Tomato Woes

All my friends back east have been posting pictures of their beautiful, voluptuous, vine ripened tomatoes.  I'm not going to lie, I've been jealously coveting every photo they post on Facebook.  Here in Colorado our bumper crop never seems to come in until September, and it will still be going strong right up until our first random snow fall which come any time between next week and mid October.  Let's hope for the latter!

See these... I'm just waiting (not so patiently) for them to finish ripening.  They belong in a tomato sauce, or better yet with some mozzarella, basil, and balsamic... but not for a few more days.

And then there is this little problem (I'm referring to the monstrosity below).  Blossom-end rot.  Sounds like a vegetable STD, doesn't it?  Well, it managed to get quite a bit of our roma tomatoes.  It's apparently due to a calcium deficiency in our soil, which may explain why it's only affecting the plants in one bed and not the others.  Unfortunately it will not be a quick fix.  I'm hoping things turn around before the weather does, and that we end up with enough to can at least one batch of sauce.

On another note, of the sewing variety, this week I finished up one pillow slip cover.  I still need to sew the binding on the back, but I'm saving all the hand sewing for the camp-out we're going to next weekend.  I was hoping to get the other three done in time but I'm not so sure that I'm going to reach that goal- it's been too hot to stay my sewing room long enough to finish anything.

Our couch came with four pillows that are really not our style, and I have been meaning to cover them the past 3 years.  Time got away from me- don't judge.  I decided to do all the pillows in random, mismatchy styles and colors.  I think it will be fun. The common 'thread' to all of them is going to be the use of the wood grain print from Joel Dewberry's Aviary fabric collection. To the left is my plus pillow, and toward the bottom is my work in progress (WIP). 

I wanted to make one of the pillows on the more masculine side for Z (that's what we'll call my husband). For the deer I simply found a silhouette online that I liked and printed it.  Next I traced it onto adhesive applique paper, ironed it to the desired fabric, and then cut it out again.  After pressing the final cut out onto the fabric, I edge stitched around the whole thing.  For the rest of the block I am simply piecing it as I go.  Next time I will take pictures as I go... I'm new to this whole blogging thing and totally forgot!