Plain and Simple Stitching

With the beginning of the new school year members of our church gather school supplies and prepare school kits that are distributed worldwide by the Mennonite Central Committee to children who might not have the means to purchase these supplies.  They are packed in washable cloth drawstring bags so that the children have a way to keep their school supplies in one place and easily carry them back and forth to school each day.

Yesterday at quilt ministry we cut up a pair of donated tab curtains into ten long rectangles.  The curtains were made of a denim-type fabric, more suited to this purpose than to quilt making.  After cutting and then folding/pressing the edges for the first stitching, the other ladies were working on binding their current projects so I brought the bags home to finish assembling.   Here are the first five, completed last night, minus their drawstring ties.  Another member is bringing her supply of macrame cord and we will string the bags at our next meeting.

Plain and Simple!

The kitchen has been a whirlwind of activity so far this week with the tomatoes ripening at a faster pace than I can keep up. After giving away the first large batch to one daughter who just moved and had no garden this summer, we began canning some for our winter pantry. So far 14 pints of plain stewed tomatoes and 7 1/2 jars of the most wonderful tomato jam. Here's what awaits when I return from my haircut later this morning - today's haul is destined for salsa and we'll try another batch of tomato jam using some of the Lemon Boys.  Thankfully our forecast is for cooler days soon, and I'll be thankful for a cool breeze blowing through the kitchen while we're working on these and the rest of the crop.

The sunflowers are heavy with seeds, some have begun to fall over from the weight, and a small flock of goldfinches have returned to snack on the seeds.  Our sugar pumpkin crop was almost totally decimated by some type of grub, we were only able to salvage three pumpkins from that planting. We also planted a couple varieties of field pumpkins in another field, and after discovering the grub damage in the sugar pumpkin patch also discovered some damage to the others.  All the winter squash are growing alongside the field pumpkins and we feared for that crop, but decided to try setting pieces of aluminum foil under each ripening pumpkin and squash that hadn't already been damaged. Sounds strange I know, but so far it seems to be working as we haven't detected any further grub damage yet.