A New Home!

We moved houses last year. Now it's time to move websites. You can find my new blog home at www.greensandjeans.com

February Projects

Winter is a good time for working on sewing and craft projects as I'm not tempted to go out and work in the garden. We still have a good snow cover. Here's what I've been up to lately.

A small project:
A winter garland to decorate our shelf.
A large project:
Sewing squares for a summer quilt for our bedroom. I've never made a bed-sized quilt before. It takes more perseverance to do the same squares repeatedly. I used blues, greens and purples from my stash for the center strips. I wasn't sure until I laid the squares out on the floor whether I was going to do them in straight rows or at an angle. I decided I like the angle better. Now I'm sewing them into long strips to put all the squares together.
Good thing there is at least another month before the garden will be calling outside. I hope to get the quilt to the point where I can work on quilting it at night.

Seeds Arrived!

Finally this week my seed order arrived. Because I ordered them from Fedco through my local Coop, they were put in as a bulk order towards the end of January. I went to pick the seeds up on Monday. Unfortunately the later order date meant I didn't get any Fortex pole beans nor any Paprika pepper seeds. I guess those will have to wait for next year. The Coop order is nice because of the discount. However, next year I'll put in an early order for anything that is limited and for my onions and peppers which I want to have early.

As soon as I got home, I laid them out and sorted them into my seed box. Then I planted the 2 varieties of peppers that came, along with the onions. Last week I'd started the peppers I hand on hand, as well as my leeks. Some of the peppers are sprouting already!

A Year's Difference

Last February we put a contract on the house we now own. On February 15th we did the home inspection and I took this photo of the back garden.
This February is drastically different. I anticipate my start to the garden will be delayed this year while waiting for the snow to melt. Here's what it looked like today.
Since the forecast calls for sun and above freezing temperatures this week I decided to go out and shovel off the cold frame. I found it was easier to crawl over the surface of the snow than sink into the very deep paths of at least 30 inches.
When I found the coldframe there was 12-15 inches on top of it.
I slowly shoveled it off. I got to the last window and realized I hadn't gotten the edge.
Here's where I made my mistake. Instead of scraping across the window I went straight down on where I thought the edge of the wood was. Ooops! I broke the glass.So I covered it with some plastic and come spring we'll have to replace it with plexiglass or something.
Here is how things look on the inside of the cold frame. Green but frozen. And smelling like a fish tank. When things begin to thaw out I'll have to clean out the dead plants and see what will rebound. Here's how the garden looks now.

Recent Projects

Here are a few finished projects from the past two months. I knit this pair of socks for my dad for Christmas. He received the first sock on Christmas Eve and the second sock on New Years Eve.Some neighbors had a baby girl just before Christmas. I knit this sweater during our travels and gave it them in early January. I've seen it on the baby a few times, apparently its a good weight for going out in the car seat. I made this pair of pillow covers for my Grandma Ginny's birthday.
The back has two flaps that overlap so the pillow slips in. I decided to make the corners purple like the front.
I finally finished the curtains in our living room. I got the fabric in August and made one or two panels this fall. Other projects were more exciting and side tracked me but when we returned from Christmas I got the other two pairs done. At the end of January I finally hemmed them to be the same length.

Cross-Country Skiing

We didn't get the 12 to 24 inches of snow predicted yesterday but we did get a good 8-10 inches of new snow. Last weekend I found out about some local cross country ski trails that are groomed and free to use. Best of all they are only 5 minutes down the road. This afternoon I enjoyed an hour skiing exploring the trails. It was so beautiful out with the blue sky and fresh snow and so I brought my camera along. I stopped often to take photos. Here are some of the best views from the trail.

I caught a glimpse of this farm through the trees and backed up to take this shot.

Then I skied a little further and found a better view.