Yay, Sarah's New House!

It looks like Sarah finally has a new house to renovate.  It's on at 2 p.m. today on HGTV.  I'm not sure why they refuse to promote this show.  It's their only show, besides Property Brothers, that's a winner.

Susan Branch's Luscious Peach Pie

I had my family over Sunday for dinner and baked this pie.  I always use Martha Stewart's pate brisee recipe for the crust, which is buttery and flaky.  (I use the recipe in her Pies and Tarts book, which adds a teaspoon of sugar as optional.)  It's so easy when you use a food processor.  Here's Susan's recipe:

(I think they left out the part about dotting the top of the peach mixture with the butter.)

Her cookbooks are fun and full of beautiful artwork and delicious recipes.  I especially like her Christmas cookbook and have tried many recipes.

As you can see I had trouble rolling out the crust.  To get a deeper color and more delicious crust, one of Martha's recipes suggests brushing on an egg/heavy cream mixture.  I do this on her raspberry-rhubarb pie, which is heavenly.  These pictures were taken in haste before this pie was devoured!

Sewing a Table Runner from Vintage Handkerchiefs

I've had beautiful handkerchiefs from my maternal grandmother for years.  I'd planned on sewing them onto pillows but found this project.  I haven't sewn since the eighth grade.  I'm just overwhelmed at the thought because I can never get the machine to work.  So with help from my mother the seamstress here it is:

 

Look, I staged it like Country Living!

The hardest part was getting the machine to stop jamming the bobbin (operator error).  Then it was hard to coordinate the hankie placement by color.  All in all, I'm extremely pleased that I've overcome my terror of sewing and found a use for the hankies.  Now on to pillow covers!

Garden Gone to Seed, the Movie

Have you ever felt like you've bitten off more than you could chew, garden-wise? My back garden looks like it's gone to seed, literally. Of course, this spring was a washout due to my injury.  I accidentally hit "movie" on my camera instead of taking pictures so here it is, my first video blog.  Ignore the part where I stumbled a little.  Oh, and that music is the ice cream truck on the next street over!

Hopefully you can tell that there is nothing but weeds between the plants, save for a groundcover of creeping thyme and plumbago.  On the right side I've started weeding and mulching.  What a difference!

Meanwhile, I have to continually deadhead the 15 roses, five hydrangeas and three butterfly bushes.  Plus I have beebalm, phlox, hostas, daylilies, oriental lilies, daises, and catmint that have finished blooming.  I also have close to 100 irises that get ratty at this time of year and need to be cut down.

I just couldn't accomplish as much as I had planned this weekend due to the severe heat and humidity, along with intermittent vicious thunderstorms.  Oh, and a tornado warning Friday afternoon.  I'm just grateful I didn't lose my power.

Here's a beautiful woodpecker eating the flowers of a mullein.

 

Here's the view from the deck (it's two stories up off the kitchen; I have a walkout basement.)

 

Yes, that's a ladder.  All ready for me to start my painting frenzy as soon as it's cool enough.  Hopefully I'll be able to paint into December, like last year (except during the Great Nor'easter).

This is where I ended.

 Are you keeping up with garden chores, or have you thrown in the towel?

This garden's grown!

Just some gratuitous garden shots.  I was just comparing this year's pictures to last year's.  Now I can't see the path in the middle.

I'm thrilled that these hydrangeas have stayed blue, not lavender like the ones out back.

 

 

This year I've had a spiderwort, goldenrod and white phlox show up.  Also the butterfly bush self-sowed next to the knockout rose.  I just love the unpredictable nature of gardening.

Update on Cottage Living

I got a tip from An Urban Cottage that  there have been special issues of Cottage Living each year.  So of course I had to check it out at my local Waldenbooks.  I bought an issue entitled "Fresh Ideas, Comfort, Simplicity, Style," "Reissue of a Cottage Living favorite."  I don't have all the issues so it's worth the list price of $11.99 to me.  It says "Display until 9/28/12" so don't delay!

Trendy . . . or not?

Have you seen this new trend of organizing books by spine color?  Well, I tried it the other night and got totally frustrated.  Now there are books all over the living room.

So, tell me.  Are you on board with this trend, or is it all washed up?

I Miss Cottage Living

Cottage Living magazine's first issue was September/October 2004.  It featured mostly casual, vintage-y types of smallish homes and gardens.  The last issue was November/December 2008, a victim of this horrendous depression.

Heather Chadduck worked for that magazine.  From what I gathered she was a single gal who DIY'd a rundown cottage in Texas.  Cottage Living spotted her place and did a photo shoot.  Here's some of it.

Then they hired her and she moved to Alabama and renovated a Mediterranean cottage, below.

I like her style because she mixes the old with the new.  I like the greens, blues and creams that she uses, and that the colors flow throughout the spaces.  She fixes up crummy-looking houses and breathes new life into them.  What could be better than that?

These images are from the photo shoots in Cottage Living.

The full article on her Texas cottage is here, plus an additional picture of the front of the house.

What's the Big Deal About Container Gardening?

I never really understood the hoopla over container gardening.  I thought it was for those city folk who have no land on which to garden.  But this year I went crazy for containers.  It's easy to fertilize them.  I use a three-month slow-release fertilizer, Osmocote, recommended by my local garden center.  I have hoses in the front and back yards so they're easy to water.  There are few weeds to fight.  I think I'm now sold on container gardening!  I might even grow vegetables in pots someday.  The one time I grew veggies I had to share my goodies with the woodchuck.

At a lecture presented at the local garden club, we learned how to design pots.  It consists of a

• thriller (big, splashy show-stopper)
• filler (something that spreads)
• spiller (plants that drape over the side) 

I really love trailing petunias and calibrachoa.  This year the woodchuck was kind and let them live.  I also found a beautiful lobelia (Snow Princess) that I hadn't tried before.  I was impressed by my gardening mentor's (my mother) angelonia so I got one.  I hadn't had success before but this year it's doing great.

I thought I'd do a blog on these before this killer heat and humidity gets the best of them.  This has been going strong since May.  It's Superbells Yellow Chiffon, Rhythm & Blues petunia (LOVE), Mannequin Bright Blue salvia, and Riviera Marine Blue lobelia.

This is my favorite:  Snow Princess lobelia, Superbells Plum, Lavender Skies Supertunia and Royal Velvet Supertunia (it's a gorgeous dark purple which my camera can't capture; probably an operator error).

I can't find some of these tags but I think they're basically an orangey calibrachoa, Nautica Deep Navy lobelia and a white lobelia.

This is the most recent:  Dreamsicle Superbells, Snow Princess lobelia, Hot Pink New Guinea impatiens and Patriot Classic Cherry lantana.  I stressed a little about the color combo.

As far as colors go, I pick those on opposite sides of the color wheel.  E.g., yellow and purple, or orange and blue.

Image from fashionbombdaily.com