learning to believe
Okay, so there’s some buyer’s remorse to the fore the last couple of days. I’m the one who announced on Friday that we needed to stop spending money, and then on Saturday bought a new machine.
A yummy…new…powerful….machine. I brought it home and about two hours later had this:
Pure de-clutter points for using up stash. And coverstitched to the hilt. I love it!
Meanwhile several people asked for updates on the upside-down tomatoes, so you’ll all have to suffer. The short answer is, the right-side-up plants are ahead so far. I’ve lost track of which are which, but we have two each Sugar Sweetie cherry tomato and San Marzano pole-type paste tomato. One of each upside-down, the other right-side-up.
The San Marzanos say 80 days on the seed packet and I probably should have started them about 3 weeks earlier. If we don’t have an early frost, we may be okay. What I believe to be the San Marzanos are both growing gung-ho, but I’d have to say the right-side-up plant looks better. The upside-down one is a close second, though. It’s bigger than it appears in this photo. They’re both looking strong and happy:
The Sweeties show more disparity. They’re 65 days and both are already showing a flower bracket, but the upside-down one lags behind in foliage. I don’t think I damaged it in transplanting, but I don’t know.
So far so good. What I love most is going outside and having all these green babies at nose level. I can talk to them all I want–and I do–and I can see what’s going on, and you can bet I’ll find those disgusting hornworms instanter. If they dare.
Actually I think we’re safe from them in October anyway. Check back for another update in a couple of weeks…
doing our bit
Overheard in our backyard today: “Would you shut up? It’s just an egg!”
I turned 47 last week. It was a very poultry birthday. There’s no limit to the amount of chicken stuff you can find out there in the world of things, and a lot of it ended up wrapped in pretty chicken paper. For me. Thanks, I love ya!
My real birthday present I went and fetched at Blue Moon today, a bunch of lampwork tools including a whole wrist-and-arm support, torch bracket, mille-marver setup. Glass shears, a masher, a fiber blanket. Even leather elbow rests. It’s going to be a whole different art form now that I can sit down at it. Now that it’s nearly cool enough outside to embrace the torch.
And then, I guess I lost my mind. I’ve been thinking about a coverstitch machine. More than thinking about it; in fact, I swore off spending any more time trying to get a good hem on a knit fabric until I had one. And…notice the subtle shift of verb tense there?
I really needed a coverstitch machine. Since I was in Austin anyway, I went to the only dealer I knew in town to see what they had. Accidentally I bought the Elna 434. It was on sale. It’s the same as the Janome 1000, I’m told. But it’s an Elna! So it’s cuter!
Ahem. I don’t think very many of my readers sew. Heck, I can count all my readers with the digits at hand, and most of them are looking for computer info. Suffice it to say, I’m spoiled. And I have a brand new coverstitch machine. And no chickens on it, at all.
I guess T. is getting that miter saw for his birthday after all. Parity or bust. Probably both, at this rate.
tomato experiment
A fresh new eyesore container garden in the backyard:
The frame, built by T., is lovely. My personal touch, the kitty litter buckets, not so much.
We’re experimenting with upside-down tomatoes. Since we’ve never tried any kind of tomato here during the fall season, we’ve got two upside-down and two right-side-up as controls. They’re extremely happy little plants just now. We’ve had fabulous weather for a week, almost like normal summertime up north.
We potted the upside-down ones first and hung them up; by the next morning the stems had redirected themselves upwards.
gravitropism in action
T. points out the roots may respond this way too, in reverse, packing a thin layer at the bottom of the bucket as they respond to geo- or gravitropism. The leaves themselves are also phototropic and by today have escaped the underneath-shade and are turning towards the sunlight.
We shall see. If we get any tomatoes at all, I expect the chickens will be leaping up there and pulling down stems.
We could have devised nice hanging hardware, but that would have involved buying more stuff. Minor declutter points for me, using the kitty litter buckets. Except maybe not, because I had only two buckets and had to get more via Freecycle. Then again, maybe I get even more credit for taking on somebody else’s junk. Except she gave me four, so I am back to two sitting in the garage…dang. The whole thing was a wash. But maybe I’ll get some tomatoes out of the deal.
reading my blog stats
Kitty eat-a-snake? best. search term. ever.
I wonder if it’s a po*n reference I just don’ t get. Sorry dude. Only the chickens are eating snakes around here.
decoupage the house (3) : EnviroTex Lite
I love Envirotex as a decoupage medium. It’s a two-part resin, self-leveling, which makes for a beautiful finish but also means it’s going to flow. A tray is ideal for a first Envirotex project, allowing you to get some experience with the pouring and setting up before you have to worry about drips and edges.
I get de-clutter points for this project too! All this stuff has been just sitting around
Paint the tray and apply your paper. I used acrylic paint and metallic glaze, and then a color copy of an old beer carton I had saved for sheer cuteness, applied with thinned Elmer’s glue. It needed a border, so I cut moose tracks from some variegated brown paper in the stash. (Never said I was brilliantly imaginative, did I?) I covered the decoupage surface with a layer of glue. When it was several hours dry, I added a layer of Minwax Polycrylic on top of the glue, and a couple of layers of Polycrylic for the painted surfaces.
with glue still wet
Whatever your sealer, let it dry thoroughly, overnight at least.
From here on out, your enemy is dust and its friends: bugs, pets, drafts, hair. Your own hair flipping around is a dust wand—tie it back or cover it if it’s longish. You’ll need a level surface for a flat project like a tray to cure, so find one where your cat won’t walk, and wipe it down as much as you can. Find something to protect your project from dust as it cures. Envirotex recommends a box, but I’ve been a lot more successful with something impervious that I can wash off first. A large mixing bowl is ideal. For this tray I didn’t have a bowl big enough, so I used a cookie sheet, which is not ideal. Better to enclose it all the way.
Read through the Envirotex directions. Estimate how much of your ingredients you’ll need. I had the 8 oz package which is good for about 2 sq feet, and my tray is 12 x 9 inches, so I used something less than half of the resin and hardener. It’s much better to have too much than too little.
Measuring is important; you need equal amounts of the Envirotex resin and hardener. Don’t guess or estimate on this. I pour from the resin and hardener bottles into narrower bottles that have volume measurements on them. Get as close as you can to truly equal amounts. I believe there’s a little room for error but if you’re particularly inaccurate, the resin will never harden and it’ll just be a big sticky mess.
Mixing is important. Do two minutes of vigorous stirring, and if you are mixing 4 ounces or more, pour from one container into another as recommended in the Envirotex directions. I use disposable plastic drink cups and a wood stick for stirring. There will be bubbles if you’ve mixed well—lots and lots of bubbles.
As soon as you’re done mixing, wipe the tray surface with a tack cloth, and then pour the Envirotex over. It’s plenty runny, and assuming you’ve mixed enough, it will flow without any help to fill the space available. I came up a little sparse on this tray so ended up smoothing the resin towards the sides with the stick, though I don’t know that I needed to. You can tilt the tray to help coat it, but you won’t have to if you’ve got a generous amount. It’s flowing for at least 45 minutes and will level on its own.
Give it about ten minutes to sit, and then work on the bubbles. This is kind of magic—they pop when exposed to carbon dioxide. You can just blow on them, but I prefer to use a straw to keep my face out of the fumes. Beware, though—the straw acts like a spit valve, so shake it out between breaths or you’ll end up with a big slobbery drip on your beautiful creation. (Ask me how I know!) Just blow gently through the straw over the bubbles and watch them pop. After you get them all, let it sit another five minutes and you’ll find some more. Tilt the tray to catch light reflecting on the surface to show you the last few. Keep working at it. You want to be all done with this step within about half an hour of pouring.
If you find a very stubborn bubble, or, heaven forbid, a bit of dust or hair marring your surface, you can fish it up and out with a straight pin. Don’t be afraid of disrupting the surface at this point; it’s still flowing and will repair itself, unless you’re really short on coverage or you’re trying to do this too late. Get it looking really good, and then let it sit five minutes more. You might find just a few more bubbles have formed. Get rid of them, and be done. Put the tray on your level surface, cover it with your dust cover, and walk away. Picking at it 90 minutes from now will mar the surface. There might be a few specks of dust settling on there while you’re not watching—but there will almost certainly be some if you keep uncovering the thing and messing with it.
Decide that it is good. Don’t disturb it again for eight hours. Then uncover it and love how it looks.
done, high gloss, no brush marks!
Edited to add: It’s dust-proof at this point, but the Envirotex instructions say to allow 72 hours for hard cure in room temperatures. Believe it. In the first 24 hours you can scratch the finish with your fingernail…but then the scratches disappear! Meaning it is still flowing enough to cure a tiny linear flaw…but not the kind of divot you make trying to remove dust or hair (or a BUG), from personal experience. Let it cure flat. After 72 hours, it’s pretty well ready for anything.
more on Envirotex here
happy chicken
Frieda, the Ameraucana, is happy and healthy again. I realize I forgot until this minute to mention she was sick, but your long anxious vigil is over…she’s looking okay. And wonder of wonders, she laid a small egg today for the first time in months. A green one. Perfectly normal for an easter-egg chicken such as herself.
As the spring warmed up she began to lay soft-shell eggs, then eggs without shells, and then she really looked and acted very ill. For about two weeks there I was expecting to find a dead chicken every morning–for several days I had to carry her from the water bowl in the people yard back to the chicken tractor in the late afternoons. Little by little she perked up and then I began to see her running down June beetles pretty well and figured she was recovering. And now an egg–we got four eggs from our four ladies today, and it’s been a while. They’ve officially adopted the under-bale nest for all their egg-laying needs. It’s a good spot for them; not so great for me as I have to stick my hand in there blind and feel around for eggs. But that’s fine as long as we don’t get snakes. Big snakes, that is. These ladies quite relish the small ones.
blog news
Hey, it’s been a year since I moved over here to WordPress territory. I forgot my own anniversary, distracted by the Republican party. Great pick for VP, eh? The very one most qualified person, out of the entire country of persons, that I want in the White House when the old guy kicks over. And then there was Gustav, who seemed more worth watching. Had to check with my best old Louisiana friend who assured me he was ready–fully prepared, at least, to eat all the ice cream in the freezer when the power went off.
In blog news, during the past couple of weeks I’m finally getting away from TouchCheck hits. Decoupage is taking over. Time to do that Envirotex demo I guess. Months ago I promised to have it up in a few days. Sorry.
To the person who found this blog by searching on “medical transcription pays crappy” : why yes, yes it does. Unless you’re lucky, like me.
To the reader who searched “solicitors magazines suck” : pretty much, yeah.
To the one who searched “decoupage lame” : I think you’ve broken my heart.
And I wish all you who search on decoupaging bowling balls would send me pictures when you get done! There’d be so many, I’d like to do a little project with them…a decoupage project, yes! Maybe a bowling ball! I’d better go search how to do it…
