too!
May 16, 2024
2024 Garden 5: seedlings and growth!
May 2, 2024
A puzzling week or so
We've been doing puzzles lately! Thanks to an informal puzzle exchange at yoga (gotta love yoga), I swapped out a couple puzzles. Everyone's been working on them on our big dining table. I love how it becomes this mini-obsession for all of us as we walk by. ^_^
This one was FANTASTIC because we could all claim a little box section to do, put it together, then slowly join them. For once, I didn't mandate that the edge had to be done first. ;)More happenings after the jump!
April 25, 2024
Sewing is going to the Dorybird sewing blog
Hey everybody! Just a quick announcement: I'll be posting new SEWING PROJECTS back on my Dorybird sewing blog! Why? Because I want to! :D
I still have lots of sewing backlog from 2022-2023 to post over there, but I'll do it as I'm able, so it will be a fun occasional surprise of yesteryear for you. You can always click the year tag in the right sidebar to see everything I've made that year.
I just posted a shirt I finished today, and if you've been clever and awesome and wonderful enough to sign up for my newsletter (again, blue box in the sidebar on either blog, just do it!!), you should have gotten that post in your email along with the one from this blog.
This Creative Path Blog will continue to be the home for all the other creative things I'm up to! Yay!
2024 Garden 4: Peas, lettuce, fruits!
Well well well! We've had a lot of rain and both warm and freezing weather, and my little crops are coming along!
April 18, 2024
2024 Garden 3: Black Raspberry Bed (and More)!
This week has been both a) school break week, which means a vacation from routine, and b) super nice weather!!! Which means: GARDENING! I've done a lot of yard tasks while enjoying the sunshine and it is finally starting to feel like Spring. :D
I've had a very chill week, including lots of relaxed outside time with Kelly while our kids hung out together. Yay! Sometimes school break has felt like it drags on, but this year it's rolling along quite nicely. I had a few ideas and goals of things to do this week, and while I've done some of those (baking, volunteering, yoga), most days the weather has drawn me out into the yard instead. Since it's back to clouds and cold outside today, I'm going to do a little sewing. Which, yes, was on my list. ;)
Anyway, the garden! I've been meaning to rethink a bed in the front yard and prepare it for THORNLESS black raspberries when they arrive in the mail next month. SO, yesterday, I worked hard on it!
See below for key |
I initially created this bed out of my empty lawn (woot!) not long after we moved in. It used to house a giant azalea that I then moved, mostly because voles got under it :( and it wasn't thriving. After that, last summer I had a raised bed of snap peas in it (yes, within the bed, perpendicular to the raised bed in the photo), and while those did okay, it was an annoying configuration for harvest. Too many perennials in the way! Plus it was pretty shaded.
When I impulse-bought the black raspberries a few months ago, I decided to try them in this area, but the whole bed needed a redesign. So I think I have it now! Check out the photo and follow along:
1. This is parsley that has come back from last summer! I kinda wish the cilantro had come back, but I'm not that picky; I'll just put in more.
2. Some rogue strawberries that I put in way before I had plans for "actual strawberry production". They sometimes fruit, sometimes get eaten by critters; I don't really care and I'm leaving them. I can always propagate them and move elsewhere!
3. OK, the middle area is where I plan to move my RHUBARB in the fall, and add a couple more rhubarb plants soon if possible. I have one rhubarb planted in shade (oh well, my mistake) and it's very meager, so even though THIS bed gets partially shaded, it's less shade than where the rhubarb is now.
4. Little narcissus daffodils! And some coral bells. Just some general perennials that I can always move if I feel like it.
5. A lovely peony lives here! It had come with the house and I plopped it in when I first made the bed. Keeping it!
6. This rock (and the white rectangle paver) are my step-stones to make future raspberry picking easier.
7. I was going to make the raised bed wider, but then remembered/discovered that a really nice, variegated, pastel cool tone blue-green fern lives here!! (I say "discovered" because I knew it was in that general area, but when I set up the empty raised bed boards weeks ago, it wasn't coming up yet. Yesterday, all the fronds were coming up inside the raised bed!) So I'm keeping the raised bed out of the fern zone.
8. You will laugh at me, but in the fall, I had a big pile of nice compost-y dirt here, left over from where the raised bed had been. While gardening, I pulled out a start of some shrub -- and not really having a place to plant it, I stuck it in this dirt. Well, it's growing! I'm not even sure what it is, but clearly I thought it was worth saving, so I'll see what it is when it leafs out, and deal with it then.
9. These are some volunteer "wild Rhode Island onions", some chive type thing that's everywhere.
10. This pot is holding up some of the raised bed for now. It's an old dead houseplant fern.
11. The black raspberry bed! It was going to be the full width of the boards, but then I remembered that the row really doesn't have to be that wide. And then I had the fern pop up (see #7). So I narrowed it (in a hopefully temporary way since it looks pretty dumb, ha ha!) and actually that was good because I didn't have a lot of the excess compost-y dirt. What I had, fit nicely in this bed! At some point I'll adjust the boards and make it look better. I've just been moving and re-using this same compressed plastic raised bed for yeeeeears now! It makes my crazy projects quick and easy. :)
April 11, 2024
April happenings
2024 Backyard Garden 2: pea shoots!
Here is a look at the pea shoots starting to come up! When they're all up and get a bit taller, I'll take off the netting and put in the tomato cages for them to grow up. I initially planted them around the cages and then removed them.
March 28, 2024
2024 Backyard Garden 1: planting seeds
Hi! Welcome to my gardening series, where I'm going to document the progress in my new backyard veggie beds!
I made these "no dig" beds last year with lots of CARDBOARD to kill the grass and several cubic yards of compost on top, mulched over the winter with fall leaves. I took this photo a few weeks ago, before I had cleared some of those leaves away. I still need to figure out my paths between beds a little better. I don't have enough brick to go around all the beds, and I don't really want to buy more. Anybody know of any free brick or pavers in town? You can drop them off at my house, heh heh!
Those two beds in the back, mulched with pine shavings, are strawberries!
Anyway, here is my plan:
Cookies, books, turkeys . . .
I've begun some initial gardening, which I'll describe in the next post!
I've been fiddling around testing recipes to try and recreate Osmania biscuits! They're a shortbread cookie that I really enjoy, and I buy a box or two every time I'm at the Indian grocery. (They're made by Karachi Bakery and apparently are a Hyderabad specialty!) I figured I could make them myself, so I've been trying!
March 19, 2024
Multi Muffins, or Lemon Power Muffins Recipe: high fiber, high protein!!
Using a crazy-creative, innovative muffin recipe I found on the internet (here) as a starting point, I made up a really fun, healthy muffin recipe full of fiber and protein!! Yeah!!! I call them Multi Muffins, or Lemon Power Muffins. (Note: Karen's other muffin recipes look equally crazy-creative and innovative, so I'll be back to try more!)
They're very lemony, not too sweet unless you add the lemon glaze (included in recipe), and they're the BEST for a mid-morning or after-school snack. My recipe makes two dozen muffins, because what is the point of making only one dozen muffins for a family of four?? Can anyone relate? They will be all gone in mere hours. SO, these should last a bit longer than that.
Let's get to it. I wrote it out, so it's a picture! Easy!
Homemade Seven Stars Granola copycat recipe!
March 7, 2024
I've been busy! New Dorybird website updates and offerings!
(This is my cozy afternoon recently) |
Hi there! It's been a little while, because I've been working on a little of this, and a little of that. The big thing I did was to update my website! So if you click on over to Dorybird.com, you'll find A LOT of new photos, info (my art process! And more!), and . . .
February 15, 2024
I made two "envelope" style pouches with hang tags and snaps!
I mentioned that I made some pennants as a birthday gift, and as I looked at the folded and tied flags, I decided to also whip up a little pouch to put them in, as wrapping paper!
Then as I was assembling all kinds of fabric combos and trying to choose, I decided to also make a bag as another birthday gift (for K's daughter) and also two new bags for the Dorybird shop! :D
Making Reversible Rainbow Bunting/Pennants/Festive Flags!
I made a fun birthday gift for Kelly! Rainbow party pennants! I found this tutorial online, which links to a pattern piece. The pattern is neat because you can make a front and a back of a flag from one 10" layer cake square. When I saw this, a) I knew I wanted the flags smaller; and b) I knew I wanted to have the split side split between different prints.
More fantastic rainbows after the jump!
January 25, 2024
Cake!!!! and stuff
First of all, thanks to my newsletter readers who answered my poll about my art! I've only gotten 12 responses so far, so if you haven't filled out the poll yet, go ahead and submit it! I'm getting some interesting answers and I'd love to have a larger sample. Maybe I'll send out these types of polls every so often. :)
I have no idea who said what in this poll, and I guess it would have been smart of me to somehow set it up so I know whose answers are whose. (Probably by making you enter your email address, I'm guessing?) Well, I wanted a very low barrier for participation so I made it as simple as possible. Like I said, I'd never made one before! I kind of like not knowing who said what, actually; it's sort of a mysterious feeling of support from everyone. :)
I made a Koalabird plush doll!
For C's birthday, I made her a koalabird plush doll! I had made her one before -- her koalabird toy Cheerful, 2 years ago -- and now Cheerful has a friend! Newsletter subscribers may remember the photos of Cheerful I shared awhile back, but I will have to take more of both stuffed animal friends together. :)
More process after the jump!>>
January 18, 2024
Birthday Month in full swing!!
January 11, 2024
I made an Alolan Vulpix Pokemon plush!
Finally I can share the Alolan Vulpix Pokemon plush stuffed animal I made for E! This project was a birthday surprise, so I wasn't taking any process photos. But I did make it, I promise! :) She loves it and at first didn't even realize it was handmade!
January Beginnings!
This is the last "life news" post in this series as I get back on track for blogging in the new year! (Be sure to read Part One and Part Two and see my hand drawn Pokemon art cards!)
I drew my friends as Pokemon cards!
December, Part Two!
Happy New Year -- But First, Here's December!
Hi, everybody! Well, it happened again -- I have a bit of a backlog here on the blog! But that's okay! Today I'm writing a few posts with some recaps of December, and January so far. :)
We had a good end to 2023, with Christmas and New Year's and other assorted fun! Let's go!
I'm not really into doing my own elaborate Christmas displays, but I LOVE other people's!! These adorable critters were on display at my neighbors' party -- along with thousands of other treasures! |
As always, much more after the jump!