Teresa's Treasures

Meet Francine

I've been wanting a new dress form to help with my various fitting challenges.  I did the duct tape dummy a few years ago but I've lost weight and will continue to lose so I don't want to go the duct tape route this time, plus I don't have any help right now for that.  I read about how to pad up a smaller dress form and thought that would be more flexible, I can easily remove batting as needed.  I will be making my daughter's wedding dress next year and will need a dress form for her as well.  I found a place and ordered 3 dress forms (it was just as cheap as buying 2 seperately) and worked on my double today.

Here's what I started with:

and the supplies:

I had 2 layers of foam and had to remove one layer (except over the tummy area).  I layered batting to smooth it out as best I could.  She's not exact but pretty darn close and will be very helpful for fitting.  

I put a white men's t-shirt, size med, over the padding and did a running stitch at the bottom of the t-shirt to pull it in and then put a lycra slip over.

I took a picture in a form fitting blouse to compare me and Francine:

Now I just need my macine back from the shop.  

There was a little mishap at the end, let's just say the forms were cheap and the wood base broke.  Luckily, I "borrowed" the bottom of my son's desk chair and rigged up a new base.  He's away at college and once hubby gets back we can come up with a better solution.  I like it on the rolling base better anyway.

Happy 4th

I don't have any plans today, just working on some projects at home like getting my sewing/craft room set up.  Had to move 2 very tall bookshelves up from the basement (had to clean all the stuff off that had gotten piled on first) and I have boxes and boxes of books and fabric and yarn.  Whew, almost all of it is up so now for the putting away and arranging.

I stopped by the garden earlier to water everything good and of course, we had a huge thunderstorm this afternoon with some pea sized hail.  I hope everything survived.  I'll run over in a bit to check on it.  There were 2 groups of neighborhood kids come through the garden while I was there.  They were just helping themselves to whatever they thought was ready to pick.  I very nicely explained that while it was a community garden, unless they knew the people  that put in the plot, they really shouldn't be picking vegies without permission. 

Okra pod, hardly any leaves on the plant but a nice big okra growing on it.

 

tomatillos and 1 zuke.  The one on the left died so I planted another seed.  I hope it comes up and has enough time to grow.

tomatoes  (2 romas on left and front right is oregon star and back right is heinz)

roma

 

tomatoes and not hot peppers (country taste on left and san marzano on right)

2 gypsy's and red bell

jalapeno

poblano

 

serrano

serrano from other side

cayenne

lettuce and radishes (I planted more radishes and carrots today)

Cucumber and okra bed

pickle bush with a coupld of nice sized cukes

pickle bush (I got the bug off and squashed it)

green bush beans, spinach and cukes.  I filled in the bare spots with more bean seeds.

thunderstorm with pea sized hail

 

my morning glories, sweet peas and moon flower full of hail

the pups refusing to come outside

Busy Saturday

I spent several hours getting all my plants put into the garden yesterday.

I put 2 zucchini plants in with the tomatillos and removed the wall o' waters from the tomatillos.  (hope it wasn't too early)

I planted a couple of basil and flowers in with the tomatoes.  Hard to see much of anything because of the straw.

I added 5 more cucumbers and 4 okras and some flowers.

Here are 4 more cucumbers, 2 squares of spinach (4 direct seeded and 4 transplanted) a parsley, dill and 2 marigolds in with the green beans.

Here are 10 okras with some parsley and flowers, most of the okras are still quite small and mostly covered with the straw.  Gotta try and keep them protected from the wind and cooler nights.

All I really added to the tomato and pepper houses was some herbs and flowers.  Trying a bit of companion planting.

Here's a shot of the whole garden plot.

I'm ready for everything to start taking off now.  I have a few onions finally sprouting and maybe some carrots.  Got a few weeds in there too so I don't want to pull too much until I know what's what.  I need to plant some more beans from the ones that haven't sprouted and a couple more lettuces and another row of radishes.  I'll do that sometime this week.  We're supposed to have some temps in the 80's most of the week and lots of sun.

Here's some closeups of the peppers and tomatoes.

Gypsy pepper

red bell

serrano

roma tomatoes

and the radishes with the lettuce in the square below

quick Mon post

I hauled dear son over to weedeat for me.  He said that wasn't weedeating, it was cutting down trees.  They are having a meeting tonight at the community garden and part of the time they will do some weeding.  Since I'll be at work, I wanted to make sure we contributed before the meeting.

I also put up the cucumber trellis and surrounded them with straw...hope that's enough to shelter them from the wind and cool nights.

Sunday updates

I went late this afternoon to water and make sure the wind hadn't blown anything over.

Bush green beans are sprouting finally.

 Radishes

The few cucumbers that are in the ground

A Gypsy pepper

a red bell pepper starting

a Serrano pepper

Inside the tomatillo/hot pepper house

Inside the tomato/sweet pepper house

SWC Juliet tomato ~ getting red

close up 

plants still waiting to be put in the garden (okra, zucchini, a few herbs, spinach, marigolds and I have some more flowers in another tray.

bush pickling cucumbers

flower box in front of house, petunias, pansies and lobelia

These are from a few days ago....

I used a couple of clear storage boxes to cover the cucumbers.  Our nights still drop down in the upper 40's/low 50's.

and here's the house with the front open trellis end on

the SWC in my back yard, the farthest left has a cherry tomato and 2 pepper plants, the middle 2 tomato and the one to the right has some of my herbs.

herbs; don't know if the cilantro is going to make it.

more herbs 

That all for now...off to bed so I can get up early and go weed and water.

Crazy Windy

We got the ends of the houses done and attached finally.  It is crazy windy today.  We used the plastic lattice with smaller holes and one end is covered with plastic and the other end left uncovered...  We zip tied them to the frame and then put zip ties around the frame and stapled to the wood bed.   I didn't get very good pictures because the wind kept blowing my camera.

Inside of plastic covered end, stapled through cardboard for extra support.

Outside of plastic covered end (the N side that usually gets the brunt of the wind)  See the end bowing inside down at the bottom because of the wind?

I didn't get a close up of the uncovered side because hubby was hurrying me to leave.  We also stapled the plastic to the side of the bed.  The tubs are the cut off parts left over from making self watering containers.  They are covering the cucumbers.  We had to zip tie the tomato cages to the uncovered frame, they keep blowing over.

Picture updates

Slowly but surely getting plants in.  We are having a drop in temps tonight and tomorrow so we've been rigging up some extra protection.

Beds are all in

Boy am I tired.  I got the final 3 beds put in today.  The back row was on a bit of an incline, had the most mulch to rake out and had some doozy of some weeds.  The kind that grow tree trunks.  The bed that had the worst of the weeds with ginormous roots got a piece of cardboard laid in it.  I don't want any of those suckers popping up through my bed.  I forgot my sunscreen and got a bit of a sunburn on the arms.  I guess they'll match my back now from last week when I forgot the sunscreen.  I must put the sunscreen in the truck.

I pulled out half the soil I had already put in the long bed and mixed it with a bag of manure/compost mix and some peat moss.  I plan on planting some carrots, onions, radishes and lettuce in it tomorrow.  I haven't found any row cover and didn't want to wait to order it so I bought a few yards of bridal tulle (nylon net) to use.  It's a much better price too.

Garden progess

I took the day off today...work in the CGP (community garden plot) and did some potting up to bigger pots of some of my seedlings and putting out some turf builder in the yard.  I hit the garden center looking for row cover but alas, they were sold out.  Instead I bought a couple more tomato plants.  I'm going to have DH build me some of those SWC (self watering containers) I've seen made out of plastic tubs.  I stopped at Wally world to pick up a couple more tubs since they were still on sale.  I have enough for 4 and I'll give one to DD for her patio.  Here's the progess of the CGP.  I got the last 2 beds built today and will take them over tomorrow or Mon.

Here's a view of most of the garden from the parking area.  You can see my beds in the center left of the picture.

I feel like I'm so far behind but I don't see much else going on out there yet.  I was going to use the free dirt that is provided but DH wants me to buy a better garden mix so we'll just have to wait until he gets home on his R&R leave in about a week.  I'm anxious to get the carrots and radishes planted so I may just amend the bed I have partially filled with some compost and get those started.  

I've had quite the work out moving all that mulch, several inches deep in over half the plot and digging up the few but very stubborn weeds.  I'm using the mulch on the paths between the beds so at least I'm not going to have to haul as much over.  I have a blister on my right thumb from raking so much and a sunburn on my back for not being prepared with some sunscreen.  That won't happen again.  I did wear a hat so my face was protected.

Happy gardening.

Garden time

I am so excited.   I finally get to have a garden again.  I haven't been able to garden since I left Washington in 2002.  There is a community garden just down the road from my neighborhood and I got a plot in there.  I don't really have a place to garden in back yard, it's all rocks and grass.  I will put some containers back there and I have some window boxes around the front porch and a couple of hanging planters.

The community garden plot is about 16' x 20', give or take.  I will give 25% of my harvest to the Livewell foundation (that sponsers the community garden) for their farmers market stand or the local food bank.  We had a bit of confusion in the beginning.  They assigned each of use a plot and one guy went and planted in several plots so I lost my original one and got one that needs lots of work.  Oh well.  I need the exercise.  I am building raised beds for square foot gardening.  Here's what I am starting with

The two stakes on the left are the border for my plot and the one straight under the green box is the far right edge, I didn't get the lower right stake in the picture.

Here is what I got accomplished today

These are 2' x 8' (almost) and the front side of my garden.  I will have 6 more 4' x 4' behind these.  I hope to get them built and put in this weekend.  There is a big pile dirt that I can use.  I was afraid I was going to have to buy some dirt but there should be plenty.  I'm using the cheapest wood I could find and it was not quite 8' long but it will still be plenty of room for all my goodies.  I'll put up a list of what I'm going to plant soon.  Isn't the sky just a beautiful blue?  Gotta go get ready for work.