OK – I am now mildly obsessed with the Martha ads. I find myself thumbing through new issues of MSL to see where's she's been photoshopped next. In the most recent issue I think she may actually be sitting on the tub, holding that child…

So, she and the boy are fine. The tub is fine. But the bubbles… they aren't real. What are they? Gotta be some kind of plastic, don't you think?

The more I look the more I see the highlights on the bubbles. They're sort of off. Could that be one bubble, photoshopped all over the place? The highlights start to look like little eyes. Really, they need me to help them with these ads.

But in the magazine there is a lot of good stuff. I found a variety of recipes that Steve is also interested in. Good thing since he's the chef at our house. I find the recipes, he either adopts them or not. 

There is also this idea – use silver spray paint to update your stuff. Specifically your basket-y stuff.

I like this idea a lot! I have a few nice but boring baskets that are going to be silver very soon. 

In other news, we spent much of the weekend thinning our stuff. It's a scary thing that I can pull a few boxes of knick knacks off of the shelves in the house and the shelves still look just fine. Better even. We cleaned out the attic – not much left up there now. The garage needs a bit of thinning and we're hoping to get to it in the next week.

Chris and Lorna are taking all of this stuff we have thinned and are going to garage sale it. I actually enjoy seeing my former treasures become someone else's find of the day but I just don't have the time to do the work on a garage sale now. I'm happy that Chris and Lorna are up for the job. 

I should be sending a newsletter this week. We get the first copies of the new book and they have been shipped. Place your order now and your copy of our newest book, Applique With Attitude, ought to ship late next week. Click here for details. You might want to click around and look at the notions page and the perle cotton pages… I've added a few new things.

Do you watch TED videos? I wish I had time to see more of them because I always learn a new thing. This week Joe Smith's video changed my life. Well, that's extreme. He's changed the way I will dry my hands from now on. The video is short and worth a watch.

Let's all say it together… "shake, fold."

UPDATE: I got an email from Carolyn who says that these dyes have a shelf life of 3 years. They are way older than that. So the post below is nugatory. (If you don't use the word 'nugatory' you should. It's a great word!)

My guess is that I need to make the dyes go away because they are surely too toxic to put in the trash. Any ideas?

Way back when, I dyed my own fabric. I liked doing it then but I have moved on fabric-wise. Now I buy hand-dyed fabric :-). However, I still have a box of Procion dyes that I've held onto thinking that I might dye again. Now I need the shelf space so the dyes need a good home. I was going to put them in Lorna and Chris's upcoming garage sale but then I thought that one of you might rather have them. Here they are:

Many of these dyes came from Brooks & Flynn – a great source for dyes back in the day. There are a bunch of colors. Most jars are about half-full, give or take. There is a half-gallon of pure TSP. Everything is still powdery – they have not gotten wet and as far as I know these dyes do not lose strength with time.

Is anyone interested in the lot for $25? I think that's a reasonable price. If not, let me know. Shipping will be extra and I'm guessing that will run an additional $15-$20 inside the US. It would be more for overseas shipping. It's going to take a good-sized box.

If you are interested, email me at becky@pieceocake.com. 

I’ve been on the road teaching at the Virginia Quilt Consortium Celebration 2012. It is a weekend retreat held at the Smith Mountain Lake 4-H Center. Lovely ladies in a very nice facility! 

I was too busy to take many photos but I remembered to take this photo of Peggy with her special applique/lap pillow:

She said that she and her stitch group made these from 5 1/2″ squares. Maybe you can figure it out from this photo or, better yet, if you know of the pattern add it to the comments section. It’s a nice size, it’s cute, and it stays in place.

UPDATE: Claire at Matching Pegs has a tutorial for for her Star Fruit cushion here. It’s very good and I appreciate her sharing it with both me and you.

A new friend and fellow teacher, Lyric Kinard, took the photo below of me with my students at show & tell. Hand applique classes are always good for a chuckle at show and tell because there isn’t enough time in a day to sew much to a block. It may not look like it but my students learned a lot!

You saw Mom’s birthday cake from before I left home. Here’s Mom blowing out the candles last week. Jack was very interested.

FYI – Mom’s arm is healing well and she and Taz are going to sign up for dog obedience school. Mom is going to learn how to take charge and hopefully the little snert will learn some manners. (Taz being the snert, not Mom!)

I realized I still had some photos on my camera from the week before when I was in San Francisco. I have never seen hen and chicks this size before! Are they still called hen and chicks when they are 12″ across?

And these looked like they had the nose of an elephant!

I think that’s all I’ve got for today.

Last but not least, the extension agent who saw my plants is stumped. And it’s worse out there, not better. I am really afraid that I’m going to lose most of my yard full of plants. I have to call in to a landscaper recommended by the nursery I go to. I hate to spray it and find out I treated the wrong thing. It’s always something, isn’t it?

I'm making progress! Or at least I was before I left home for Virginia. Did you know that I can write posts and schedule them for later posting? It's a handy feature if I have time to work write ahead, which I usually don't. Anyway… I posted the beginning of this quilt on 4/17. Now it looks like this on the wall:

I've broken my own rule and have started stitching because I'm both out of stitching and on deadline. The house, sky, ground and fence are working. The tree trunks are way too dark. I'm glad I took the photo because it's even more obvious here than on the wall.

The bits off to the right are the windows and doors that I'll be reverse appliqueing and then sewing to the block. The off-white/brown print at the bottom may be the dress on the figure of my grandmother. There are still quite a few pieces to cut but I'm happy with the way it's going!

UPDATE: After several comments and advice I consulted the county extension agent. He said it was herbicide damage. I didn't think it was but later Steve looked more closely at our yard and our neighbor's yard and he said the same thing. No bugs, no disease – Ms. Neighbor's pre-emergent. The plants are not happy, but I think most of them are going to make it. I'm going to have to replant the zinnia seeds though…

My yard has lots of salvias. All sorts of varieties. From a distance they are looking good…

…but if you get close you can see that something is bad wrong. Click on the photos and they should open at a larger size.

The Russian sages aren't blooming yet, but the leaves that were green are curling up and dying.

Do any of you have a thoughts about what's doing this? I haven't seen any insects. If they are there, they are tiny. I have so many salvias that even if I need to spray them I doubt that I could get to all the leaves. 

I hope that this is something that will go away on its own. If the plants die to the ground but then grow back that would be OK. If this is something that is going to stick around in or on the soil I'm not sure what I'll do. We try to be organic and I'd hate to have to spray a bunch of poison on the yard.