Throw Pillows & Tissue Toppers – internet issues

I recycled our old throw pillows by making some new cases and transferring the old freshly washed & dried stuffing into them. I wanted a different print other than plaid or floral patterns. These critter prints are 100% cotton and are definitely different. I like the way they turned out. My husband really likes them too.

I made a couple of plastic canvas tissue box covers. The blue one is a simple pattern I designed and made.
The pink/cream one is basically made by an old pattern book I’ve had for several decades. The original pattern fits boxes a bit too tight. I made the canvas a bit wider and had to rework the design a bit. I redesigned the top to more my liking. I shortened the bottom by one row (by accident).

I’m still working on my needlepoint and my crochet temperature blanket. I’m also working on a diamond dot painting. I’ll post more on these later.

I enjoy having several projects going at once. I especially enjoy when I get some of them finished. 😀

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Happy Crafting!

The reason that I haven’t been blogging much, is we’re experiencing a lot of internet issues. Our provider is in the process of upgrading their system. It will be a long while before it runs smoothly. :/
So bare with me, I’ll be visiting and blogging when I’m able too.


Rosemary won’t bug me anymore

rosemary1My husband and I have been busy shopping for garden plants. We decided to keep it fairly simple this year. A few tomato plants and too many marigolds, too many petunias and some hostas.

We saw a lot of potted herbs. My husband’s suggested I buy some basil since I grow it every year in pots on our back porch. It has a nice aroma when the wind blows or I trim it to cook with it.
I told him no, that I prefer to grow my own since I already bought 3 different varieties of basil seeds: sweet, cinnamon and lemon. I’ve never heard of lemon or cinnamon basil until this year. I’m looking forward to tasting them.

We saw pots of rosemary at a few different places setting outside in the open air. My husband asked me if I knew anything about rosemary? I told him that I’d heard of rosemary chicken recipes but that’s the extent of my knowledge. He said that we should buy some rosemary and try it.

rosemary2I agreed, but I chose to buy a potted rosemary plant in the produce department of our local grocery store so I wouldn’t have to worry about hidden bugs that might get loose in my kitchen. The directions on it’s packaging said to set the potted rosemary in a sunny window. My kitchen doesn’t have a very sunny window, so I decided to it needs to spend days on the back porch. The pot it was in was quite small so I re-potted it in a little blue pot that my son gave me many years ago.

rosemary3I wanted to set the rosemary outside, but once again I ran into the same bug phobia issue as the nursery open air potted ones. Unlike basil which has large leaves that you can see bugs, Rosemary has small tines brush type leaves/stems and it’d be easy for bugs to hide in it. I decided to make a cover for the rosemary out of netting. I took some netting and folded it in half and hand-stitched the sides together making it into a bag. I carefully slipped in over the plant and pot. Now It can sit in on the porch to get sun and be protected from most bugs.

I’m going to wait until the rosemary grows some before I use it. I’ve ran a search to see what rosemary taste like, Most sites say it taste like pine. It doesn’t sound appetizing, but it might be quite good. After we try it, if we don’t like it, I won’t cook with it anymore. I’ll plant it outside by-the-gate and let it grow.

Have you ever tried the herb rosemary?
Do you have a favorite recipe using the herb rosemary?

Here’s wishing you all a lovely week!
gardening

edited in:
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 I added 4 shish-kabob sticks to my rosemary pot because it needs a bit of protection from the netting rubbing up against it when the wind blows.
🙂
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