Today I covered my camera strap with cute fabric.

 

It was a vintage wool Liberty of London tie I had squirreled away, waiting for just the right project. I really love it.

 

I was feeling like I haven't been very productive lately, but I actually have been working on some things. I'm just a little scattered right now.

 

Two little softies will be on their way to Australia this week for a new book, and I've finally figured out a pattern for the pink and brown quilt I need to make.

My new little layer, on the other hand, has been very productive. One of her very first eggs was a double yolker

 

And two last words: Greek Nachos. Yum. Okay, that was three words. 

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While last Saturday may have made me feel like a failure as a farmer, things are not all bad around here. Despite the  fact that the chickens continue to think my vegetable garden is their own personal dust bath spa, a few things are growing quite nicely. I harvested my first radish this week.

This is a salad rose radish, they are, obviously, a long variety. This one was about six inches. I left it for Mr. HeyLucy to eat, because radishes are one of his favorites. He pronounced it delicious and very spicy. The chickens did a bit of damage to my radish section, so there are only three others there. They grow so quickly, I'm thinking of filling in a few squares with more radish seeds, so we can enjoy a few more harvests. I'll also be adding some chicken wire covers to the garden, and hopefully that will keep those rascals at bay.

I also discovered that what was burning my plants was actually a freakishly late frost (we had frost until June 22!), so I lost my beans, a couple cucumbers, and the cinnamon basil. I thought that three of my four tomatoes were goners, but only one actually died, and the other three are looking good. My red grape tomato is huge, and there are even a few tomatoes ripening. The other two tomato plants have a ways to go, but I'm hoping we'll still get a few by the end of Summer.

Here's the whole garden, it looks pretty nice:

The sorrel is doing really well, I've trimmed it a couple times to share with friends, and I'm going to try and make some sorrel soup this week. I'm not sure if my peas are going to do much more than they're doing now. They're the four right front boxes. As you can see, they have no interest in climbing the poles I've rigged for them, but there are quite a few pods. It may be getting too hot for them, so once the pods are ripe, I think I'll harvest and pull them out and replace them with something else.

Here's what I'm discovering: when it comes to gardening, you can read and study and plan all you want, but the only way to really learn how to garden is to…garden. I know, that's so deep, but if you want to plant a garden, and you have even a little bit of space, I say go for it! You'll never be more ready than you are now, and some things will not work, and some things will be amazing. I think it helps to be out there in the dirt, as much as possible, too, and even just pulling a weed here and there is progress. It's so easy for me to look at my big garden area, where I want to plant berries and fruit trees and make about 8 more boxes and get overwhelmed, but I just keep reminding myself to be patient and just do a little at a time, and eventually I'll have my little Eden out there. 

Enough about the garden, remember how I started making a sleeve for my laptop? I finished it and used it while traveling last week. It worked out just great.

 

My laptop is my primary computer, so it's a big 17" one. I don't travel much with it, sand I have a case, but it's heavy and ugly, and it wasn't very practical. So I got myself a little rolling carry on bag, and filled it with a bunch of stuff, leaving room for the computer on the top. So much easier!

 

And it's cute!

One last thing, back to the garden. I decided to have some pretty yogurt for breakfast this morning. I picked a sprig of lavender and a sprig of mint, and added them to my Greek yogurt and raspberries. There's also a sprinkle of raw sugar for sweetness. It's quite tasty (I'm eating it right now!) and it smells so good.

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My final birthday giveaway plan has worked out, so you'll have to read all the way to the end to find out what it is! I'll draw the first three birthday week winners tomorrow night, and then the last three on Friday, so you'll have a little time to enter this one (as well as the last two). That way I can try and get everything shipped on Saturday.

Saturday mornings are all about breakfast around here. I love my yogurt and fruit breakfasts during the week, but Saturday is for something hot and hearty. I was feeling a little adventurous this past weekend and decided to try a little scrambled goose egg. I should have included a fork or something for reference, but that is one big yolk.

While beating it, it seemed heavier somehow and creamier, it's hard to describe, but it was quite good. I had it on top of my favorite potato hash (of which I make many variations-this one had lots of onion and some leftover pot roast). It was delicious, but that was a lot of egg.

A little story about something I learned this weekend:

The worst part about having chickens is cleaning out the chicken coop. Once I start raking all the shavings and poop up it gets quite dusty in there and I have to take frequent breaks to get some fresh air. It's not stinky, just dusty. I recently had the brilliant idea to get a dust mask to make the whole task easier and probably much healthier. I tend to do these dirty chores first thing Saturday morning before showering or anything, which is logical, right? But I also went out there with my dust mask just after finishing breakfast, but before brushing my teeth. And here is what I learned: do not ever wear a dust mask when you have nasty onion and cheese breath. Boy was that stinky. Now you know.

Lest you think I'm a complete idiot with poor hygiene habits I noticed today while at the bank that I have a real talent for pulling up nice and close to the drive up ATM. I laugh at the people who pull up and then have to open their door to do their banking (only in the most affectionate way, not mean-spirited). I love discovering hidden talents.

Have you seen the cover of Better Homes & Gardens April issue? It not a magazine that I usually buy, but I was completely charmed by this image:

So I've blatantly copied them and made my own version (it was pretty darn easy, so don't be too impressed. I also may have gone a little overboard with the little chick and the mushroom):

 

The pale pink violas are in a goose egg, and I used the ceramic egg carton my friend gave me for Christmas.

And now for the final birthday week giveaway! I wanted to find some more moss to share, but it's been dry lately, and while on my Sunday afternoon walk I only found little dried up bits of moss. The good news is that the dogs were very well behaved and didn't knock me over this time.

I wasn't about to give up, however, so I went to a favorite nursery on my lunch hour, and found a couple fun little mossy plants. The tag says one is baby tears, so maybe it will grow taller, but for now it's quite compact and flat, and the other is a creeping thyme, which I think is pretty hardy, so I hope it can take the high humidity of a terrarium. So I put together a little terrarium kit. You'll have to provide your own jar, but I'll send everything else! I think it will be so fun. There will even be three little mushrooms, because you know how I feel about mushroom-less terrariums.

Let's talk about breakfast for this giveaway. What's your favorite weekend breakfast? Do you cook? Or go out? We used to live in Mission Beach and The Mission was my absolute favorite breakfast spot. I loved the zen breakfast or the roast beef hash. I don't usually care for really sweet breakfasts, but their french toast-made from thick slices of cinnamon bread-was also always tempting.

I love violas, in large part because that was my grandma's name.

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Let's just drag birthday week out as long as possible, shall we? I didn't get home until nearly 9:00 on Friday night, after running all sorts of errands, and I was still so pooped on Saturday that I took a three hour nap. That may have had something to do with the fact that I also cleaned out the chicken coop, and swept off another big section of driveway. Enough with the excuses, however, I have another giveaway to tell you about.

I felt the need to make something with paper today, so I made a little set of pamphlet-style notebooks, and experimented with an accordion book. The accordion book is a little wonky, but I like how it looks standing up like this, and the pages are my favorite printmaking paper. I know I've talked about my old red book for sketching and ideas and quotes, but I also usually have a little notebook in my purse for to-do lists and grocery lists, and other sorts of temporary scribblings. So I hope you will find these handy, and very usable. They all have Amy Butler cardstock covers, and two of the notebooks have brown paper pages and for the third I used ledger paper. 

Speaking of Friday night errands and grocery lists, lately I'm all about visiting ethnic grocery stores. This week I did the bulk of my shopping at 99 Ranch, a local Asian grocery store. It's gigantic, and they have all sorts of interesting things, including a deli with my new current obsession, banh mi (Vietnamese/French-style sandwiches). I also got ingredients for my gyoza and vegetables for a couple stir-fry dinners this week. Last week I visited a Mexican grocery store and made a big batch of Chile Verde. Their produce was so cheap (tomatoes for 59 cents a pound!), and I even treated myself to a carnitas taco from the taco counter at the front of the store that was one of the best I've ever had, and only $1.50. Of course I can't forget my favorite ethnic grocery store, Mitsuwa Market, home of all sorts of wonderful Japanese deliciousness. Between these three, Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy, I almost never have to go to a regular grocery store, and I definitely spend less. So today's giveaway question is: Where do you do most of your grocery shopping? Any hidden gems to share? 

I'm also really excited to show you this book (Quilts, Baby!), which arrived this week:

 

I think the official release date is May 5, but Amazon says it's shipping in 1-3 weeks. I have two patterns in here, but even if I didn't, I would still want to buy it, there's a whole lot of cuteness inside. Here are my patterns, a bubbles quilt, and one with little crosses:

 

 

And here are some of my favorites by other quilters:

 

I think I'm going to use this pattern for the bird baby quilt I'm making, and will use the bird print instead of solid yellow for the big rectangles. And holy moly is this one adorable:

 

I love this one so much, those little cats climbing the stairs just kill me:

Okay, thanks for looking at all those pictures of books. There might be one more giveaway tomorrow, I'm working on something and I'm not sure if it's going to pan out, fingers crossed!

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I think I have the blahs tonight, so this might be a really boring blog post, but apparently I'm not letting that stop me from jabbering away anyhow. I took some pictures of things I've been making, but they are all so boring and uninspiring. Here are the pickles I made, I'm not sure how we'll be able to wait another seven weeks (at the very least) for them to cure.

I have a stack of fabric for some fun Spring projects, and I'm too blah to work on any of it.

 

Left to right: a light, Spring-y top, grey linen for a skirt with rickrack around the bottom, and some birds for a quilt for a baby girl on the way. I have no idea what sort of quilt yet, once these blahs go away, I'm sure I'll think of something.

Maybe Winston can perk me up, what do you think?

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