Works in progress

Besides peach-preserving, I have a few other things on my plate. For one, I have the intention of attempting to potty-train Bear before his 2nd birthday, which is looming very near! Hunny has some exciting work possibilities that are cropping up, more on those when we learn something a little more definite.
In the meantime, I am continuing to pursue domestic crafts, such as Helen's baby sweater, even though I am going much slower than I'd like due to a HUGE mistake in the lace pattern that I've had to frog and re-do. I HATE frogging!!!
I also went to an estate sale this weekend just to browse around, and I found some quilt fronts that have been pieced but not batted or quilted, so I thought I'd finally apply what Meg taught me and see if I can quilt these, that I did not painstakingly piece only to ruin if I mess up (is that terrible?). One is very simple and pretty, with a green and pink checkerboard flower pattern. It's not very big, so perhaps it can be a baby blanket?

The second one is kind of dizzying as it's a hodge-podge of shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns! But I like it precisely for its unpredictability and haphazardness. I'm sure it's a scrap quilt front, which makes me wonder at all the other blankets that must have been made over the years. (Which makes me think of how sad estate sales are... I felt mildly awkward rifling through this person's house with little stickers on everything denoting its presumed worth, yet the children must want or need this stuff gone or else there wouldn't have been a sale, right? Does anyone else think like this?) Anyway, here is the Krazy Quilt

I will show pictures of Helen's sweater when I get past the blasted lace part!
As for gardening, I'm delighted to say that I have one tomato almost ready to be picked. It's been red since the weekend; I'm just waiting for it to soften just a tad as we will eat it as soon as it's off the vine! I think Hunny is fantasizing over that tomato sandwich! My cherry tomatoes have not fared so well as I was trying to fix the stake and knocked two little bitty tomatoes off, then today I was showing Bear how exciting plants are, and he reached out and grabbed one of the only other tomatoes off! Pele ate it, so we only have one small tomato left! And my 3rd tomato plant has millions of flowers (which it has for a while), so I have no idea if it will produce fruit or not! My bell pepper also has one pepper still in the dark green, smallish stage, and I'm waiting for my chili peppers-I want salsa!!
Oh, and I almost forgot-I submitted a cake recipe to a Paula Deen Recipe Roundup cooking contest! I have no idea what kinds of things they are looking for in a recipe, but I'm pretty excited about the one I submitted. Funny thing is, I've never technically made this cake! I combined 4 components from 4 different (but favorite) cakes that I love, and added a few embellishments of my own. I called it a Sour Cream Marmalade Cake with Almond Cream Cheese Frosting (that's a mouthful, huh?). I can't post the recipe here as I signed an agreement that it's never been published before and I want to keep it that way; however, if you think you might like the cake, I'd be happy to email it to you if you leave me a comment! I am making the cake this weekend for a welcome-home party for a friend who's been overseas for a while, so I'll take pictures of it then and let you know how the flavor actually turned out!!