Rambling about unseasonable projects on Slow Stiching Sunday...

So... I said I was trying to finish the Prairie Schooler April piece... I'm still trying. Perhaps if I had picked it up last week it would have progressed a stitch or two...but I didn't. Instead I released this piece from its little plastic tomb box and worked on it.

This is the Magic Garden by Shakespeare's Peddler which you can see in its original form here. Now I've changed a ton of colors on this piece starting with using a linen I hand dyed. I changed the day lilies on the side (at least I think they are day lilies) to a lovely orange versus the GA Onyx they are charted with... I've never seen black day lilies, have your? The carrot was charted in GA Raspberry Frost which made it look like a dessicated parsnip...ugh. I have found this to be one of the most difficult charts to follow in many ways. I totally don't understand the color choices but I can chalk that up to a difference of opinion as to what is "pretty." However, I also have to say this is a very difficult chart to read. I made an enlarged working copy as I always do and the symbols are so busy that they are blurry...I haven't experienced this with any other charts by this designer or other designers so I don't know why it is the case here.

I really like the design of this piece which is what has kept me hanging in there. I started this piece back in 2010... I know I worked on it again last July ... and I think I will finally be able to have it finished for this summer, hence the unseasonable stitching. It is just the cusp of Spring here...nice one day, frigid the next. My stitching and my quilting are influenced by the season. At Christmas time I want to make a Christmas quilt which hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of being finished by Christmas. In Spring I want to do Spring stuff, but in reality I should be working at least a season ahead so I can display the things I do get finished. I think this piece will be a lovely addition to my Summertime decorating.  All I have left is one little motif in the corner, some berries and a scattering of I don't know what to call it...crumbs, maybe?

Now I'd really love to start a Spring quilt too. I found a pattern for GIANT tulips called Amsterdam...

You can get the free pattern here. I played with this pattern last year about this time putting together a "modern" quilt top that I didn't like in the end. But this time I want to make a bed sized quilt...with lots of different colored tulips ...or maybe just yellow tulips...with a scrappy low volume background...or maybe a tone on tone white background... and can you see why I start so many things??? There are "guilt" projects I should be working on...but I am forever pulled here and there and everywhere by shiny new projects that are current to that season...like my sainted Father use to say "you bounce around like a BB in a boxcar." So true, so true.

Anyway I don't know for sure what I'll work on next...I should probably move on to the July chart of the Prairie Schooler series. A 3 month lead may be enough...if another shiny project doesn't grab me...and it probably will. (Boy this was a rambling post... seems like the ADHD has taken hold of my projects and my writing...sheesh)

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday.

happy stitching -
carol fun
Edited to add:
I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL...had to make just ONE of the tulip blocks... managed to work 12 different fabrics into one block...will make a monumentally scrappy quilt...I can always find a way to make simple more complicated... it is a gift dontcha know? LOL