Consistency!
Hello Everyone!
Three months have passed but after reviewing August's post, the conclusion is activity here at Planet Nice Crafts has been incredibly consistent. The precious free time has been dominated by garden activities. The garden will be the focus today along with bird and sewing updates.
Here is the 2021 harvest report:
- Watermelons: five (3 medium, 2 small) were ready late August through mid-September and they were fantastic. This was the first time growing and the plants were low maintenance because of more resistance to cucumber beetle havoc.
- Cucumbers: better than 2020, but could have used more! I lost the plants late August due to the beetles.
- Tomatoes, peppers, ground cherries, and tomatillos: very good. All did well until the bugs and cooler temperatures got them in late October.
- Beans: disappointing, affected by aphids and both crops (Spring and late Summer planted) died too early.
- Pumpkins: three (1 medium and 2 small) harvested on Halloween.
- Kale: too much and still going.
The bugs just took over everything in August and September and there is really nothing you can do. I have tried planting later in the season but have never been successful. All in all a good year harvest wise with plenty to cook with and made as many food pantry donations as I could process. I already have garden and insect defense plans for next year. As of today, the ground remains unfrozen and if I get out, there is plenty to do in preparation. Gardening is a lot of work, but I will miss the fresh produce in a few weeks.
What have I been doing with all this healthy goodness?
- Watermelons: eaten raw of course.
- Cucumbers: sliced or refrigerator pickled.
- Tomatoes: sliced or roasted following a Rachael Ray recipe.
- Peppers: sliced with caution or dried for a paprika like concoction. Chemical burns did occur! Next year, planning a different strategy to air dry only, seeds and all, focusing on one variety. Other peppers will go to food pantry.
- Ground cherries: canned for salsa and jam with vanilla, my first time ever water bath canning. Also, pie.
- Tomatillos: all went to food pantry as I like to grow but not to eat.
- Beans: lightly sautéed.
- Pumpkins: nothing yet.
- Kale: sautéed, a pie is in the works with sausage and cheese (!), and given to anyone who takes it.
- Poppy seeds: still in the refrigerator, waiting.
In bird news, I did not see the sandhill crane family for much of August and then not at all in September and October until October 20. The colt was more grown and the whole family had the beautiful newly molted gray feathers. No pictures as I did not have my camera. Some good migratory activity was caught at the birdbath including a hermit thrush, a blackpoll warbler, and a couple rambunctious Tennessee warblers.
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| Hermit Thrush |
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| Blackpoll Warbler - identified by the yellow feet! |
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| Tennessee Warblers |
I did have a few hours together in the Labor Day time period to try the Martha Stewart tutorial "How to Sew Pockets Into Any Garment: Pants, Skirt, or a Dress" by Ashley Poskin. The tutorial is beautifully photographed and decipherable so I am going to share my project's specific details only. The subject garment was a previously and hastily sewn by me pair of linen pants that have had troublesome fit leading to only being worn a handful of times. With the slow fashion movement and the emotional investment already in them, I was interested in fixing them so they could be useful. I read about the slow fashion movement most recently when I borrowed Make Thrift Mend by Katrina Rodabaugh from the library. However, I have yet to find a good book source on alterations. Books like this one are most useful to me to flip through for ideas. The actual step by step how to are best found after some Google searches from the most reputable sources you can find.
For these pants, I made a plan to try a few things: adding pockets, increasing the waistband width to allow thicker elastic, and decreasing the pant leg bulk. I did attempt some before and after selfie photos of me wearing the pants, but I couldn't tell the difference to be honest. These pants are lined too and I thought about removing the lining entirely, but I discovered with some research that pant linings help the pants hang better, so I kept it.
The first step was deconstructing the pants: separating the lining from the linen at the waistband and to take out the hems. Next, I compared the subject pants to another pair of linen pants that fit me very well.
This gave me an idea of how much and where to remove the pant leg width. I made the new seam markings, sewed the new seams, trimmed the excess, and finished the seam edges with a zigzag to prevent unravelling. Each step was done twice with the linen and lining.
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| Difficult to photograph, those blue dots represent the new seam. |
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| One side zigzagged for finish. |
Then, I followed the tutorial for the pockets on the linen. The outside finish is tidy for an alteration. And yes, I used a different fabric for the pockets, no problem.
Next was the waistband which required a couple tries due to not correctly aligning both sets of pant legs (linings can be confusing!).
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| Waistband Preparation |
The sewing it back together on the inside resulted in a few puckers on the outside, but that didn't bother me. Last was the hems. To save time, I used a blind stitch on the machine instead of sewing by hand. It requires a bit of folding and mental gymnastics, but I think the final result is very NICE.
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| The Blind Stitch Result |
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