Home

Soundtrack for today's post:

Coming home - My little brother came home this week from Afghanistan.  It's good to have him home again.  This was his second deployment.  Last time he was in Iraq, and I was living in India for a good portion of that deployment, so it was nice to be in the states for this deployment.  I was able to send him dried fruits and baked goods and occasional summer sausages. Of course, he flew home to the other side of the state, so I wasn't able to make the  6 hour drive to see him land.  But, I was able to take down the star from the window.

Home year round - We're getting ready for another long winter. Window quilts are going up, plastic on the outside, the whole nine yards.  We've got the heater on, but just barely.  I think it's at like 69  right now. The basement is nice and cool and has a good selection of potatoes, onions and garlic.   With my free apple tree not producing this summer, I don't have any apples stored. But, I'm feeling like we're pretty prepared for winter.
 The summer bounty is all canned and pickled. Yay for being done with the canner for the year! lol I have 3 butternuts, and dozens of pumpkins from my winter squash vines.  Awesome!  The Swiss Chard, kohlrabi and the turnips are still unperturbed by the frosty mornings, so I'm continuing to harvest fresh food.

Home for the holidays - We'll have much loved guests for Yule this year, so we've already started planning for that.  What food we want to cook, what presents we want to make.  What we want for decorations. I've fallen behind on my sew along for the Tree Pants, but it's ok.  I'm still plugging along, and I fell behind to make Rowen the cutest costume.  I went to my local fabric store and bought 1 yard of red cotton, a quarter yard of white, and I free handed a big circle and a little 'm'.  I backed the red circles with some fleece so he stays warm enough after the sun goes down, plus it helps to keep the shape.  Rowen was so happy with his M&M costume, and he got lots of complements during it's inaugural run last weekend.   We all went out to the Trick or Treating at the local county park.  It was a great night and we had a blast.

My first star!

Anyway, here's a shot of the first star I completed.  I didn't like it 100%, so I went to the fabric store and bought some cream to mix in with the cream/flower print.  Those stars look awesome. I have several of those done, I'll try and snap a picture of those this weekend.  (While I'm frantically trying to catch up with the other sewers ... lol)
It's not to late to join in the sew along.  You can follow the action at the Happy Zombie blog. Or at Sew Mama Sew.

Home for one more - I'm finishing up my 10th week with the tadpole.  Basil is still a no go, but the nausea in general is slowly starting to decrease. We're moving on the eating-every-three-hours stage. :-D Dave took some pictures of me this last weekend, but we'll keep this post family friendly. :-D  You're welcome mother.  We'll snap some PG ones soon and I'll share some belly bump.
Here's a candid shot of the tadpole.

Fall harvests

Well in spite of the frost a couple of weeks ago, my tomatoes are finally ripening. :-D
The row cover protected them from the cold, and the wind, and we've had just enough warm sunny weather to ripen a couple dozen nice fruits.   So, I spent the weekend canning, a rainbow of deliciousness.  I did something fun this time and canned red tomatoes together, and canned yellow tomatoes together and one small jar of Green Zebra tomatoes.  The Green Zebras don't look so hot. That nice sunny yellow and light green stripe that they get when ripe, all that disappeared in the canner, so they look like unripe blotchy green tomatoes. lol

Red, Yellow and Green goodness

I still have a small pile of tomatoes on the counter. Not sure what we'll do with them, it's still being discussed.  We've got plenty of jars,  (Thanks Mom!!) so we may roast and can another batch of basil-less sauce for me.  (The zygote has decided basil is nasty and not to be eaten, seen or smelled, and is willing to upchuck food in order to enforce that opinion.  This is very annoying as I've had an awesome year for basil production.)

Dave has finished the chair he was making for Rowen.  We took some birthday money that Grandma DeeDee sent for him, and we bought some wood and a few hand tools and Dave made him a chair, just his size!  We got some stain, so that still needs to go on, but it looks pretty good.

As the days darken and the garden bounty wanes, I'm once again drawn to my sewing room.   I have a massive window quilt that was supposed to be finished earlier in the spring, and is still patiently waiting to be finished with the hand quilting. I have a vest for Rowen made out of fleece, with a zipper and hoodie.  I ordered the zipper this weekend, and I've sewn as far as I can go without it.   While I'm waiting on the zipper, I have started tree pants for the yule tree I'm determined to have this year.  (Tree pants, because not all trees like to wear skirts. hahaha)  I'm making crimson stars on a cream flowered background.  I've not done any stars yet, this will be my first attempt, I'm following the Happy Zombie sew along to help me through the bumps. Thankfully her pattern is a square tree pants, because round things are yet another aspect of quilting I've not got to. :-D  I'll try to put together a star or two and post the results in a day or two. Wish me luck!

Crimson stars on the cream/flowers.