The Month in Moments: September

September was packed with bountiful produce from my little veggie garden, friends’ fruit trees, and a pumpkin patch– I canned a plum jam, pickles, and apple butter and never took pictures! There was also a ton of crafting in preparation for my favorite holiday.

multicolored tomatoes — A beautiful bunch of tomatoes fresh from the vine.

orange paper lantern with jackolantern fcae — Drawing jack o’ lantern faces on paper lanterns for a custom set of string lights. (To be shared in a post sometime in October!)

dark storm clouds over downtown seattle — This photo is from Twitter, but I saw the storm blow in IRL! Seattle saw lots of stormy weather towards the end of September.

a pipe shaped like a coffin — One of my favorite images out of all the ones I shot for Cannastyle’s Halloween collection.

an array of dahlias, pincushions, and salvia — All summer I watched the flowers bloom in our yard and just couldn’t bring myself to cut any. This day I finally cut some! I think the colors are breathtaking.

purple and pink flowers in black vases — Here’s the flowers arranged in a couple bud vases, in our telephone nook.

a leather keychain with a twist design — A little leather keychain craft! This is actually a craft I made back in the Spring, but I made another one so I could photograph the steps. See the post here.

a pile of fresh picked cucumbers — I planted nine cucumber vines and boy, was that too many! Gorgeous cucumbers though. Hundreds! This is a mini english cucumber variety called picolino.

a cat getting scratched on the head — Luffy is always a happy girl when she’s spending time outside. It’s starting to get too cold for her to want to go out.

cauldron candles and clay ghosts on a tray — More crafts! I made these ghosts out of an air-dry natural clay. The candles I poured after making dipped beeswax birthday candles. They’re tunneling a but because the cauldron vessels are so big, but so far burning great!

pizza slices with figs and olives — A not-great photo of a fig and olive pizza. It was delicious! Figs, Castelvetrano olives, red onion, arugula, ricotta, and a balsamic glaze drizzle.

big dungeness crabs in a tank — Dungeness crab for sale at Snow Goose Produce near Skagit Valley.

sparkle lights lining tents — My friend Grace had an amazing birthday where we “camped” in her yard. Well, everyone else camped, I slept inside because camping is not my scene. It was great!

leaves and flowers on cyanotype paper — Making cyanotypes, also at Grace’s birthday.

smoking candles on a birthday cake — Grace’s birthday cake– cake made by our very talented friend Frankie, beeswax birthday candles made by me!

light pink bench cushion on a built in dining bench — I sewed this bench cushion for our dining nook after MUCH ado. Chris had to help me with the math. I’m very proud of these, they were hard (for me) to make.

wine colored crescent moon pillow with gold sparkles — A very cute and easier sewing project, a crescent moon pillow I made!

cafe curtain in a powder room — The last sewing project I did this month– a cute, long-coming cafe curtain for our powder room. The room still needs to be wallpapered, but at least now there’s some privacy! And cuteness.

Here is a set up for photographing steam that I paused to document. Before this, I’d never been able to successfully photograph steam, so this was a landmark for me! The image was for this post on freezer stock.

a yellow julia child rose — A very pretty scene in the yard with out Julia Child rose and our homemade solar fountain.

giant bumble bee — We saw this gigantic bumble bee at our door one evening. You can’t quite tell the scale, but he had to have been about an inch long!

cucumbers, tomatoes, and kale displayed on a tray — I took this tray around to the neighbors with vegetables from our garden. It was nice to share, and really they helped me out because we really grew a way too much for the two of us!

orange pumpkin mug next to a purple smoothie — I got these pumpkin mugs and I’ve been drinking out of them since August. Drinking out of a pumpkin is pretty fun, I have to say!

faux pumpkins lining a staircase — The faux pumpkins out from the basement!

a beautiful pumpkin display at a farm — The gorgeous Gordon Skagit Farms in Skagit Valley. This photo doesn’t even begin to do it justice, it’s a gorgeous place!

woman carrying a pumpkin in a field of pumpkins — I got five of the biggest pumpkins I could find from the field. My arms were sore the next day!

smiling woman with a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins — Me and my haul from the farm.

car trunk packed with pumpkins — All our gourds barely fit in the car! At least one had to go in the backseat.

empty vegetable garden raised beds — The vegetable garden all cleared out for the season. I’ve seeded the boxes with field oats and peas as a cover crop for the winter, and we’ll plant again in Spring!

september vegetable garden harvest: scallions, carrots, dill, kale — The very large final harvest from the garden! Not pictured: MORE cucumbers, tarragon, and parsley.

What I watched, read, and listened to in September:

Two Fat Ladies on YouTube

If you aren’t familiar with Two Fat Ladies, here’s the premise: two posh British cooks tour the country in a motorcycle and sidecar, cooking at various locales with local ingredients. The show is witty and adventurous, and best of all, the cooking is fabulous and educational. I grew up watching this show on the Food Network, and I’ve been loving watching it again on YouTube— even though the episodes can be a bit dodgy, to borrow a British term.

Midnight Diner on Netflix

Midnight Diner is a really interesting show because it manages to be a comforting drama. “Comforting” and “Drama” aren’t terms that are usually paired together. (But, come to think of it, those terms also describe my personal favorite comfort show, Downton Abbey.) Midnight Diner tells short human stories, often around Tokyo’s nightlife scene, with food at the center.

Entertaining by Martha Stewart

As a kid, Martha Stewart Living Magazine (may it rest) fascinated me. In fact, it continued to capture my imagination into adulthood, and I had a dream of contributing to the magazine myself (may that dream rest.) Anyway, because of this, I’ve been interested in Martha Stewart’s origins, so I ordered a used copy of her very first book, Entertaining from Powell’s Books. The book chronicles Martha’s start as a DIY entertainer. Her philosophy on using what you have and identifying what’s special around you has been the most inspiring part. One chapter recalls using a spiral staircase as a centerpiece of a party by displaying cocktails around the edge of the steps, and another discusses planning a party around the bloom time of a garden.

The Strange and Unusual Podcast on Podurama

I’ve been a fan of The Strange and Unusual Podcast for a few years now, and I’ve re-listened to many episodes two or three times. Allison Horrocks’s voice and pacing make this podcast a comforting listen, and it’s spooky subject matter makes it a discomforting one, in the best way. A great way to get into the Fall mood!

Songs of September:

My Favorite Product This Month:

(Not sponsored, I just really like it!)

I use these canvas tote bags when I buy groceries, and they’re just the best.
They haven’t been available on Amazon for quite a while (I’m sorry!), but I’ve had a set for five years and I’m just feeling extra amorous over them. I’m sure there’s similar available!

They hold a ton, they’re super sturdy, and I throw them in the laundry once a week so they’re always clean. They fold up tidy and I put them all inside my Hello Kitty Baggu bag (which is great for big or odd sized items.)

I fully appreciate how nerdy it is of me to gush about grocery bags, and I don’t care. I’ll wear my nerdery proudly for these.

Thanks for reading! See you next time for October.