Yesterday's lunch with The Old Boss was relaxed and fun. We made tentative plans for a day-trip to see a mutual friend.
I guess I should stop calling her the "The Old Boss," since I no longer have a current boss. :)
I stopped by the community garden on my way home, planning to just look at the peas and squash. But the peas needed picking, and there were a couple of small squash, so I went to work. Picked almost 10 pounds, altogether. Wonder what portion of that weight was pea HULLS?
All of the food that we grow in the community garden goes to the food bank. I doubt the volunteers will shell the peas before they give them away. I hope they don't. I'd like for the families to experience pea-shelling and eating freshly-shelled peas.
Old-timers sometimes made jelly with the pea hulls. My friend made some to see what it's like; she said it might be an acquired taste but was pretty in the jar., a beautiful shade of lavender :) She gave a taste to the person who had introduced her to pea-hull jelly; she said he closed his eyes, savored the bite, and said the jelly was taking him back to his grandmother's kitchen. She gave him the jar.
It's unlikely that the recipients of the community garden peas will be making jelly with the hulls. In the first place, nobody knows how to do it, and in the second place, these pea hulls are not very purple. A dull brick red is about all they can muster. They wouldn't make pretty jelly.
Cousin Roger called yesterday afternoon. I like Cousin Roger, so I answered. He said, "Hey. Whatchoo doin?" I said, "Nothin'. Whatchoo doin?" He said, "Nothin'." Then he said he bought some new elastic-waistband pants to wear to his class reunion this weekend and can't get them up past his butt. He wondered if I could do something with them, maybe put some more elastic in them, or something. I imagined myself trying to put on a pair of elastic-waist pants and being unable to get them past my butt, and considered what it would take to get them all the way up. I said, "Naw, Roger, I ain't that good."
In retrospect, I should've told him to bring them on over here and I'd see what I could do. I could've split those pants down the back and sewn in a big V-shaped piece of quilting fabric in bright colors. I swear, I'd do it today if I had more gumption, just to see what he'd say.
He'd probably wear them to the reunion if I did it with Tennessee orange-and-white-checkered fabric.
I don't plan on doing any sewing today. I *could*. There's a stack of lavender quilt blocks on my sewing machine table, ready to have the hexagon flowers appliqued to the background fabric. But I ain't feeling it. The problem is that these 24 quilt blocks are only half of the blocks required to make the whole quilt, and I have not firmly decided the design of the other half. My original plan for the remaining 24 blocks was not very imaginative; the sample block didn't "pop" with the hexagon flower blocks. So I may do something different. But that's a job for when cold weather drives me indoors.
Last week, I re-did the portrait of Granddaughter #2, but in chalk pencil instead of wax pencils. It is sooooo much easier to blend the skin tones with chalk. I have not done the background, and may not do one, since the paper is a light, muted green color. A couple of days ago, I started Granddaughter #3's portrait in chalk. It still needs a little work. Granddaughter #1 is up next. She will be easy (I think). I'm saving #4's portrait for last, since her mass of curly brown hair will be the biggest challenge of the four.
