garden progress

Our garden is finally getting to the fun part! Every day we spot a few more blooms and vegetables growing.

So far we've been enjoying the lettuce and bean crops. Up next are the green peppers and zucchini.

And the front garden is starting to fill in. I'm still in search of the perfect red shade/sun plant. Last year the celosia died out from too much sun and this year the impatiens could hardly be called thriving. Do you have any suggestions for me? If worse comes to worse, I will have to go with begonias (don't ask me why, but I've just never really liked these flowers. Although they do look nice in a thick, colorful border).

I can't believe it but I'm just one presentation and three weeks away from ending my first class! The craft projects are piling up around here, so dontcallmebecky should be resuming its craft/quilt blog soon. I'm dying to get my hands on some of these new sublime stitching patterns!

balloon festival

Every year, Howell, MI hosts the Michigan Challenge Balloon Festival. Every year I have intentions of attending. Every year, I manage to miss out on the fun...But, not this year! My mom, sister, Jon and I made it to the last evening of festivities on Sunday and sat around for two hours waiting for the wind to die down enough for the balloons to launch. We were beginning to worry that they would not take off the ground, but at around 8:30, they gave the okay for a few balloons to launch. All in all, we saw about 10 balloons take off.

Ever since parachute day in gym class in elementary school, I've always wanted to take a balloon ride. One day, I will take a ride in a hot air balloon...one day!

In exciting news, this is a joint post with Jon. Check out his site for the balloon video that he made. And you can see the rest of the photos in this flickr set.

kitchen things

Jon and I made this little tart yesterday morning. We were looking for different ways to cook asparagus and this came up on a google search.





Asparagus Tart (recipe from epicurious.com). We didn't have half and half, so we used skim milk. And we didn't have turmeric (or we couldn't find it in our jumbled mess of a spice cupboard...ugh!), so we skipped it.

The tart came out delicious and we would definitely make it again. Asparagus is so yummy!

I sent this little tea towel across the pond to my friend, Jodi, who's living and working in Brussels right now for six months. We were bummed that we couldn't make it over to visit Jodi, so I had to send the next best thing...a tea towel, of course! Jodi's a budding classical guitarist and she's got an awesome collection of unique tea towels and kitchen accessories, so I thought this would be the perfect, compact gift to send. The pattern is from the sublime stitching book.

summer afternoons

We had a busy morning today. We headed down to Eastern Market with my aunt and uncle to stock up on some fresh fruits and vegetables...

But, wait a minute, that's not fruit! Well, my aunt introduced us to this place called Rocky's that is stocked with all different kinds of candy and bulk foods. I scored a bag of these crunchy gummy worms. Sour gummy worms are probably my most favorite candy, so I was glad to find this candy with a twist.

After, we had tamales in Mexican town, went grocery shopping at the Honey Bee, a great Mexican grocery store, and ended up at Slow's Barbecue for some smoked applewood chicken sandwiches with spicy mustard (yummy!).

We bought tons of strawberries so that I could make strawberry freezer jam...

While I was "slaving" away in the kitchen making jam, I spotted my three roommates enjoying an afternoon nap (not fair!).

 

...we bought four times as many strawberries as we needed, so I ended
up making two batches of jam (12 jars) and then freezing the rest for
cereal toppings and smoothie ingredients. Freezer jam doesn't involve any sterilization or boiling or checking jar seals. All you have to do is mix crushed fruit, sugar and pectin together and pour into jars. After letting the jars sit for 24 hours, you move the jars to the fridge and use as needed. The jars of jam are supposed to last for up to a year. Hopefully, this jam will taste delicious!

update

It's been a while since I've posted...it gets a little hard to get back into the swing of blogging, but here goes...
 

We've been enjoying our gardens. The peonies were in bloom a few weeks ago and we managed to have a vase full of flowers inside for a few days (ants and all!)

Our veggies seem to be doubling in size each day! We've been enjoying lots of great salads with our lettuce crop. We planted 12 plants this year instead of 4 like last year and we're racing to keep up with the supply.

We saw a fabulous movie last weekend, thanks to my long lost friend, Courtney, from high school telling me that I should get out to see it. It's called The Fall and I guess it could be considered similar to The Princess Bride, but with nicer scenery and a more complex plot line (a young girl is sick in a hospital and she befriends a man who tells her a fantasy story).
 

A few weeks ago, we made it out to see the Orchid Ensemble at the Detroit Festival of the Arts. This was by far my favorite musical group featuring the erhu! If they're ever in your neighborhood and you enjoy music from the Silk Road, you should try to see them.

I have had a bit of time to do some crafting. I finished this dress literally minutes before we brought it over to its new owner, little baby Claire. This dress was a lot more fun to make than Jon's sweater. Mainly because it took only a little over one ball of yarn and a whole lot less time! I think I see lots more baby garments in my future (especially if my friends keep getting pregnant so often : ) I did run out of pink at the end, and after searching for a second ball at four different stores to no avail, I realized that it is probably a discontinued color. So, I improvised and added the brown for an accent color on the bottom and as a crocheted edge on the top.

 

Pattern: Little Sister's Dress

Needles: Size 5

Gauge: my gauge was bigger than recommended, so I made the 0-3 month size in hopes that it would fit more like a 3-6 month size. Claire is a tiny baby, so she should be able to wear this in the fall

Yarn: Bernat Satin MaiTai (pink) and Mocha (brown)
 

summer afternoons

there's nothing nicer on a hot afternoon than a long nap under a cool fan (other than ice cream, that is)!

charm square quilt top

About a month ago, I sorted, ironed and folded all of my scrap fabric. Along the way, I cut out 5x5 squares to make this quilt. The border is 3" wide when cut and 2.5" after sewing.

This fabric has been staring me in the face for the past three week and I finally got around to making the quilt top last night. I've been admiring these patchwork charm square quilts forever, so I'm glad that I got to jump on the bandwagon!