Busy busy busy, but not a bunch to show on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello ...well I knew last week was going to be a busy one ... lots of social times... several lunches and a birthday party... along with babysitting... which I also knew that meant there wouldn't be a lot of time to do crafty stuff... and there wasn't... however the upcoming week looks promising for crafty time... fingers crossed.

Monday was the solar eclipse day... Nick and I opted to just stay put and see what we saw from our front porch... we didn't get 100% totality but it was pretty close... it didn't go totally dark but it was definitely "dusky" and the temperature dropped... it was exciting to see. My older son took his family a bit north of here and they did get to see the totality and the corona... Elliott was suitably impressed... they spent several hours waiting for the event in a lovely park which had anticipated lots of visitors and had set up an inflatable obstacle course for the kids to play on and there was free water and cupcakes ... they had a great time and avoided most of the traffic by keeping to the back roads which my son is very familiar with. By about 11am here the expressways going west were already bumper to bumper and the eclipse didn't start till after 2 pm... glad I didn't go  anywhere...

Tuesday I had a lovely time ...lunch with friends and a trip to Delinda the long arm quilter... I picked up this quilt... 

I'm calling it Kaffe's  Spools but the pattern is actually titled Banana Split from the book The Cake Mix Quilt book by Sew Emma... I love the grunge background..it  is the color way Pear... and the panto is called Whirling Swirls... 

 and get a load of this back fabric... it was a 108" wide and has a very sateen quality.

Wednesday was spent with Elliott... we went to  McDonalds and then spent the afternoon watching Number Block videos... it's his current fav and was the theme for his birthday parties... there were 3... one a school , one with family, and one with some neighborhood friends... he is a very lucky boy... 

Thursday I thought I had nothing on my agenda but then my neighbor Sylvia asked if she and her daughter Cecelia could come up and would I help them with a table runner project  that is going to be a retirement gift for one of Cecelia's co- workers... and this is what we collaborated on...

yes I see that there is a HST turned the wrong way on the right side... I'll fix that before added some sashing in the middle and down the sides.

Friday I went to lunch with my quilty lady friends and then they came back to my house so we could talk and eat pie... Stephie brought a Key Lime pie... it was delicious!  Then the evening was spent celebrating Elliott's 5th birthday... 

I've started a tradition of wrapping his birthday and Christmas presents in a themed pillow case ... this year I chose Star Wars as I've found several cool Star War Lego sets...this is a quick way to wrap multiple gifts and he likes pulling things out of the "magic" pillowcase as he call it...

and this pillow case has some history too it...

now the Star Wars fabric came from Hobby Lobby last week but that red cuff with the shooting stars... that is about 35 years old... a VIP Cranston print ... and I used it in the first quilt I made for Elliott's daddy... I still have the quilt... it was a train and the pattern came from Quilter's Newsletter... do you remember that magazine?  At the time it was the premier quilting publication and I anxiously awaited ever monthly issue... sigh... I miss good magazines... I don't have any subscriptions anymore... I occasionally pick up a magazine at the grocery  but lots of times I flip through them and put them back on the rack... 

So that brings me to Saturday and I'm writing this as I sit out on my sunroom porch... the weather this week was primarily gray and dreary... except for the eclipse day which was 70 and sunny... thanks for the little gift Mother Nature... today it appears we may have turned the corner on weather... sunny, very breezy but upper 60's and a forecast for 70's for the rest of the week... along with some crafty time I will be scoping out the garden centers... I can't wait to plant up my window boxes and some big pots... I will restrain myself from putting stuff in the ground as I'm not safe from frost till mid May... 

As you can tell there wasn't a lot of crafty endeavors... I did stitch a pear from the Annie Beez pattern Spring Green Pears... 

now the kinda bumpy lump is a test run of how to assemble this... there should be a stem and some leaves which I didn't bother with at the moment.  The instructions on the pattern left me scratching my head but I was able to find these great instructions on the blog Jo's Country Junction... you can find them here.  I was hoping to display the fabric pear but I'm not sure now...  I'm thinking part of the problem is that fabric is too busy for this ... hard to see the outline of the pear... but I do get how to put it together...

And I couldn't resist starting  the Teresa Kogut Patreon piece Faith, Hope, Peace and Love...

This isn't a great capture of the color of the linen... the green is pretty vibrant...not washed out... very close to DMC 470... if I get this square done  before next Sunday take a pic in daylight and  I'll post a pic to IG... 

Anyway, I'm very happy with my additions of floss... love the peachy pink and I think the called for blues pop nicely against the olive green linen... it is hard to see but in real life there are splotches of tan which go well with all the tan/beige flosses.  And can I say that I really really really LOVE stitching on 32 ct... the pear was one ply of silk on 36ct... it does give nice coverage but I have trouble seeing the holes even with strong magnification and I didn't enjoy the process... 32 ct is my sweet spot... and I'm gonna stay with it. 

I was surprised when I watched Teresa's latest Flosstube... she showed my finish of her chart Remember Me and had some very nice words to say about it... you can watch the Flosstube here ... and my sampler shows up around the 37 minute mark.  Here is the sampler again in case you missed it...

As for decor I did get all of the bunnies back into their plastic bins and I broke out the birds... and I also brought out some brightly colored quilts that haven't seen the light of day for a while... it is nice to change things up...  here's the small shelf display unit... right now it is the only display that I feel is totally complete... I have little things I still want to add to other displays ...

Up top I have a sunny yellow table runner ... all those squares are different tone on tone yellows... I'm still displaying that little tulip quilt as the tulips are just coming up here is SW Ohio... the cross stitched bird pulling the cart is from Homespun Elegance...

 and the little beaded alphabet pillow is  Hello Spring from Sub Rosa Designs.

The two shelves below are loaded with cross stitch... front left to right is Good Deeds from With Thy Needle and Thread, in the middle is Welcome, dear August from the Blackbird Design book In Friendship's Way and on the right side is the very first cross stitch piece I ever did!!

On the bottom shelf I have Brite Birds by Kathy Barrick is is a freebie you can find here... in the middle is the tulip pincushion from the book Thank you Sarah Tobias  by Blackbird Designs and  Bobbin' Along by Not Forgotten Farms. 

I would have stitched this piece in 1985... it came as a kit... and true to my habits of never leaving well enough alone I changed out the Aida for a sage-y green color and added the word Nesting... I had just given birth to my first child and I was deep into nesting...

Hopefully this week I'll get the Tulip House from Pinker n Punkin FFO'd and the Annie Beez pear... I'm itching to start a new quilt project... actually 2 new quilt projects... I want to play with my Tilda fabrics and right now I'd like to make a bed sized quilt with the pattern  Coffee Quilt., from the It's Sew Emma book  Perfect 10 Quilts and I'd like to make a throw size quilt, again with my Tilda fabrics, using the pattern  Biscuit Quilt from the It's Sew Emma book Simply Jelly Rolls. I have yardage of a pretty low volume fabric I picked up at Hobby Lobby this week that I want to use as background on both quilts. If you look back at the picture of the pears you can see the fabric I'm talking about.   I'd like to have the bed sized quilt on my bed...duh... and the throw to throw over the chair in the corner. I really like having multiple quilts using the same fabrics ... similar, yet different...

And after dithering over whether to add borders to the blocks from the Kim Brackett book, Scrap-Basket Sensations, that she called Flowers for Nana's Girl and I'm calling the daffodil quilt ... (pause take a breath ..LOL) I decided to forgo them... now it probably would look a bit better but I want to display this on my living room wall next Spring and if I add borders it will be too big to fit the display space. Instead I will do a wider binding... maybe with a little flange... I'm very happy with this top but I'm ready to move on to something else. 

So other than watching Elliott on Tuesday ... and making several visits to my neighborhood soft serve ice cream stand that has pineapple Dole Whip on them menu this week... I don't have any definitive plans for my upcoming week. The weather forecast is wonderful... sunny... temps in the 70's... the kind of weather you can open the windows and air the house out... and turn off the furnace and deprive Duke energy of a few pennies... my chair out out here on the sunroom porch is quite comfy...and the lighting  is great to stitch by... and I can watch my bird feeders... just saw a cardinal which always makes me think of my loved ones who have passed... and I say a prayer for them and me and you...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... I've discovered a couple of new to me blogs that are fun to read... I even figured out how to add one to my side bar... LOL... I really should try to clean it up and post a new header but I'm terrified of messing it up and not being able to get back into the blog... I'm just tech savvy enough to get myself into trouble but not out of trouble... and now that I've checked on my blog format somehow I messed something up... it is only showing 10 blogs and when I click on "Show All" I'm not getting any more to show... drat drat drat... 

edited to add - this morning when I hit "Show All" it shows all of the blogs on the list...yeah!

I hope you have a lovely week ahead... good weather makes everything better for me... my mood improves and my aches and pains seem to subside a bit... and I truly love seeing all of the flowering trees right now... so many pretty pinks and creamy white and peachy ones... I'd love to have more trees in my yard but I've run out of yard! I have fantasies of purchasing the house next door to mine so I could garden in that back yard along with what I have now... they are the kind of neighbors that mow the grass but don't do much else with their yard... and I'd love to have a couple more raised beds ... oh I can dream...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

What to do? What to doooo?? on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello-  I hope you all had a lovely Easter... we had a yummy meal with family a great dessert... my DIL's mother made a Pavlova, which was divine! ... and lots of enjoyable conversation... and it was so much fun we are going to do another version of it this coming Friday to celebrate Elliott's 5th birthday.... oh my goodness, where does the time go???  Last I heard the theme for the party was Number Blocks... it is an animated series Elliott is super into... along with reciting numbers and adding numbers and counting to 100 by 2's and 5's and 10's and multiplying numbers by 10 and informing you that 1 million is a 1 with 6 zeros and that is a VERY VERY big number... LOL   I found some cool looking Star Wars fabric at Hobby Lobby the other day... need to make a pillow case to "wrap" his present... and the way I'm moving I'll be making it right before the party...

Oh my there are just so so so  many many many things I want to do right now... and I really really really want to do them NOW!!  But I only have 2 hands and  there are only 24 hours in the day... where to start?  I'm just gonna jump in...

I'm writing this on Saturday afternoon as I sit on the sunroom porch... Mother Nature is marginally cooperating and while the temperature isn't that warm at least there is sun today and I want to enjoy it. I also want to put away the bunnies and break out my birds... but there are other things I think I need to get to before that... like this quilt...

There is one looooooong diagonal seam left to join the upper and bottom halves... 

and when I added those pretty connector corner "leaves" that make a star,  it did not occur to me that  I was adding extra points that would need to be matched...

and I will say that my standards of what is good enough have dropped significantly as I've put this together... if it doesn't look good on the first pass, I am picking it out and trying again... and I've had pretty good luck with that, but sometimes it requires a third  try... arghh... I want to have this sewn up and the borders on by Monday night as I already have an meet up at Delinda the long-armer scheduled for Tuesday lunchtime...  

Oh a tangent... are you in the path of the solar eclipse?  I'm on the edge of 100% totality... to be certain that one would see 100% totality one would have to drive a bit northwest of Cincinnati... and I could do that ... but I'm not sure I will... I'll still be able to see pretty much from my front yard... I have my eclipse glasses and right now the weather forecast says it won't be cloudy... it will be a last minute decision about what to do... was checking with my older son and he had been thinking of driving a bit north, but he's still on the fence now too. 

Okay back to  the quilting... along with taking the yellow quilt I'm taking up 2 panels  that I want quilted so I can hang them in my back hallway... first is this one I found online not to long ago by the designer Marcia Derse...

I love this collage ephemera look... and I'm thinking a graphic panto... maybe a chevron pattern...

And then I opened a drawer to shove something in it the other day and found this panel by Carrie Bloomston... I have no clue when I bought this and  had totally forgot about it... again it has that collage ephemera vibe...

I'm thinking this needs some kinda butterfly panto ...

I'm still debating what quilt project to pick up next...got lots of plastic bins with UFO's that are interesting... but before that I want to make a table runner with these little 9 patches done in Tilda fabrics...

remember there was a SAL for these?  It started back at the beginning of the year... and my commitment to the project was extremely short... like nanoseconds short...  anyway,  I think what I have here is enough to do a table runner for the small display shelf in the living room... and this will sort of fulfill my goal of doing something with some of the giant stash of Tilda fabrics I have...sheesh... letting myself off easy here...

As for cross stitch... oh what an embarrassment of riches I have... first I did finish  The Red Bird Sampler by WTN&T... this makes the 3rd month in a row I've finished  sampler... now in January I did the Prairie Schooler Christmas ABC's from start to finish... in February I went back and picked up the Prairie Schooler Garden Sampler I started back in September as part of the ill-fated "7 for my 70th"... and  The Red Bird was about 2/3rd done when I picked it up in March... according to my notes it was started back in January of 2022... some things take longer than others... 

I put my initials in the center... and on the bottom row I put the maiden initials of my Mom... PD - Phyllis Damon and the maiden  initials of my Grandma ... CW -  Catherine Wasser.  I chose their maiden initials as I still use my maiden name... I'm very happy with this one and when I was at Hobby Lobby the other day I saw some pretty moldings in the framing department...need to watch for a sale or coupon and get this one framed.

I'm also pleased with myself that I stitched up this darling house from Melisa at Pinker n Punkin Quilting & Stitching  in less than 2 weeks.... this is her Tulip House... I stitched this on 16 ct Aida painted with a pale Apple Green Rit Dye...

now the house was charted in yellow... my favorite color for a house...but I changed the flosses and went lighter... I was envisioning lemon meringue pie (my favorite) and I've made the tulips more peachy pinky and the greens more olive-y and the blues more turquoise-y... now to get this FFO'd so I can add it to the Spring displays... this makes the second house for the hashtag  #pnpsixhouses2024sal... 4 more to go an plenty to chose from... think I'l make one or two of the patriotic houses. 

And now I will move onto the decision dilemma I find myself in ... sooooo many things I  want to stitch RIGHT NOW!!!  

Any and all of the following charts would look great added to my Spring displays ...and yes I want  to stitch ALL of them but I don't think that is possible... maybe if I don't work on any other  large sampler but there are a couple of them calling my name ...  and I'll show you the newest shiny one I can't wait to start here in a minute... 

Anyway there is Blooming Tiny Town...this would look great on my dining table...

And these adorable robins by WTN&T... I LOVE birds and birds dressed up in cute clothes are simply irresistible!

And there is this chart called Pollinator's Garden by October House ... I'm envisioning a shorter version that I could display  on the phone book shelf of the telephone niche in my hallway... and it looks like a quick stitch that I can just pull floss from my stash...

And there are these pears... as you can see I have all 3 patterns from Annie Beez... each chart has an alphabet pear and those are what  I want to stitch ...

and I want to stitch them all on a green fabric, like real pears... this is a 36 ct linen I dyed with Apple Green Rit dye and I have some silk and some Sulky to try for the floss... now on one side it is quite wrinkly mottled looking...

and on the other side is it mottled but not as much... 

I think the real wrinkly looking side is quite interesting but I'm not sure it would play well with the stitching... and I MUST find a cute little compote dish to display these in!! Check out the bottom right corner of the Spring Green pear pattern... I MUST find a cute little dish like that... maybe 2 or 3!!

But wait... like that Ginsu knife commercial there is MORE... a couple of months ago  I'm signed up for Teresa Kogut's Patreon and I was considering dropping the membership, as all the charts she releases there will eventually be released to the public ... and then she posted the charts you have access to as a True Blue Whimsy for April and I was a goner... first one that caught my eye was this ornament..

and then there is this band sampler...

and this little piece titled Faith... I'll bet there will be a Hope and Love before long...

and who doesn't identify with this one....

but this is the one that knocked my socks off... 

now I'm going to do this as a long vertical piece and stack each of those quadrants...I'm going to stitch it on this piece of linen that I had dyed for some other chart in my stash ... it's a lovely olive green with some kinda bronze-y brown  patches ... and along with the colors that were charted, I pulled some extra colors I want to add ...here's my floss toss...

And while I know I really don't need another BIG project... I also know I'm gonna start this one as soon as possible.  I like to come up with a bit of a plan for myself each month and have one or two doable goals I can  accomplish... the last 3 months it has been to finish a sampler... I don't think this one is doable in one month ...and lets not forget the Summer Schoolhouse series by WTN&T that I started on Leap Year Day... at this point in time my goal for that one is the end of February 2025... seems reasonable, right?  I think I should focus on one or two of the smaller Spring-y charts and perhaps gets one quadrant of this  done...  now to pick which two... the pears would be quick to stitch but then there is the FFO-ing... Tiny Town and the Pollinator's would also be quick stitching and I plan to FFO them as long pillow like a Tootsie roll wrapper or a English Christmas cracker... I did that at Christmas with Lizzie Kate string... and the robins might fit into a frame, which is a super easy finish... decision dilemma...what to do? what to do??

I will ponder this as I put away the bunnies and get out the birds ... I'm not going to hold myself to the goal of getting another sampler done this month... unless a real small one sneaks in... all the WIP samplers still have a ways to go. I remember back to when I first started cross stitching and my focus was only samplers with houses... each chart had to have an alphabet and a house...somehow I thought this would limit my choices... insert ROFLMAO...over and over and over... at last count I've stitched over 100 samplers with houses and I'm not gonna stop!!  And then in the last 10 years I fell down the rabbit hole of seasonal stitching and changing up my decor... I blame Priscilla of Stitchin' with the Housewives for this ... and while I get torn between samplers and seasonal I sure do LOVE both genres... cross stitching today is so much more than it was 38 years ago when I stitched my first little piece... it was a bird in a nest that was a kit and the first thing I did was toss out the fabric and pick another Aida... that might have been an omen for what was to come as I rarely stitch anything on the called for fabric. Before I got into painting and dyeing my own linen I was always selecting linen that was more colorful than the pattern was stitched on. I've always felt this was a way to put a bit of my own personal touch on a piece... and in these later years I've gone further and further afield on my choices of linens and flosses... and that is so much FUN!!

So now that I've totally talked waaay too much  I'll direct you to check out the posts on Kathy's Quilts and hope you have a wonderful week ahead!  Between the eclipse and Elliott's birthday and a trip to see Delinda and lunch with my quilty friends mine is shaping up to be jam packed!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Happy Easter!

  May this Easter Sunday inspire you to new hope, happiness,  prosperity, and abundance, all received through God’s divine grace.

See you next week!

carol fun 

Easter Decor and more on a Slow Sunday...

 Well I anticipated that last week was going to be busy... and it was even busier than I expected. Lots of time spent with friends talking talking talking... that was fun... got my hair cut and colored...always enjoyable... and then there were the unexpected house issues.  Last week I talked about replacing the AC and I am going to do that...I'm thinking in May... and I'm still having an a bathroom sink problem... Dan my Handyman will be by this week to see if he can remedy that... and then my dishwasher died... oh great... now it is 10 years old and we have very hard water here which takes a toll on appliances that use water. Last year I put $200 into this dishwasher when I had the problem with the backed up kitchen drain... in retrospect I should have just gone ahead and replaced it then... cause I'm ending up replacing it now.  Did some research on line about the life span of dishwashers and 10 years is about average. It wasn't a top of the line model when I bought it, so it isn't worth putting any more money into it.  Compared models and prices online and went off to Lowe's to see them ... took Nick along as he is the one who spends the most time with the dishwasher... he loads it and runs it and unloads it. He liked the unit with the 3rd rack and I liked the stainless steel interior and it is a Samsung which is what the broken unit is, and the styling is similar ... so we bought it... it will take about a 7- 10 days to arrive and get installed and they will take away the broken dishwasher...  fingers crossed the fridge and stove I purchased at the same time,  hang in there a while longer.

Since I was busy busy busy doing social stuff I didn't get a lot accomplished in the crafty areas.  As for quilting I was able to sew up all the blocks for the quilt I'm now calling the twirling yellow flower quilt.

I rearranged a bunch of the blocks in an attempt to gradate them from light at the top to darker at the bottom... I think I'm happy with the arrangement. I figured out how big to cut the setting triangles on the side so they are straight of grain. I like them a bit bigger so I can trim everything down. Oh the blocks are 8.5" unfinished... the pattern is Flowers for Nana's Girl from the Kim Brackett Book Scrap-Baskets Sensations... here s a listing on Amazon.. whoa... I didn't realize this was out of print... if I was looking for a copy of this I'd check out a Half Price Book place... you might have better  luck there... 

As for cross stitch I'm trying to get the WTN&T Red Bird Sampler done before the end of  the month...

here's where I was last week...

and here's where I am today...and yes today's pic is ironed... makes a difference doesn't it?  sheesh

I completed all the flowers along the bottom... and I LOVE the little vignette with the church inside the bower...

What's left to do?  I have the big pot of flowers on the left  and a bird and a couple of small pink  flowers, and I think I'll put my initials and the year in the space that open to the right of the alphabet... oh I added the alphabet... for me a sampler isn't a sampler if it doesn't include the ABC's!  I think finishing this by March 31 is very doable ... and that would have me completing  a sampler every month this year!! ... now 2 of the 3 were already started but I still think that's being pretty productive... and I've already got my eye on another WIP sampler I'd like to get back to. 

Don't know what has gotten into me lately but I'm really into finishing up projects, quilts and cross stitch, that I've previously started and then somehow walked away from...  makes me feel virtuous for finishing up... LOL... and since the projects are already started it doesn't take as long to finish them... yep, back to my long held philosophy that UFOs or WIP are GOOD THINGS... 

And I worked a little on the WTN&T Summer Schoolhouse... 

framed in the windows and doors and got started on the roof... found a mistake in the house... I made it one row taller than graphed... not frogging this... just moving on... I'm going to do a band of satin stitches as the "grass" and then do some birds and flowers beneath that. I will wait to do the satin stitch until the end so I don't keep rubbing the floss... I did a row of satin stitches at the bottom of the Red Bird sampler and I love the look but I can see where in some spots it has gotten fuzzy  from my handling it... lesson learned. 

And where did the month go???  Easter is next week ... we are doing dinner at my older son's home ... already hit Costco and picked up the prime rib... will pop into Krogers on Thursday for the veggies ... same holiday menu we did for Thanksgiving ... don't see a need to change it as every one seems to like it just the way it is... along with the prime rib I'll make a pasta salad, marinated tomatoes, asparagus bundles wrapped in prosciutto, and deviled eggs. My DIL's side of the family will provide a ham and some other sides and desserts... there won't be any lack of goodies.

And I realized that while I've had my Easter/Spring decor out for weeks I've only shown one display... so today I'll give you a tour of the rest of it... sorry some of the pics are a bit hazy... the sun was coming through that big picture window and no matter how I positioned the blinds it didn't help. 

Here's the yellow tier table... I surprised myself in how much I could display here  and I like the  primarily pink theme... up top I have a little chick in a field of tulips from Jelly Bean Jubilee by WTN&T and the tiny tulip pillow was a riff on the tulips in another WTN&T chart.

Below is Easter Rabbits from Stitchy Princess Black... you can see it here... I brightened this one up quite a bit  and it goes nicely with the pink ceramic bunny and other pink knickknacks.

On the wall ... well I keep talking about doing a new Spring wall quilt, but all I've done is talk sooooooo I  went with the same quilt I've used for several years... the pattern is Jam & Jelly from Fig Tree Quilts and the fabric was the Kate Spain Verna collection. 

The tier tray is a new purchase this year from Michaels.. I could not resist a yellow tray!! Up top I have Be Hoppy from Emily Call ...such an adorable pink bunny, and below in the round tin is Holiday Hoopla Easter from WTN&T.

On the TV cabinet a cute bunny shaped tier tray from Dollar Tree and a trio of smalls from Prairie Schooler No. 178... along a a freebie bunny from Pinker n Punkin Quilting and a giant bottle brush carrot... that was a recent purchase from Hobby Lobby. 

As for the big display a very green and yellow theme emerged... 

from the top and left to right... a little pillow with a sweet gal from Pineberry Lane,  a Blackbird Design piece from the book "Thank You, Sarah Tobias' and WTN&T Sampler Hill...

 I love how the alphabet is "hidden" in the grassy hill.  

Next shelf March from Prairie Schooler... another piece where the alphabet is "hidden" in the grass and 2/3rds of the Blackbird Design called Breath of Spring and the sampler pillow with the daffodils is called Hello Spring and is from Sub Rosa... 

Moving down... another bunny shaped tier tray, as I remember this one came from Target a couple of years ago... it is sporting some cute little pillows from WTN&T Jellybean Jubilee and the  monochromatic green sampler is from the BBD book called Women of Grace & Charm...the book is primarily quilting but this chart called Tribute is included and was the reason I bought the book. I dyed this with Apple Green Rit dye and used up a ton of bits and bobs of Gentle Arts Dried Thyme floss... it is my favorite overdyed green ... and having purchased it for years and years and years left with with a collection of many many many different dye lots... but it worked out perfectly for this piece. A note: this BBD book is OOP ... I paid more than list price for it a couple of years ago but not as much as I saw it listed on the web... 

Here's the little phone niche... 

The pink bunny on the wall  is Egg Hunt from Emily Call... it is charted in brown but she had done Be Hoppy the year before as a pink bunny (he's in my tier tray) so I just subbed in those coolers... the egg with the bow dazzled frame was a gift from a sweet friend... and the long pillow on the ledge is Lizzie Kate's Spring String.  I was trying to include links for these charts but Emily Call's Etsy shop is temporarily closed... she posted she was going to be out of town till April ... and it appears that the Lizzie Kate chart is kinda OOP... I did see some Etsy and Ebay listings.

Now I have one more display on the porch but I'll save it for next week as I want to add the bunny head piece from WTN&T that I finished stitching last week, but I didn't get around to FFO-ing it.  And I don't know what else I may have to post next week... not a lot of new stuff on my agenda so I hope you don't mind seeing the bits of progress on the stuff I already started.  As much as I'm itching to get out in the yard Mother Nature is NOT cooperating... temps for the upcoming week are seasonal and 50 to 60-ish... I don't know about you but I still keep a paper calendar along with the stuff on my phone...and in my paper calendar I made all kinds of notes about stuff and when I start a new calendar in January I include details I think I'd like to remember...I have a note that before the end of March I need to get back to Natorp's Garden Outlet and get a replacement shrub for the one that is dead... and I have a note that I planted my window boxes on April 1 of last years... what??    There is no way that is happening this year... I remember I planted purple petunias and marigolds, a mix I hadn't tried before. and they looked great... but that means that it had to be warmer for a week or two before that for me to even contemplate that and that the garden stores had petunias... I haven't seen anything but pansies ... which I love but the deer eat them so I'm not wasting my money. They can easily reach 2 of my 5 window boxes and it would just be a buffet... I'll pass. I thought we had global warming... I'm all for some of that right now... 

So this upcoming week  should be a less hectic than last week... but one never really knows... I see a doctor's appointment one day and dinner with a friend another day and of course Elliott on Tuesday.  Now to see what I can muster up in motivation to get things done... I'm going spend time today with the Red Bird Sampler... my motivation is I want to work on something "new" and by "new" I mean something I've already started. And I want to get more done on the twirling yellow flower quilt cause I found some other already started  projects I like to play with. More time spent doing stuff and less time just looking at stuff... not easy to do with all the temptation on social media... and I have to say I'm finding reading blogs very enjoyable again... more space to chit chat and it seems more personal than Instagram and I have no interest in anything on TikTok... I like the routine I've gotten into posting once a week... I know these posts can be long but I don't know how I use to find time to post several times a week like I did in the beginning. 

Thank you for coming and reading my ramblings... I hope that you have a pleasant and productive week ahead!  I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts so I can sit on the sunroom porch, read some blogs and do some stitching... now that's what I call a good day!

happy stitching-

carol fun