Easter decor and MORE... on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - well March certainly marched quickly by me... next week is Easter and a certain little guy's 4th birthday... Time does march on, doesn't it?    We are finally having seasonal weather and I'm itching to get out and work in my garden.   However before that can start a trip or two to the orthopedic docs is on my agenda. Hope to get a shot in my knee on Monday and my thumb looked at later in the week... my body is a temple... it is ancient and crumbling....

As for gardening... the outlet nursery opened this week and I was there on Thursday  buying new shrubs with Dan... the Dan who mows my lawn, not to be confused with Dan the handyman...  9 new boxwoods, a gorgeous golden Amber Jubilee ninebark, a Kodiak Black diervilla, and a Aphrodite  sweetshurb.  All of these are to replace bushes that got frozen to death during that arctic cold snap we had. I wanted to go and get this project started before everyone else is out shopping to replace their frozen to death shrubbery. Everywhere I go I see brown dead shrubs.... I suppose that is better than seeing dead people, right?  The garden centers are going to do very well this Spring.  Dan will be around in the next week or so to dig up the dead stuff and plant the new live stuff.  Its still too early for me to do any planting... those 100+ dahlia tubers in the garage are calling to me, but I will resist their siren song. I did pick up one of those seed starter trays... I can plant it up with some seeds... that will hold me for a while.

Inside I'm all decorated for Easter... here's the small display unit...

I love that little mini quilt of tulips... since I can't do tulips outside... deer buffet... I shall have tulips inside!

I stitched that little sampler pillow last year but just got around to finishing it last month. I like the beaded rickrack finish, even though it does take a bit of time.  The pattern is Hello Spring from Sub Rosa...you can find it here. 

In the middle,  a small from Lila Studio and a freebie from Pinker N Punkin Quilting.

The little birdie pulling the cart is from Homespun Elegance and is called Delivering Posies... and there's a bunny from Prairie Schooler No. 178.

On the bottom, Spring from Lizzie Kate and two more little bunnies from Prairie Schooler  No. 178 in a carrot boat  sailing away from my fleet of carrot cars... 

The big display...

Starting off with another carrot car, a chorus line of egg cups with feet and  below that a piece from Blackbird Designs  called as I remember "Breath of Spring"... I only did 2/3rds of it.  

To the right, more Below BBD,  a piece from the book,  Thank you Sarah Tobias... it was suppose to be a 2 sided small pillow but I like it better this  way.  The sampler with the pink linen is from Stitchy Princess Black and is called Easter Rabbits...you can see it here... I brighten this one up  quite a bit... and my favorite monthly stitch from Prairie Schooler.  Love the soft colors and the alphabet hidden in the grass and  daffodils at the bottom and the painted linen. It turned out great if I say so myself and I do...LOL

One shelf down it Sampler Hill from With Thy Needle & Thread... another piece with the alphabet in the grass... and some cute pink and yellow knickknacky stuff.

Moving down is Ah 'tis Spring by Notforgotten Farms... you can find it here... I love my animals with clothes on...LOL... that is Holiday Hoopla: Easter by WTN&T in the little tin and Garden Friends from the BBD Sewing Club book ....I made that  ribbon rose on the top at least 25 years ago. I picked up the wired ribbon at a little gift shop in Modesto CA when I lived there in the early 90s.... how can I remember that and not remember what I had for dinner last night?  sheesh... 

 

And I LOVE those little bottle brush carrots that are vertical... picked them up at Target last year and saw them again this year... the pink is an unusual color but it works perfectly here... IMHO...

Over on the TV cabinet I have this little display...

picked up that bunny tier tray at Target... it folds flat... that will be great for storage... the crossstitch is from Jellybean Jubilee by WTN&T and all those adorable chicks are salt & pepper shakers from Cracker Barrel. 

Are you still with me?  I know ... I'm exhausting at times... LOL

As for what crafty stuff I've been doing, I'm still working on Nick's quilt... I have the last 2 blocks pinned to my design wall but I can't remember a project where I've made sooooo many mistakes... I'm working on the 3rd block and I've re-sewn it at least 10 times... it isn't just that the points won't match (actually they aren't too bad) but I've sewn units together in the wrong order over and over and over....

So I've been concentrating more on crossstitch.... I finished Prairie Schooler  The Twelve Days of Christmas...

I'll be taking this to Hobby Lobby to be framed when the stuff I dropped off is ready for pick up. 

And while I've been stitching I've been watching a lot of Flosstube when has lead to several new purchases... these charts... more Prairie Schooler have arrived in the last week.

The Birdsong I and II are both cardstock charts  "new old stock"... love that... 

And I'm anxious to put some stitches in some things from my Market haul... I planned to work on this one from Teresa Kogut... 

but then this chart from Teresa popped in my mail box ...

Isn't this fabulous?  Don't know how I missed it before ... I want to do bits and pieces from it as small pillows... would make a great dough bowl display, wouldn't it?

But while contemplating all of those choices, I picked up this sampler which I've had kitted up for quite a while... Sunnyside Sampler from The Drawn Thread...

I am really enjoying stitching this one... even the over one... I'm using the DMC conversion and I made some changes of my own too. Doing the windows in DMC 414 gray instead of black... the black was too stark... made the crow 3371, again a bit less stark and  where 3371 was called for I went with DMC 3781 and I'm using DMC 3362 for the letters... and changing other stuff as I go along... I am writing everything down as I'm afraid I'll put this down before it is complete and won't remember what in the heck I changed.  One of the biggest lies I tell myself is "I'll remember that"... and I don't... 

I'm doing this on 32 ct I painted with very diluted Rit dyes Lemon Yellow and Tangerine... the Tangerine is very peachy when you water it down... I think I want this same background linen for the Teresa Kogut Remember Me chart... 

People always ask me about how I paint linen and there really isn't any trick to it. I treat the linen like a piece of paper. I start with it dry. I dilute the dyes and to test the color I paint a little bit on the edge. Remember it will dry lighter than it looks wet, so you can always go back and make it darker. When I paint it I put down swaths and splotches of the dye trying to keep it kinda blotchy... all I can say is give it a try. If you paint it and it isn't to your liking when it dries you can over paint or dye it darker or you can get some of the color out if you bleach it... I've resorted to both methods now and then.  I iron the linen when it dries to "set" the dye. Now I don't every wash my pieces after I've stitched them, but I think the dye would be pretty stable.  I do find that dyeing and painting my own linen makes me happy... it lets me put my spin on a piece... 

Well that was certainly a rambling post... hope you enjoyed it... I plan on more stitching in the next couple of weeks and working on Nick's quilt and checking out garden centers... Walmart has some great prices on dahlia tubers, if you need to know... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts ... and I think I'll sit out on the porch and stitch and watch the birds... hope you have a enjoyable week ahead...

happy stitching -

carol fun