UFO Work on Vacation

OK, it's not really work.  Bad choice of words.  Thank goodness that's not how I make my living, or I might be fighting with Sadie over her dog food.  I'm on vacation, doing what I LIKE to do.
Jean and I spent the morning at the beach and (gasp) went swimming!  We came home, had a late lunch, and washed off the beach salt.  Jean got down to reading and I pulled out the Asian Batiks (from my Singapore niece Christmas 2013). Coincidently, they popped up as the UFO project for July/August, when she was actually HERE in July.
I think I showed you the planned quilt.  If not, I guess you will just have to be patient.
I am sewing on the corner blocks (navy blue) and restitching 1/2" away.  That will give me the blocks I want PLUS two bonus half-square triangle blocks, which will probably go in the border.
Tonight's entertainment is the LIVE Big Band performance from 6 - 8 pm at the Gazebo In The Park, Bandstand at Mitchell Field, Harpswell.  Tomorrow we should be making sure we get a lobster supper.

Vacation weather

Haha... hotter'n hell and pouring rain.
It has been a lovely hot & sunny day until we got back from the beach. We both opened our tablets and were greeted with weather alerts and severe thunder storm warnings for the area. That's ok, since it is cocktail hour and catch-up-sending-emails-home time.
Yesterday we went to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. That was a beautiful several hours, followed by a wee shopping trip to the quilt shop in Bath, where I bought a souvenier fat quarter.  And, as I mentioned, today was spent at The Beach.
Hmm...time to refill the cocktails...
😆

Afternoon cocktails

This morning I made my favorite Bluebberry/Peach Oatmeal Bake for breakfast.  That should feed us for three mornings, along with yogurt on the side.  We've been slumming around Orr's Island and Bailey Island today, even to the extent that we hit the Goodwill Store.  On the way home we stopped at Gurnet Trading and picked up a big slab of salmon for supper.  It was 3:00 by then and I was sick and tired of getting in and out of the car, so I elected myself to make cocktails for us.  Jean did the appetizer tray with cheese, crackers, grapes, and almonds.  Beverage was Spiced Rum (a $5 bonus deal at the Duty Free) with pineapple/orange juice.  Surprisingly, I keep forgetting to open the Bailey's for our coffee in the morning.  Maybe tomorrow...😉

Um. Vacation.

As usual, vacation means rain. Even when I go as far as Orr's Island in Maine. I'm here with my friend Jean, leaving DH at home to harvest zucchini. (ha...as if.) Today was a very successful shopping day in Freeport. Especially at the Lindt Chocolate store.  
The weekly zucchini count will have to wait until my return. Until then, if you go over to the house, you can probably beg a zucchini or two.

Interesting Quilt Backs, a Business Relationship Story, and the Zucchini Report

I really like the border on this quilt - how it makes the whole thing 'float' on the background.

I especially like the BACK of the quilt.  Using some leftover patchwork and some leftover fabric hunks from the top always makes things just a little more interesting.

HOW TO RUIN A LONG-TERM BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP IN ONE EASY STEP

I've been going to the same hairdresser for over 30 years, with a very rare visit to a different salon.  Honestly, maybe three times.

She's self employed, works at home, and considering that she is a service provider - I know her really well.  I know her kids and her husband and I know all about her holidays.  I'm a good client, undemanding and uncomplaining.  I arrive on time.  Once she and I got our wires crossed and I was coming a half hour later than she thought I should.  Once I turned up, unknowingly, with no cash, and I dropped it off later that day. 

On my last visit, I walked in the door and she said "you're LATE".
First, my jaw kind of dropped.  I said "three minutes???"  (and I was a few minutes late after running an errand).  She argued that I was five minutes late, according to her phone and her clock.  I really hate confrontation, so I laughed it off saying that she could forgive me for those few minutes, right?  But I could see that she was really steamed.  Half way through my haircut she took a personal call and stood there chatting with whoever, about her upcoming weekend, and the bridal plans, and potato salad, etc, etc.  This call went on for quite some time.  She must have thought I had it coming to me.  I dunno.  There was no apology for the interruption.

After my cut, I paid her and I left.  And I'm not going back.  I feel like she totally disrespected our relationship.  She hurt my feelings.  Maybe she was having a bad day and I should cut her some slack, but that is a two way street.  Since I'm the one forking out the $$$ it is not my job to forgive her, unless she is willing to make nice too.  She has kept ME waiting plenty of times and never been terribly apologetic. 

In the back of my mind I know I am acting like an ass.  And then I think:  after at least 260 haircuts I deserve more love.  You know?

ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:    13
Picked YTD:           43

In other garden news, I am continuing to weed.  The soil out there got a bit dry, so we gave it a good watering.  Then, of course, it rained the next day.  There are a couple of ways I know of to make it rain.  One is to water the garden, the other is to wash your car.  That's ok though - the plants would MUCH rather have rain water than our horrid, iron-ey, mineral-ey, hard-as-a-rock well water.  I've picked a few raspberries.  This is my second summer with the ever-bearing raspberries, so I did a bit of research.  Apparently (according to the Gods of Google) the old canes bear early summer (now) and the new canes bear late summer.  There should be lots of berries in my future since I have lots of new canes.  And I will know to NOT cut down the canes in the fall.  I've also picked a TON of snow peas.  Plenty have been given away since we cannot possibly eat that many, unless we give up eating peanut butter, oatmeal, potatoes, chicken, and sausages.  I've been squashing potato bug larvae, since it seems a couple of the buggers got away on me and MATED.  Bastards.  I've eaten a few cucumbers from the vines, and I found a new recipe for  Cucumber & Blueberry Salad that I will be trying.  I have some frozen cherries from the June crop so I'll use those instead of blueberries, until the local berries show up at the market.

Hmm.  I guess that's it for now.  Enjoy this friggin' heat.  Today the temp is forecast to be 31c but feels like 42c.  Yup.  Hotter'n hell...

Red & Cream Sampler, zucchini report

This was the June beauty.  Only thirteen pieced blocks.

The rest was all empty space.  The request to use red thread gave me a slightly nervous stomach.  It shows every single wobble.  And every single stop/start.  I stared 'er down for a while, then put on my big girl panties and took a deep breath.

This was my first experience with a DOUBLE batt.  The bottom layer was Hobbs 80/20, then a Hobbs Wool was added on top.

This gives a gorgeous pouf to the quilting designs.

I am totally in love with that border design by Karlee Porter.

On the garden front, I got the rest of the redneck mulch put down (grass clippings on top of newspapers) so I have a path between the cutting garden and the veggie garden.  I weeded about half of the potato patch  but there is more to be done.  Woe is me, we have potato beetles.  I need to get out there with a bucket of soapy water and try to drown the bastards.  I have snow peas coming out my ying yang, so I've given away a bunch of those.  I picked four (!) raspberries this week and lots more are starting to turn red.  Yum, yum, yum.
ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:  20  (all small ones, man-finger size.  I gave away 14 of them.)
Picked YTD:         30
 

Mary Mary Quite Contrary... and the first ZUCCHINI REPORT

Maybe I should rewrite that so it goes:

Helen-Mary, never contrary (ha ha)

How does your garden grow?

With snail-filled shells

And manure smells.

And hoes-&-toes all in a row.

With the 2 1/2" of rain we got last Saturday, the garden has exploded.  And not all in a good way.

At least Mother Nature decided to plant DILL with the POTATOES.

Buried in amongst the volunteer cilantro and edible-but-weedy PURSLANE there are sweet and hot peppers.

The leeks and onions are ok in this pic, but lemme tell you.  I was out there weeding this last night and there was no brown dirt to be seen.

You will notice that I have kept the ZUCCHINI pretty clean.  The better to torment DH... ha ha ha.  I've already picked about ten finger sized fruits and tossed them in veggie stir fries.

To my credit, the newspaper/grass clipping mulch is doing an excellent job here. I will be back at this today to clean up a walking pathway between the cutting garden and the veggie bed.

The past several days I have been trying to thin out the phlox.  Oh.  My.  Lord.  It has taken over so much space!!!  In this pic I have already been working at this so I could at least find the Siberian Iris.

This is what I took out.  I had to ask DH to get in there with his manly size 11's and a big shovel to separate some clumps for me.  Otherwise I would still be at this in October.

Whew.  Some space. Now I can dig up some COSMOS that have seeded themselves in amongst the tomatoes and replant them here.

As far as harvesting goes, we have eaten a ton of lettuce.  Pounds of asparagus. The radishes that I planted for DH are rotting in a tupperware in the fridge. (why eat radishes when you can have salted peanuts?)  We've had a few feeds of snow peas - delicious when you lightly saute them in a bit of olive oil for maybe five minutes, then add a couple dollops of balsamic vinegar and cook for another minute or two.  And the zucchini, of course.  :-)  Ready in the garden but not yet picked are a couple of jalapeno peppers and at least one cucumber.  Yum yum yum.  I love summer.

ZUCCHINI REPORT
I am simplifying the report this year.
Picked   10
YTD      10