Pulled in too many directions on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello all!  Well I'm proud of myself for getting back here in two weeks and I'm feeling much more chipper... probably because I've been doing a bunch of different things... probably  pulled in  too many directions but I've such is life right now. I've been cross stitching and working on a quilt top and gardening along with a couple of unexpected doctor appointments... no worries... everything checked out.  The weather has been getting better and better... suppose to have a nice week coming up ... sunny... maybe a bit too warm... low 80's and no rain. A forecast that will have me watering every day... oh well.

So first off lets talk about cross stitch. Last week was Mother's Day and each year I allow myself a guilt free new start. This year I picked The Primitive Lady by Ewe and Eye and Friends. Now my Mother's Day started on the Friday evening before  and I was able to finish this by the following Friday... the perfect little interlude to the BIG projects I've been working on.

Here's my lady... and yes she does bear an interesting resemblance to the stitcher. 

I loved doing those french knots for her hair.

The Sunnyside Sampler had another issue... but I was able to fudge a bit and I got another house constructed.  

Need to work on the over one stuff... don't want to leave it till the end.

As for sewing I got back to the quilt I'm making for my son. This is the Cinnamon Twist pattern that I was only able to get if I purchased a Jolly Bar of the Fig Tree fabric from Fat Quarter Shop. I just checked and it doesn't appear to be available any more. Maybe they will release just the pattern. Anyway this top has given me fits. It is only squares and HST but I've managed to put them together incorrectly numerous times. Can't wait to get this off to Delinda to quilt. 

I have one more seam to do... the one where I put the top and the bottom half together... I'm a little worried as when I pinned it to the wall the bottom half seems bigger... and it shouldn't be... fingers crossed I can ease in any excess. 

And oh the gardening I have done!!!  My son has been a HUGE help digging holes. We've planted several flats of zinnias and marigolds and about 2 dozen one gallon perennials. I had a $100 gift certificate to a local nursery that I received last summer when I won a beautification award from my little town. I'd been holding onto it because you had to spend the entire $100 in one trip... and I just realized last Friday that it was going to expire at the end of the month... yikes!!  So being one of the more upscale nursery I knew it wouldn't get a lot of plants but I sure didn't want to pass up any free plants. I got 4 or maybe it was 5 one gallon interesting  perennials and a couple of small dahlias... and I spent $99.97 cents... cha-ching... certainly got my money's worth.  

Then I had another $100 gift card to another nursery ... a present from my older son that I'd been hanging onto for a while... so I went there and spent ALL of that card and another $60... plants are super expensive this year. Almost every perennial I got was at least $16 and a couple were $22... but I did get some really pretty plants. When they are in bloom I'll show some pictures. 

 Here is the petunias as of the end of April when I was just potting them up...

Right now this is my showiest display... the petunias... and they are gorgeous if I say so myself ... and I do!

The window boxes are coming along nicely. I checked and I planted them about 5 weeks ago... but I forgot to take a picture... maybe next time. 

I'm having trouble this year getting the plants and the pots to come out even...  and my new infatuation is with coleus... so many varieties ... I had to get a second pot to accommodate what I found... I think there are about a dozen different kinds here. 

Friday I planted up my big raised bed. I lost count of how many dahlia tubers I put in, but I guesstimate about 100.  I'm trying this new idea for "staking" them. I've suspended this plant netting... I got it on Amazon...you can see it here. I've used zip ties to attach it to stakes about every 4 feet.  The plan is that the plants will grow up in the openings and that it will support the stems... and somehow I forgot to take a picture... oh well, when the dahlias start growing  I'll show it in action.   I will say that I was disappointed in the dahlia tubers I got from Costco this year. There were less in a bag, 8 tubers versus 10 and they were more expensive... I think about $2 more a bag... and that would be okay as EVERYTHING is more expensive this year, but several bags had tubers that showed NO signs of life... so I didn't plant them.  I suppose if I wanted to take the whole bag back, Costco would refund my money... but I want tubers not dollars.  If there isn't a bit of an eye bud showing I don't have much hope the dahlia will grow.  I did order a lot from several online places,  Longfield Gardens and K. van Bourgondien and Breck's. And the tubers I got were much nicer... only one or two bad ones. Yes the online places were more expensive. I held out for free shipping and two-fer sales... but you get what you pay for, don't you? 

I am planning on digging up the tubers in the raised bed at the end  of the season. I'm thinking I can store them in some hay in plastic bins (without the lids) and put them in my basement.  Even if they don't all survive, there should be more than I ended up with this year.  Of the almost 150 tubers I planted only 8 came up.  In planting the bed this year I couldn't find any of the tubers. I think they rotted... insert frowny face... however the dahlias that were in the ground have come back nicely. Maybe not every one but a substantial number are already over a foot high and look very healthy.  Well that was more than enough gardening talk... more for my benefit to look back on next year and remember what I did.

As for decorating here's the display out on the sunroom porch... more birds... cause I love the birds!

A close up....

In the living room is my large shelf unit... and yes I do have quite a flock of bird knickknacks... 

from the top is at tulip pincushion chart from  the BBD Thank you Sarah Tobias...

next shelf down has 2 new finishes... first is Good Deeds from WTN&T... I stitched this over a year ago but just got it framed recently... 

my BIG bird cookie jar perches in the middle, then there is Bobbin' Along from Notforgotten Farms, and the other newly framed piece  Tribute from the BBD book Women of Charm & Grace: A Quilting Tribute to the Women who Served in WWII.  

Next shelf is Because It's Spring from Wendy Peatross and more bird knickknacks.

Below Brite Birds by Kathy Barrick, it is a freebie you can see here... the Hello Spring pincushion from Sub Rosa Designs... 

and 2 little pillows that a snippets from the chart A Saviour's Praise by Shakespeare's Peddler. I have one more pillow to add but I haven't got it FFO'd yet. 

I finally got over to the framer and picked up O Joyous Day! by Blackbird Design... I LOVE how it turned out... now to get it up on my sampler wall. 

So the next couple of weeks are surprisingly open... no doctor's appointments or engagements... at least nothing yet. I'll be happy to stay close to home. There will definitely be yard work to be done. I've spent  3 full days cutting back daffodils  and planting stuff but there are still some that need attention. I haven't put any seeds down ... need to get to that. Finishing Nick's quilt will let me start something new... maybe something Halloween-y... and there is plenty of cross stitch I want to do.  Was mindlessly scrolling through IG and an old old old piece I started popped up... Birds of a Feather Mystery Sampler from WTN&T... you can see it here.  I started this when if first came out... 2011... twelve years ago... OMG... it doesn't seem that long ago... but it is... anyway I'd like to get it done before the end of the year.  Here's where mine is...

oops the picture is sideways... and I'm too tired to fix it... you get the idea...

LOTS more to do, but I really like this piece. Not sure if it is still in print or not.  

As you can tell I will still be pulled in too many directions... but then I almost always am... I bounce from project to project... I was ADHD before they had a name for it... good thing there aren't many deadlines in my life any more...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today..and while I've worked in the yard the past 2 days for waaay longer than I planned, I think I'll go out again today for a while. Feel like I need to take advantage of the weather.... yesterday was perfect...low 70's and a bit of a breeze ... what I have left to do should take as long today... and then I can come inside and sit on the sunroom porch and stitch... the good life!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Need sunshine and a hot fudge sundae on this Slow Sunday...

 Hello - as I start writing this, my plan is to be short and sweet... we'll see how that works out. (Spoiler alert... it isn't as short as I hope but not as long as it could have been).

 I'm starting out with whining, it is the mood I am in... sorry... and more whining is pretty evenly distributed in this post... but there are some bright spots too!

The last 2 weeks have not been very productive to my way of thinking... I've lost several days to not feeling well... each bout being a different body part that was rebelling.  Digestive tract, knees, hip, hand... good grief... I'm spending waaaay too much time just trying to hold everything together. And to add to that I had a colonoscopy and an endoscopy... YUCK!!   Results were exactly as I suspected... I have GERD... what can you do about it?  Eat a diet that doesn't aggravate it and take the meds you've been taking.

The weather has also been driving me nuts. The month of May came in cold and gray and rainy... then there were about 2 gorgeous days which had been running all over town hitting garden center after garden center after garden center  like a drunk on a binge... I got a ton of petunias and a new shelf display...

There are 20 different petunias on this shelf unit.., the shelf unit came from Hobby Lobby... it is metal ... I should spray it with polyurethane... its on my list of things to do... I like the size of it and the shelves flip up and the whole thing folds up so it will be easy to store in the garage over the winter.  Back to the petunias... love this pink one...

And next to this petunia is a tiny little fern... you can probably see it better if you enlarge the pic of the whole display. I've never seen tiny ferns like this before... it was $5  which in the scheme of things was a bargain plant this year. Individual fancy petunias are going for $5 to $8 each.  Its a good think I don't smoke drink gamble or do drugs... plants are pricey pricey pricey. 

Here's a look at some of my haul... 

There's 5 flats of those little zinnias I love to edge the beds with... they are the Profusion variety and I got 5 different colors. And I got a bunch of geraniums, orange and white... and coleus, I think 8 different varieties, and lobelia, and dusty miller and some other filler stuff and this and that. Yes I suffer greatly from FOMO... Fear of Missing Out. I want to take everything home with me!! And to exacerbate my condition I've already had 2 incidences where I went back for more a a particular plant and it was GONE... so no wonder I have FOMO. 

Here's some of the pots I've put together..

A mix of stuff including that Prince Tut papyrus and cannas and geraniums and petunias.

I did two like this, one for either side of the garage... 2 different orange petunias, cannas, and some blue lobelia. 

The lady on the front steps (and yes I complained the steps needed to be repainted last year... maybe Dan the Handyman can get to it this summer)... anyway the petunias are a color I've never seen ... it was called Cinnamon and it is beautiful. I probably should pinch it all back to make it bushier... perhaps in a day or two I will.  And I wish I remembered exactly which of the 6 nurseries I got these at... I think it was the one that is the farthest away from my house ... I'd really like one more plant... but it a 30 minute drive with a detour thrown in ( another rant... EVERYWHERE I've been in the last week has involved a road closure and a lengthy detour... I've driven more miles in the last week than in I usually do in a month!) ... Don't know that I'll make the trip.

As for the dahlias, well I have plenty to plant..

There are about 150 tubers here although I'm not certain that all are viable.  Its hard to tell through the plastic bags. I'm not happy with the dahlia bed results ... don't know if it was that brutal  cold spell this winter or if I shouldn't have had Dan the lawn kid put the extra mulch on the bed... I thought it would insulate it... but of the approximately 175 tubers I planted last year I have exactly 6 plants that are showing any signs of life.  I went out and dug around in the bed and couldn't find many tubers at all... a couple of mushy remnants at best.  I suppose this Fall I should dig them up instead of leaving them in the bed. Now I am seeing a bunch of the dahlias I left in the ground around the house showing signs of life, so that is good... and even some of my cannas are coming back... but not all of them... sigh.  And to add to my bad mood about gardening I'm having issues with deer eating petunias and geraniums this year... that's never happened before... I ordered some different repellents to spray as they seem to be immune to the stuff I used in the past.  Oh and they severely pruned my tree form hydrangea the other night too. I don't have a lot in the yard that they like... right now the yard is bursting with alliums which they hate... which is probably why they are eating the other stuff. 

So I'm chomping at the bit to get stuff in the ground... but today and tomorrow are pretty much non-stop rain and that isn't warming up the ground. I was doing some reading and dahlias like the ground to be around 60 degrees when you plant them... and zinnia seeds need a ground temp of 70 to germinate... and I bought a thermometer that can tell you how warm the ground is... and my soil is still cold... which I knew ... as even the window boxes I planted a month ago are barely taking off... it has just been too cold and wet and gray... sigh... 

In my crafty world things are also  not peak performance. I put down the Teresa Kogut Remember Me sampler and picked up the Sunnyside Sampler from The Drawn Thread. It is a smaller piece ( relative to the Remember Me sampler)  and I really thought I could power through it and perhaps get it finished by the end of May... not sure that is going to happen... here's where it stands...

I'm about half way done... and I would be closer to 2/3rd complete if not for this problem house...

It is the smallest house on the block... but it took  me 3 rounds of stitching and frogging and re-stitching to build it.  There is a large charting error so if you stitch this piece be sure to check that out... but the charting error really wasn't the cause of my problem... counting was... my first attempt had me 2 stitches off... too much to fudge on this piece as there is only one or two stitches between each house. My next attempt had me one stitch off and I thought about leaving it alone, but it would have thrown off the alphabet at the bottom for the rest of the piece and my OCD couldn't take that. I'm also finding myself changes a bunch of the flosses for this piece. I'm using the DMC conversion which isn't great IMHO... and so I find myself looking for a lighter or darker shade of the proposed color. I'm making a lot of notes since I fear I may put this in time out and then I'll never figure out what I did.  I picked it up last night for a couple of hours and so far so good...no frogging.

And next Sunday is Mother's Day... and I always treat myself to a brand new guilt free start that weekend. My dilemma is I don't know what I want to start...right now I have it narrowed down to 2  choices... 

Primitive Lady by Ewe and Ewe and Friends..

This is an oldie but goodie I found in my stash... I even had the floss and some linen in the envelope... but I don't like the linen and I'm going to change some of the flosses. If you enlarge the picture you can see the lady is a red head and her hair is all french knots... very curly... like a certain stitcher I know well...LOL

My second choice is also an oldie but goodie but it just arrived at my house this week...

a reprint of Prairie Schooler's Garden Samplers... I like the two on the right hand side... I went and got all the DMC flosses  and I have linen I can dye or paint for these... and there is such comfort in stitching Prairie Schooler that I might not have anything to whine about... hmmm... I may be onto something here... Right now I'm attracted to long narrow samplers as I'm running out of wall space in my humble abode but there are still a few narrow spots I could tuck in a finished piece... and yes I know this is crazy thinking but it does make me happy... and we can all use as much happy as we can get our hands on!!

Well I was going to wrap up this post with a bit of my Spring/ bird decor but right now technology is not cooperating.  I submitted to doing updates on my computer and my phone the other day and I've had nothing but problems every since. Things were just fine they way they were for me... grrrr..... I'm sure that as soon as I hit publish the pictures I'm waiting for will appear... sigh...

Anyway I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and go spend some time there seeing what others are up to... that should improve my mood.  I see a peek of sunlight but the weather radar has a nasty looking blob of rain headed this way in an hour or so... Perhaps I'll head to my basement sewing studio and cheer myself up with some quilt blocks... there are two new to me tulip blocks I'd like to play with... need to focus on positivity ...arrgghh... for some reason Blogger has decided that positivity is mis-spelled... which is making it very hard to be positive... and since I don't drink I suppose I could go drown my sorrows in a hot fudge sundae...  where are my car keys??

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Positivityi