Indecision, indecision... on a Slow Sunday...

Well it has been a typical weather week in Ohio... we've had sunshine and 60's and rain and 40's and snow and 30's... and personally I'm done with the rain and the snow... I'll be sending a memo to Mother Nature although I think she blocked me...LOL

When the weather was sunny and in the 60's my lawn guy was able to install all my paver edging around my garden beds and it looks FABULOUS!!  I love the color of the stone which will age and darken over time and the edging will sink a bit too but that will be also be fine....starting from the side yard... oh the chickens were black metal when I purchased them and I painted them... may get a couple more... 

around to the front...

and a view from the corner...

as you can see I have tons of flowers coming up... 

got a couple of daffodils blooming and those irises are gorgeous...I'm not a purple person but I love it in the Spring... I'm seeing leaves for daffodils and for something else I planted but I'm not sure what it is... I'm betting on a pleasant surprise in a week or two... I checked the blog and I had daffodils starting to bloom this time last year too... The winters seem to be getting milder and I'm all for that ... the older I get the less I like snow... or cold... or ice... I totally understand the desire to go to Florida during January and February...

I broke the news to my lawn guy that we are going to have to un-install the large raised bed... this sucker is 4 ft wide and 24 ft long... sheesh what was I thinking? 

  Oh yeah I was thinking I wanted as much space as possible for dahlias... and I still want a lot of space, but maybe I don't really need this much space. So I sort of have a plan for the reworking of this raised bed... I ordered 4 of these metal raised beds...6 ft long 3 ft wide and 2 feet tall. 

 I dithered over what color... couldn't make up my mind...light green? terra cotta? white?  indecision, indecision... finally hit the button and picked the wood grain... yeah I know it is  bit fakey... it reminds me of the wood grain paneling on the side of the 1970 Plymouth station wagon I learned to drive on...well I kinda learned to drive on it, till the day I almost wiped about a half a dozen trash cans... my father then purchased a used 1964 Plymouth Valiant with push button transmission... it looked like this one ... easier to drive and definitely easier to parallel park...I loved that  the little car... oh where was I ? oh yeah,  back to the decision about the color of the raised beds... I decided on the brown because the trim on my house is brown, the shutters are brown, the roof is brown and all the pots I've bought for the landscaping are brown... thought I'd just stick with that theme.

As for quilting and sewing I did get all the rows sewn together on my Kaffe Spool quilt and took it to Delinda for long arm quilting... she does such a great job... picked out a swirly panto and a shiny green thread...

A close up of some of the blocks...

Only got a couple more of the Stack N Whack blocks done...then got side tracked by another shiny thing... I want to make this Layer Cake Loop quilt with the two layer cakes of Cathe Holden's Vintage Soul ... here's the fabric.... very retro 70's!! ahh, sweet youth... here's the fabrics... they are digitally printed and looked like crewel embroidery and crochet!

 

Shouldn't take long to cut it out but other stuff got in the way...You can find the free pattern here ...  and here's the overall design,

indecision, indecision...should I shift back to the Stack n Whack or play with the Layer Cake... hmmm...  to be determined...

And last week I talked about banishing the snowmen and bringing out the Spring decor... I got some cute new bunnies and adorable cabbages I want to display... and when I woke up on Friday morning I laid in bed and determined I was going to start before Friday was over putting things away... and then I listened to the weather forecast which called for snow on Saturday... arghhh... do I really want to put them away if there is more winter to come?  or do I want to ignore winter and move on?  indecision, indecsion... as the forecast changed throughout the day and the "snow event" morphed into less than a half an inch of accumulation expected, I decided to go ahead and get out the Spring stuff... weather update... we didn't even get a quarter of an inch... some dusting on people's roofs and  a tiny bit of frosty stuff in my flowers beds... shessh...

So I got to it Friday night... took 35 hours but as of today the snowmen are safely tucked away in their plastic bins and the Spring decor is strewn all over the living room...  gotta get it all done before Elliott comes over on Tuesday... a deadline is a good thing for indecision! Now I'll  futz a while about where to place stuff...each year I try to come up with a new arrangement... not sure why... no body is going to remember exactly what it looked like last year and no body is going to complain. Each season when I start I dither and then finally just start putting stuff on shelves... as of Saturday evening I haven't gotten past the futzing and dithering stage. I did get all the quilts out and found places for them... on the backs of chairs and the sofa, a stack by the wall quilt, out on the sunroom porch, a stack on the shelving unit, a bunch in the laundry cart... they look good and they aren't all in the exact same place as last year... yeah me!! 

I've been watching various videos about the new releases at the upcoming Needlework Market... a couple have caught my eye... there are 2 new ones from Blackbird and I'll be adding those to my stash. In the meantime we all know that COLLECTING charts is a totally separate hobby than actually  STITCHING charts... and I'm much more productive where collecting comes in. These new charts snuck in last week..

I plan to do this Quaker Stocking as a long rectangle instead of a stocking... 

And this one from Threadworks Primitives caught my eye with that kinda quilty design...

And I was watching flosstube and I dozed off and when I woke up this chart from The Drawn Thread was on my screen... I took it as a sign from the cross stitch gods, LOL.... turns out it was an exclusive to the retreat at the Silver Needle in OK... well a bit of searching turned up a copy of this on ebay... and yes I paid too much but I LOVE it!   A house tucked in a group of flowers PLUS and alphabet!!! Be still my beating heart!!   Now it was charted for silks but I'll pick my colors from DMC.. can't wait to add this to my Spring/Summer displays.

And wait there's more... I've been admiring all the Tiny Town charts from Heart in Hand Designs and finally succumbed to their charm and ordered this one... I have plans to display it in a tray on my dining room table... already got the DMC flosses and want to paint some fabric for it ASAP.

 I don't remember where I saw this book of French samplers... I think it was on IG and bought it on Etsy...

I love the traditional design look of these samplers and may stitch a motif or two from them...

What to start first... the Drawn Thread piece?  The Tiny Town? The bunny head basket one from WTN&T that I got last week?   indecision, indecision... In the meantime my Catholic guilt says FINISH what you are already working on... and I did get a bit more down on the Prairie Schooler Garden sampler... 

my goal is to finish this before the end of the month... I got 5 days... I'm still dealing with indecision about the garden gate... I started backstitching it in a very pale gray, DMC 168, and I've changed my mind several times this week as to whether I like it or not... I could frog it and stitch it in DMC 169, which is a lighter gray than what is called for... indecision, indecision... and then I tell myself Carol, this is just a cross stitch sampler, it ain't world peace... make up your mind!!  Oh I'm very forceful with me, but I don't seem to listen well...LOL

Next week is looking good... Elliott on Tuesday, lunch with the quilty ladies on Wednesday, dinner on Thursday night with a friend from my sons' grade school days, we were PTA  president and vice president for years... lots of fundraisers under our belts, and lunch with other friends on Friday... the weather overall is going to be more Spring like than Winter, and I watched a long range forecast that thought the worse was behind us... fingers crossed they are correct. 

Hope you have a good week ahead too... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and check out the pretties there... and hope to finish up my decorating today and have Nick take the empty-ish bins back to the basement... and maybe get in a bit of sewing and/or stitching!

happy stitching-

carol fun