Quilting Great and Small.. and A Bunny

FH and I finally have a weekend at home where we don't have to do lots of yard work. It's a welcome change of pace. This past week I've kept myself pretty busy, so a nice break to spend time together is just what we needed.

On the quilting front, I finished another top. This time it's the one for FH.

As you can see, Artie has remained helpful and attentive to this project.

In the realm of smaller things, I now have 604 miniature bolts of fabric for The Patchwork Peach quilt shop.

 And the bunny! We took Victor outside to see if he'd like to nibble some fresh mint. He was too overwhelmed to want to nibble, though. Maybe next time.

And a bonus picture of my new foxgloves beginning to bloom!

That's all for this week. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday weekend!

Things and Stuff

I really couldn't think of a better title. My brain's been fried from working outside a lot this week. ;-)

FH's seedlings for the vegetable garden needing repotting, so I took care of that for him.

Any excuse to work with plants as opposed to doing heavy landscaping. Although there's been some of that going on too. The 'Bed from Hell' now has a cute little pathway through the front. It leads through the lilies I transplanted from the center to the area that will become a vegetable garden.

Today I finished removing all the decorative plants from the center section of that bed so FH and I can get it tilled. What follows are before and after shots of where I put the remaining lilies from that bed. This is one of the beds that sits on the garage-end of the house. There's one on either side of that neglected walkway.

I had to dig out some stumps and saplings, not to mention rake out all the leaves and get rid of the grass that encroached. The far section of this bed still needs some TLC. I'm hoping to get to it in the next week.

I was able to repurpose the edging from the bed across the walkway to keep the dirt where it belongs. That other bed it going to be removed and paved over with brick anyway. We'll be housing the yard waste cans there instead of in the garage when that project is finished.

We also have some tenants living above one of the carriage lamps on the garage! FH accidentally frightened the mother when he turned walking to the garage, but he saw little faces pop up after she flew away.

We actually saw the mother last night when we came home from the neighbors' house, but we didn't know her eggs had hatched.

Lastly I'm working on a small quilting project. There are more photos, but I think it is going to warrant it's own post. I will leave you with a teaser though!

Until next time!

Gardening and Khokhloma

We (FH and I) spent various bits of the last week working on gardening projects. I'll just give you the highlights here.

Transplanted hostas from thinning out plants in the same bed, but opposite end.

Planted lily of the valley along part of the front of the house. More will be planted on the other side of the window well in the coming week...weather permitting.

 The far end of the 'Bed from Hell' is now mostly under control and I planted some clematis. I will likely plant more bulbs in there this fall.

There's plenty more to do... more mulching, more transplanting/moving/removal. Hopefully we'll get the giant bed under good control this year.

As to the Khokhloma, I've been working on a traditional-inspired Russian folk design to paint on the sides of the Red Room. There are still some elements in pencil as I'm still pondering them. Then I need to design one for the top of the roombox as well.

[And because this has become an issue for some people, a gentle reminder that this design is copyright me. Please do not use without written consent. Thank you muchly.]

That's all for this week. Time to get back to work!

Cloth and Sandwiches

FH and I spent parts of this weekend trying to clear some of the natural detritus from the yard. After I tore up my shoulder and back, I obviously couldn't do yard work and he was too busy trying to keep up with the indoor chores and working full time. So now we're playing catch-up. One thing we wanted to do last fall was lay down landscape fabric in the beds that didn't have much growing in them to cut down on the weeds. We finally got to start that job today!

The lowest bed is waiting to see where the hostas are going to pop up. Then we'll work around them while they're small. There's a whole other set of tiered beds like this that needs work on the other side of the deck. Not to mention the giant bed of lilies that turns into a jungle come mid-summer. But it's a start!

Remember that air dry clay that wasn't Model Magic? I tried playing with it last night to see how well I could sculpt with it.

It's difficult to see, but there is a crack that goes clear around the tree trunk about halfway up. Methinks this clay's not meant for finer detail.

And then quilt sandwiches. I now have many sandwiches ready to be quilted: 2 large lap/full-sized quilts. 2 baby quilts, diaper bag panels, and 2 runners.

I actually missed the picture of one of the larger quilt sandwiches, but you get the idea, I'm sure.

That's it for this week. Hopefully I'll get finished with some minis in the coming week. I'll probably be inside working on them tomorrow since it's supposed to rain/snow/sleet tomorrow. Ugh. I think Mother Nature must be going through menopause or something. Anyways, ttfn!

Where Mom Has Got To

Tempie here!  Don't mind me... I love this ottoman thingie.  Anyways Mom's playin' catch-up from while I was sick.  She got behind on all sorts of inside chores and now it's nice enough for her to work outside too.

I'm supposed to say the Panda Nursery thingie will get the missin' mural sometime next week... she thinks.

Oh and Castor got hurt the other night when Mom and Dad were givin' him his fluids.  Mom forgot to warm them first and he fought a lot.  He ended up getting stabbed in the muscles at his shoulders.  It freaked Mom out but he's fine now.

I'm not supposed to mention this next bit but I'm really bad about keepin' secrets.  Mom's gonna do another giveaway to promote "Make Mine Chocolate" like she did last year.  I think she'll have things ready next week.  But don't tell her I told you!

Flowers and Frogging

As to the "frogging" bit, I'm pulling out every stitch of white thread from the flowerpot portion of the current cross stitch. It's nearly impossible to see in a picture, but somehow the kit included two tones of white floss. I went out and purchased a skein of white floss and it's ye a different tone. How in the world that happened I don't know... But I figure if I pull the whites out of the flowerpot and replace it with white from the purchased skein it will look a lot better in person. The white on the kitten can just be a bit different from the white on the flowerpot.

Wordless Natural Wonders

A Blessing and Tulips

It still needs to be washed, blocked, and framed... but here's the latest finished stitching.I found the kit on clearance at Hobby Lobby on the 18th of March and have been stitching whenever I went to a Guild meeting. Why on Earth I bought a kit that has 41 French knots in the stitching (when I loathe them!) I will never know. But I needed something that wasn't all shades of one color or another to work on and this fit the bill. I just love the sheep! Wishing I had made one of them black with a gray face though.

Some of the tulips are opening in the gardens. These are a few that I could photograph from the deck.


That's all for now. I am going to be starting a new cross stitch in the vain hope I can finish it in time for the show next month.

More Floral Surprises

More and more lovelies are popping up around the gardens.
I wonder what else is lurking beneath the soil...