A Miscellany of Making

Spring (and some days, maybe summer) has definitely arrived on the farm. That means there's a miscellany of projects I've been working on. So today, I'm just going to share a miscellany of photos to share what I've been up to!

First off, I've been working in the yard the last few days. I've got lots still to do (like dig up all the weeds and grass that has cropped up in the rocked areas of my garden) but I'm excited with this new addition - my water trough container vegetable garden! My hubby worked his you-know-what-off digging all the dirt to fill these three 2' x 6' troughs. I'm going to try planting peas, green beans, watermelon and cantaloupe. These are in addition to the tomatoes and banana peppers that I started growing last year. We'll see how it goes. Of course, I had to do a little decorating of the space with some of my garden 'junk'!

I kicked the plants outside that I have been wintering over in the house and planted all of my patio pots too.

These are just a few of the pots as I have three patio areas that have large flower pots. This seems to be the only way I can successfully maintain flowers and bonus - no weeding! That patina-packed trough holds my tomatoes and peppers and are lined with marigolds.

I save all the tags from each plant so that I can remember how many of each thing I plant when buying plants the next year. It came in really handy this year as I just made my list from last year's tags and emailed it to my local green house, they gathered up all the plants and I just drove up and loaded them. Social distance shopping at it's best. My plant staples are sweet potato vines and trailing petunias (love plants that spill over the sides of pots), geraniums (hardy for our climate), lantana (for all the hot sunny spots) and spikes (for height). Of course, I buy lots of odds and ends for a good variety of color and texture.

I've been working on a project for my sewing studio - a screen door on a sliding barn rail to separate and hide my studio (and my sewing messes) from the living room. I painted a purchased screen door with a base coat of green and a top coat of white, then sanded the white down so the green shows through in places. I attached vintage green plastic drawer pulls above each spindle across the center and I'll probably hang something from them (maybe a little wreath or bunting). The door is just propped up in the opening for this photo because I am working on a 'quilt' to staple to the door where the screen used to be so that it is solid.

I'm using 30's reproduction fabrics to make my screen door quilt on the front side and I'm making log cabin blocks. I'm planning on appliqueing my thistle logo in the center. On the back side (studio side), I am making half square triangles using some Moda American Jane fabrics and sashing them with some measuring tape fabric. I'll have to share more once I get this project finished.

Did you notice the wallpaper border in the screen door photo above. Well, that's going to be covered up with old chippy bead board. I love old bead board and have wanted to do this for a long time and I finally have collected enough bead board pieces to do it. I've cut all the bead board pieces 12" long and have them all washed. The paint is completely chipped away on some of the boards so I'm going to try some crackle paint to see if I can mimic the other boards. The crackle paint arrived yesterday so anxious to try it out.

And, like many who have been under stay-at-home orders during this pandemic, I've been doing some baking here and there. This week I made bierocks to freeze and a peach pie from peaches I put up last August. 

Lastly, I wanted to share a photo of the cloud streets I took yesterday. What are cloud streets, you ask? Cloud streets are bands or lines of cumulus clouds that are oriented almost parallel to the wind direction. In other words, rows of clouds! Pretty cool looking, huh? That's my trivia for the day!

What have you been making during this pandemic? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

~Sharla

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