Mother Nature's Misbehaving on a Slow Stitching Sunday...

Hello .. and Happy Mother's Day to all of you!!  Mine is a quiet one today... celebrated yesterday with my son and daughter in law and grandson ... yummy dinner from Carrabas and a gift card to a wonderful garden center...which I will enjoy spending as Mother Nature has been a pain in the patootie these last couple of days... I know that around here the official date for the last frost is Mother's Day/May 15 but for the past 10 years at least I've had flowers in the ground by the end of April and had no problems... not this year... I spent Friday night covering all the stuff in my window boxes with sheets, carrying all the petunias in pots into the garage, moving the planters I could lift into the garage and  "un-planting" a bunch of stuff that I had in pots that I couldn't lift... forecast is looking up from here ... highs in the 70's ...hmmm... just checked and Monday and Tuesday have lows around 35... ugh... don't want to have to re-locate everything again...

Here is the same window box I showed last week... all tucked into a polka dotted sheet...

The stuff in the boxes fared well... but I think I lost the lantana I put in the ground and some marigolds... glad I hadn't put any zinnia seeds in yet... I'll wait till at least the end of the week for that...

As for crafty stuff  I got a little done here and there... I sewed all the blocks together for The Good Girl quilt... you can find the pattern on this page...

and here is one of the pieced blocks...those squares were left over from my Chamomile quilt of last summer... which you can see here... sorry that last week I forgot to put in the link... oh and here is a link to the pattern...

and made a back from this fabric...which has been aging in a bin for a loooooong time...

and as every piece came out of my stash, I was a VERY Good girl!!

As for stitching I started this piece May 1... not doing Stitch Maynia... just stitching... excuse the wrinkles...

this is Faith of the Heart by Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle and Thread...

the saying on this one speaks to my heart... and I love the GIANT birds flanking the house... the linen is a 32 ct I painted with Rit Apple Green and Turquoise... and while I thought I had diluted the dyes pretty much so they would be very light, they dried more intense than I wanted, soooooooo.... I turned the linen over and I'm stitching on what I thought would be the back... that worked out nicely...what isn't working out is the thread... I had most of the called for threads... and I made a couple of substitutions... but I running out of 2 of the colors I chose... I put an order in to 123 Stitch... hopefully by the end of next week I'll have them. Every company seems to be running behind in filling orders...and I understand... more demand and less staff... I need to practice patience... which isn't my strong suite...

And on the Covid front... well things are looking up a bit... last Monday my quilty lady friends came over to do lunch while social distancing... we all sat out on my driveway and talked and had lunch and show and tell and there was even a bit of hair trimming too...it was so nice to get together... the weather was lovely and none of us noticed till the end of the day that we all got a bit of sunburn... back of necks, tops of arms... definitely loaded up on Vitamin D...

Ohio is opening things back up... retail is this coming week... restaurants can do open air dining May 15 and inside seating May 21... hair salons are opening too... I have an appointment for a cut and color on the 18th... yeah... I need to find out when Hobby Lobby will be open... I didn't find anything in my framing stash to FFO my Vintage Bird piece... I need a square frame at least 10" x10"... or an rectangular one is that same range... or  I could take this one to the framer... hmmm.... I'll be the little shop not far from me might be open this week... wouldn't hurt to give them some business...

Well next week doesn't have much on the calendar... pretty much like the last 6, 7, 8 weeks... I'm babysitting Elliott on Tuesday... fun but exhausting... and I want to spend some time on my sunroom porch... my handyman finally got it painted for me... small space about 7' x 10'... lots of windows ... but lots of edges to be cut in and the brick sucked up almost 2 gallons of paint... took waaay longer to paint than either one of use anticipated .... but boy does it look great....

I love how clean it looks ... I wavered on painting it because this is what use to be the outside of my house before I had the porch enclosed... I decided that no one is ever going to take the windows and door out and make it an open air porch again so I might as well have it made over to my liking...I spend lots of hours out there... in the nice weather I can open the windows...when it is a colder I have a space heater than warms it up ... it is so nice to sit in the sun with no bug issues...and I think the 17 year cicadas are due for a return visit... looked it up... suppose to be 2021 but some of them always come early...

Well I'll be sitting out here on the porch for a little while... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and read some blogs... the Dude is perched on the back of the couch watching the world and the birds... I've had some pretty birds visit lately... some cute little red house finches and a cardinal or two... there is only one feeder the doves can sort of perch on... which is good... they are relegated to eating off the ground... otherwise they hog the feeders...

I hope you have a lovely Mother's Day... take good care of yourself... and...

happy stitching-
carol fun