Happy Mother's Day!

 Hello - well it was one of those weeks where I wondered, what happened to my week??? I had 3 medical appointments  and I juggled a plumbing guy, a paint removal guy and a fence guy... not literally, but figuratively LOL...things were busy.  The plumber put a new faucet in the bathroom, the paint removal guy got the years old paint overspray around my window boxes removed, and the fence guy is finally getting me an installation date for the fence ... but that only happened after I was informed that the receipt I got when I charged the downpayment for the fence wasn't an approval... I had put in the CC code incorrectly and while it said it was a receipt I didn't notice where it said "not approved"... sheesh... you'd think if the charge didn't go through they'd send a notice of that, not a receipt which leads one to believe that you paid... argghh.. now still on my agenda is getting the windows washed on the outside and the blinds cleaned on the inside and the porch/front door landing done.  So I've been keeping other people busy... as for me... well I got a few things done.

Let's start outside... as of Sunday we've had three whole days with NO rain... I don't remember the last time that happened. Do you recall that new sprinkler system I had put in?  I have yet to have the occasion to turn it on... maybe this week?  I did get some stuff planted up...

First the display of petunias... I'm LOVIN' this...

There are 20 different varieties of petunias here and I think all but 2 are Proven Winners... gosh there are some gorgeous varieties  available these days. I have fond memories of planting petunias with my Grandma and my 2 Great Aunts... but back in those olden days the only colors were white, pink, red and purple.. and we planted all of those colors together. 

I got this big planter filled in... starting with the flowers up front, I'm really into that purply-orange osteospermum... or African Daisy... this variety by Proven Winner is called Bright Lights... and I tucked in some Persian Shield (that the purple leaf stuff) and  some lime-y green coleus... and some other stuff I forget what they are called.... 

I put this planting arrangement together...a cordyline, some PW petunias, some coleus and that caladium in the middle... love it!  Behind this is a grass plant that usually gets about 6 ft tall and will make a nice background for it.

I have several other big pots I'm working on but I splurged on two of these for next to the garage... 

I wanted something already in full bloom and I just plopped the whole shebang  into the larger pots... I need to save the pot these petunias are in and use them in the future to plant the bigger ones instead of filling the bigger ones with dirt... less messy. 

And here's what is waiting for me...

I keep reminding myself Rome wasn't built in a day and I'm not going to get this all planted up in a day... but I want to!!   However at the moment my left knee is not cooperating... one of my medical appointment was to the ortho doctor and we agreed to do the PRP,  platelet rich plasma shot... but I can't get it till in June as they are already booked up for this month... sigh... trying my best to avoid knee replacement surgery as long as I possibly can. 

As for crafty stuff  I did get all the block sewn for the 18 patch Jelly Roll quilt...

but I didn't get them sewn together yet... nor did I get the binding on the yellow quilt I want to hang on the living room wall.... but as Scarlett declared,  tomorrow is another day or maybe next week... LOL

I got a little stitching done... I was distracted all week by other stuff and spent too much time doom scrolling... but I managed to finish The Robins are Here! by WTN&T. Don't they look dapper?

And I finished the stitching on Pinkernpunkinquilting's Marcher of the Flag.... another freebie from the incredibly generous Melisa!

This was a leftover piece of  Aida I had painted for another project...  and I love how the yellow is in just the right spot to highlight the flag...  now to get these pieces FFO'd!

When I was thinking ahead about things I wanted to stitch last week I totally blanked on Mother's Day... I have a tradition of starting a new project on Mother's Day totally guilt free... and I looked back to what I started last year and it is still languishing... sigh... and while I could work on this again, after all this is my tradition and my rules... it just isn't talking to me... but this one is....Little House Needleworks Farmer's Market ABC's...

This is one I'd love to have for  this  summer... I've done all the other ones in the series and they are a quick fun stitch... 

Oh I got some framing done.... and it looks awesome!  I used a new to me framer Lisa of L&M Framing. She is local to me in the Greater Cincinnati area and I dropped these off to her but she does oodles of mail order business... here's her website and you can see lots of stuff she's framed... and here's her Instagram... I wasn't able to get out to pick up the finished framing so I had her mail it to me and damn that girl can pack ... both pieces arrived in perfect shape..

First is Red Bird Sampler by With Thy Needle & Thread.... now I stitched this on linen I dyed with Aquamarine dye and I added the alphabet at the bottom because my definition of a sampler is that it has to have an alphabet!! This was is very apropos to show for Mother's Day... my initials are in the body of the piece next to those pots of flowers ... and my Mom's, PF and my Grandma's, CW are on the bottom. 

And this is Fragments in Time 2022 from Summer House Stitche Works... this is one of those pieces that is released as 8 little cardstock charts and then the border is a freebie on her website... I dyed this linen  with some concoction of Rit dyes and stitched it with a DMC conversion... I love this one so much that it makes me want to start another version ... 

I did the one from 2014...

and I have the charts for  at least 2 other years... tempting, tempting...

Oh Lisa has lots of finished projects she's done on her website but she is taking a summer break... spending time at some family property... and won't be back till in September or so... keep that in mind... I'm definitely going to have several things to send to her when she returns.

So the plan for today is to have brunch at my older son's house ... he orders the great spread from a local restaurant that does these yummy meals... there's a breakfast casserole and some bacon with a sugar glaze and fruit and yogurt and bagels and lox and other stuff I forgot... it comes prepped ... you just have to pop some stuff into the oven ... he's done this the last couple of years and it makes it easy on his wife and the mother of his child and for me and my DIL's Mom... 

This afternoon I'll probably putz in the yard...those flats of flowers aren't gonna plant themselves... and I'll do a little stitching ... and Nick already prepped a little Mexican chicken dinner for us yesterday that he'll pop in the oven... maybe we'll go down to the local soft serve ice cream place too... they have orange Dole Whip this week... one of my favs...

While I was cleaning a couple of weeks ago I came across some evening bags of my Mom's that I had saved... I  let go of them as I have no occasion to use them but before I did I opened them and found some jewelry and this little pin that flooded me with memories...

My brother and I pooled our money one Mother's Day and purchased this little flower pot pin for my Mom from Marsue's Gift Shop in the Newport Shopping Center in Newport KY... I don't remember exactly what year but I'm thinking I was about 12 so that would make it 1965... it obviously meant a lot to my Mom that she saved it ... it wasn't expensive (cause we didn't have much money) but it was a heartfelt gift and memory.  Right now I have it propped up on my dresser so I see I every day... I miss my Mom and my Grandma... my Mom has been gone for 45 years ... she was only 47 when she passed... and my Grandma left this earth 33 years ago in her 84th year... they both  loved sewing and crafty stuff and gardening and made me the person I am today... and on this Mother's Day I say special prayers for them and hope that I've made them proud and that my children will remember me with the same love I have for these 2 wonderful women.... 

and with that I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and Quilting is More Fun than Housework... and I hope that you have a wonderful Mother's Day and make some memories!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Thinking ahead on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - well another week has gotten away from me and this one wasn't nearly as productive as the last one... but that's what  I expected. At my age a high level of activity is not sustainable for more than a couple of days...LOL  

Now I did get a few things done but there are still plenty of projects on my list.  

Over the weekend I got all the Easter decor put away. I was determined it would all fit back into 2 bins and it did after I jettisoned about a dozen knick knacks that I haven't used in years. Then I turned my attention to putting out Spring-y stuff and my bird collection... I do LOVE birds!  I started with the idea I'd just recreate the displays I had last year but that went off the rails pretty quickly and the arrangements I came up with are about 90% different than last year... and I like them... but this takes waaaaay longer to do... lots of moving stuff from place to place and dithering and adding things and taking things away ... I swear I walked 2 miles and never left the living room!  Now I'm not totally done as I never did get around to putting a binding and sleeve on the quilt I want on the wall ... but I'm happy with what I'm looking at and the bins are back into the basement. There will be more purging when I put this stuff away as I still had a bin full of decor left over... obviously it isn't all vital stuff... 

And speaking of the decor here is a bit of it... my small shelf display...

Up top  I picked up some new flowers for that vase at HL and there's a cute little bird pulling a wagon of flowers from Homespun Elegance... Delivering Posies... if you have minute go check out her Etsy shop... several of her charts fell into my cart...LOL..

I left up my little tulip quilt and parked a small pillow snippet from Pineberry Lane's Tansy Yarrow Rue chart in front of it.  I'm a big fan of the primitive quality  of Pineberry Lane but not much into the color palette so I brightened this up.

Middle shelf from left to right has the full version of Tansy Yarrow Rue, again with a palette change...

a little field of yellow tulip knick knacks and  Good Deeds from With Thy Needle and Thread... notice the big tulips in this piece... love them!

Bottom is Because It's Spring by Wendy Peatross, a recent  McCoy pottery acquisition, love the bird on this one...

and a little sampler with tulips from the OOP Blackbird Design book Thank You Sarah Tobias... the chart is called Pins & Tulips Pincushion and I stitched the back and front as one piece.

 Next to the TV I've got another little display... I LOVE this vase... it may be McCoy but it doesn't have a clear mark on the bottom... when you put flowers in it they just arrange themselves so nicely... I picked up this marked down $2 bunch of alstroemeria at Krogers... the color is gorgeous and they last a long time so I'm definitely getting my money's worth here...

the pear is from the Annie Beez pattern Spring Green Pears...  I want to stitch more of these and I have a bunch of the pear patterns in my stash. 

And speaking of stash... as I was putting away the Easter stuff and getting out the Spring-y bird stuff I jumped to thinking ahead  about my next display which will be patriotic... I want to get that stuff out mid- June ... so I pulled out my bag of patriotic charts and found that I had several pieces that were almost finished... sheesh... so I picked them back up..  this one Patriotic Tiny Town only needed one roof and one chimney and then all of those backstitched stars...

I know how I'm going to finish this one and it shouldn't  take a lot of time.

Then I turned my attention to this one by Melisa of Pinkernpunkinquilting ... the Marcher of the Flag... 

gosh I do love stitching on Aida ... I know that Aida isn't the style right now but it is so comforting... as I recall Melissa said this piece was in honor of her daughter who was in the Air Force... I painted the Aida  and it came out so pretty IMHO.

And I even put a couple of stitches into this one... American House Sampler by Annie Beez... I only got a hold of this chart late in July last year... it was sold out everywhere... 

now I'm making changes (when don't I make changes...LOL) and instead of the house being white it is going to be yellow... like my house... right now I'm thinking DMC 3821... 

I've decorated the living room in red, white and blue for years but this year I want to extend that decor to my sunroom porch...so I need a few more pieces... I was cruising ebay and found a couple of Debbie Mumm patriotic pieces I've never seen before... still deciding what I might purchase... and I want to do something large... which I've narrowed down to thes 5 choices (not very narrow is it?) 

First is God Bless America by Erica Michaels... 98 x 177...

Next The Pledge of Allegiance by Crocette a gogo...131 x 275 

And this one, e pluribus unum by jan hicks creates!...114 x 171   

 And last but not least...  Allegiance...185 x 128

 and the whopper ... 1776 Sampler ...225 x253

These last two are both from the book Hello America by Teresa Kogut.

I'll think about my choice as I work on the other 2 pieces and I thumb through the rest of my patriotic stash... so many I'd like to stitch!

Well the week ahead is mildly busy...errands to run on Monday, Elliott on Tuesday, Wednesday the dental procedure that was scheduled for last Thursday and then got cancelled by the dentist at the last minute... oh and I'm supposed to dinner with a friend that night... hope I'm up to it... so far nothing on  Thursday and Friday. 

I haven't gotten anything potted up from last week... and I need to clean out the window boxes of the dead stuff. I put a down payment on a fence for my backyard... and dealt all week with the bureaucracy of my local government to get a $25 permit to have it installed. I think I got them all the documents they wanted. Had a guy come and look at the mess I made with spray paint around my window boxes a couple of years ago... tip: spray paint goes everywhere.!!.. now when the boxes are full you don't see the overspray but it is very evident right now ... the company that came does graffiti removal and says they have a process to remove the paint from brick... I researched it and there is a chemical spray you can get that I thought I'd try, but then I thought it through... chemical spray, me on a ladder, scrub brush, hose... doesn't sound like an activity I should  engage in.  Gonna leave it to a professional. 

Indoors there is still cleaning and purging to do and as I mentioned before (I"m hoping if I repeat this enough times it will motivate me...LOL) the quilt for the living room wall still doesn't have a sleeve or a binding...sigh... Hopefully I will get some things accomplished but as I type this all I want to do is sit on the porch and stitch and watch the birds at my bird feeder... (ok I wanted to insert a picture here but for some reason blogger is balking)  

oooh another tip... a baffle under the bird feeders is quite the squirrel deterrent.  Here's what it looks like, I got it on Amazon. Now everything I read said it needed to be 6 ft off the ground... this is only about 5 ft... and the feeder is about 7 ft from the house... I thought they may still try to propel themselves off the side of the house but I haven't observed that and I haven't seen a squirrel at my bird feeders all week!!  Why didn't I do this years ago?? I've bought several "squirrel proof" feeders that didn't seem to deter them and the birds didn't want to eat from them... this was a simple $20 fix... live and learn... 

Well I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... it has been stormy all weekend so it is perfect weather to stay inside and cozy on the sunroom porch... my idea of a great time!  Hope you have a great time doing whatever you want to do this coming week!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Pulled in multiple directions on a Slow Sunday..

 Hello - well that week certainly got away from me... I've been pulled in multiple directions by several different projects in the yard, in the house and in the crafty realm.  I'm having a hard time prioritizing what should I do next, cause I want to do all of it!!! Right now!!! LOL

The weather has taken a definite turn to Spring, which means... it's time to hit the garden centers!  Now I've only gotten to 3 so far... a slow start.. but I have plans lots of plans as there are several different categories of plants I'm interested in this year.. 

I started with my favorites... petunias and verbena... it is hard to judge from the picture but this wagon was BIG...

and  in this wagon are 24 4" verbena plants... I got 12 in the Peachy Keen variety and 12 in the Amethyst Sparkler variety... there are 15 different petunias... 3 Persian Shield, 4 osteospermum , 4 cuphea and 4  Nemesia... some of these are new to me plants. 

I would have gotten more plants but that was about all I could fit in the back of my Subaru... I forgot to take out Elliott's car seat and that takes up a lot of space.... 

The next day I hit what is probably the largest garden center in the area and came home with 20 cleome, a flat of asparagus ferns, a flat of dusty miller, 2 False Indigo Baptisia in the colorway Sparkling Sapphire and 3 more petunias.

And then on Saturday I returned to the first garden center and bought 10 more petunias... definitely a binge buying bonanza... good thing I don't drink, smoke, do drugs or gamble...LOL

Now when I bought all these pretties the 10 day forecast didn't have a low temperature below 40... but as of typing this on Saturday evening there are 3 days, a week out, that have lows in the 30's ... drat!! I know I'm pushing it... Mother's Day is the 11th and around here the last day for a frost is usually the 15th... soooo instead of planting anything I'm staging stuff and keeping things on my covered patio and in my garage overnight till I can be more certain it isn't going to kill all my new pretties

I've staged this planter on the edge of my patio...

And I'm working on the petunia display... 

If I counted correctly there are 23 different varieties of petunias... I'm going to do each shelf as a colorway but in looking at this picture I think I'm going to switch the pink shelf and the peach/orange shelf... I can't wait to get them into pretty ceramic pots but for the moment it is better to leave them like this as they will be easier to move to my garden wagon and take into the garage to protect them if those 30 degree temperatures materialize... it is a week away and I know how unreliable weather guys can be...sigh...

Since I put in the sprinklers it has rained again this week... mostly on Friday... and it's forecast to rain T/W/Th/ and maybe F... at this rate it's gonna be a while before I actually use them. 

I got an estimate for the privacy  fence ... 38 ft of 6 ft high vinyl  that never needs to be painted fencing with a gate that locks... I shot off the deposit for the project right away... hoping that will get started in the next week or two... I don't think it will take more than a day to install it.  Besides obscuring the view of my neighbors trashy yards it will give me a protected spot to start seedlings  and some rose bushes and hopefully re-route the deer. Win- Win!!

I spent hours on Saturday cleaning out my raised beds... on Wednesday I cleaned out the leaves which were all from my neighbor across the street's oak tree... and no sooner did I get that done than the 2 other neighbors to both sides of my house's maple trees started dropping those little whirlybird/helicopter seeds... thousands and thousands of them.. sometimes it looks like it is snowing they are coming down so fast... this is just one pile around my patio...

And they were all over the raised beds... and if I leave them they will sprout... so I went out and picked them out of the beds and then covered the beds with a weed preventing cloth... now when the rest of them fall I'll be able to sweep them off ... and I'm hoping it will help the soil warm up faster...but this was a tedious back breaking job that has my hands aching ... time for some ibuprofen... 

The end product of that project...

There are 6 beds... each is 3 ft wide by 6 ft long... sooooo... I picked helicopters out of 108 sq feet ...yikes! ...no wonder I'm sore. 

Around the house I finally got the motivation to do some Spring cleaning... I cleaned out all the drawers in the furniture in the living room and one drawer in the kitchen. I attacked my closet and went through about 75% of it and these 5 well stuffed bags went to Goodwill.

I got into my crafty room upstairs and sorted out and filed the stacks of cross stitch patterns I've been tossing in there... very satisfying.. and there was a huge basket of floss - DMC, Crescent Colors, Weeks Dye Works - that needed to return to their proper storage containers. Glad to have a bit of control over that room again, but that took waaaaay longer than I thought it would.

As you might guess from what I've been showing you,  I wasn't very crafty this week... probably because I was too pooped from cleaning and garden shopping and garden cleaning ...LOL  But I did find time to start a new piece... Here Come the Robins by WTN&T...

I do loves me some animals dressed is spiffy outfits... 

This will be so cute in my upcoming display of bird stuff... which I had hoped to start working on yesterday but it didn't happen... all my Easter stuff is still up ... maybe by next week I'll have the bird stuff out... maybe...

Here's where I am on the 18 patch Jelly Roll quilt...

I'm going with the 5 x 7 block layout so it is longer than it is wider... a better size for throwing over a chair... I need 7 more blocks... with all the rain forecast for this upcoming week there should be some sewing time ... I'd like to get this off the design wall and I have a a pile of quilts still waiting to be bound. 

In my defense the week was busy along with all my shopping and cleaning activities ... dinner on Monday night with friends, Elliott on Tuesday, lunch on Wednesday with my quilty lady friends, on Thursday garden shopping and I had to have a plumber come for a stopped up bathroom sink, and my financial planner came on Friday for our semi-annual review... heck it is a wonder I got anything done at all ...LOL

Today we're taking Nick out for his 35th birthday... how did he get that old??? Tomorrow which is his birthday he's doing lunch with a friend... Elliott's other Grandma asked me to swap her days this week so I don't have him till Wednesday... Thursday I have a dental procedure... ugh... but so far Friday looks open...and I know I'd like to do more garden shopping... the fence it going to allow me to play with roses ... and I want David Austin roses but not everyone has them... as I recall there is a garden center on the other side of town that carries them, so I need to go and check them out... and I'd love to get my window boxes planted up... I need Nick's help for that as I have to get up on the ladder for 3 of the 5 and I feel safer if he's kinda holding on ...but that may have to wait  on the weather.

So who knows what I'll actually get done this week... right now I have so many things I want to do...along with more Spring cleaning (the kitchen pantry needs attention) I bought a new rug and some new drapes for my bedroom, but the drapes need to be steamed and putting down the new rug mean moving all the furniture and taking up the old rug... so by my reckoning  I want to clean, garden, re-decorate, sew, and stitch.... and nap... I like napping too... for a little while in the afternoon... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and Quilting is More Fun than Housework... the guy who is going to put in one more landscape light fixture is suppose to come today... and our dinner reservation is early  so I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do today... maybe start putting away the Easter stuff ... or get a binding on one of the quilts piled up in my sewing studio... hope your week ahead has time in it to do all the stuff you want to do!!

happy stitching-

carol fun  

Happy Easter!! on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - Happy Easter!!  I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet as you are probably busy with other stuff today... As you read this I should be preparing a prime rib roast and deviling some eggs for lunch... Nick and I are headed to Chris and Jenny's house to celebrate with Elliott and with Jenny's parents... should be a very nice day...

The weather seems to be creeping every so much closer to real Spring... I'm itching to replant my window boxes and fingers crossed this may be the week. I'm planning on doing something different than just petunias this year... I want to use that Proven Winner's Peachy Keen verbena ... but I need like 24 plants so I'll have to see if I can find that many... maybe have to do the Peachy Keen mixed with another color verbena or maybe some white or light purple petunias... I think that would be pretty and different... 

And I've come up with another outdoor project... I have a guy coming on Thursday to give me an estimate on a privacy fence... so I don't have to look at the mess in my neighbor's back yard anymore... there are 2 grills and neither has been touched in at least 2 years... and a wooden swing set that hasn't been played on either... anyway I want the privacy and I want a gate at the end to hopefully deter the deer from walking behind the house and near my raised beds... and if that works out the way I want I think I could do a raised bed of roses... particularly David Austin roses or other brands where the roses look more like peonies... English roses... I LOVE them... but so do the deer... you'd think the thorns would  deter them... but the don't. Anyway I'm excited for this... 

As for crafty stuff ... I got a couple more blocks done on the 18 patch JellyRoll quilt on Tuesday when Elliott was here... he wanted to play downstairs and it gave me time to sew... I think I need 8 or 9 more blocks and that will be enough... as for cross stitch I worked a bit on The Daily Reminder by With Thy Needle and Thread... I'll show pics of these next week.

And here is the last piece of my Easter decor... the little apple green shelf unit on the sunroom porch.. the weather was nice enough to sit out there on ... even opened the windows and let some fresh air in... 

At the top I have a new vase I bought from William Sonoma...I saw this about a month ago on someone else's blog and I told myself that was it was too stinking cute...it was pricey... and I didn't NEED it... but I WANTED it ... and then I caved in and bought it... a gift to me!! LOL... I have one of Melisa of PinkernPunkinquilting's  wonderful houses in the middle ... this one is called Tulip House...  I stitched it on 16ct Aida I painted with Apple Green Rit Dye... I love that it is a yellow house and I love the quilt on the side of the house!

In the middle is part of my collection of bunny heads... just the heads.. similar to my collection of Santa heads...just the heads... and snowmen heads...just the heads... sounds kinda gruesome but I'm going with it...LOL  I tucked in my latest FFO from With Thy Needle and Thread, Hoppy Easter... 

And on the bottom shelf... more bunny heads and I kept out the green tone on tone sampler Bower Birds by Hello from Liz Matthews and tucked in the Hippity pillow from WTNT Jellybean Jubilee... I'm happy to enjoy this display on the porch...

I think I'll banish the bunnies at the end of the week and bring out my bird stuff for May ... and then about mid June I'm going to do the patriotic stuff... I love having the different seasonal displays because I get bored looking at the same stuff all the time... I think back on my childhood and the decor stayed pretty much the same all year long except for some extra decorations at Halloween and Christmas... but I don't think I could limit myself like that anymore... so many cute things I'm happy that I own ... I'm so lucky to have the space to display them and the space to store them... 

So I hope this finds you having a lovely Easter... like I said we're headed to Chris and Jenny's at noon.. and after a big meal we'll sit and talk for a while and then I'll come home and take a nice nap... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and talk to you next week...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

PS... by my reckoning this is a SHORT post...LOL!

That didn't go like I thought it would on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - well last week flew by and lots of things didn't go like I thought they would... I had an appointment or  dinner plans every day last week... some things went better than I expected and others certainly did not. The dinner plans were better than expected... lots of great conversation and fun ... the doctor's appointments left something to be desired... the retinal specialist is a lovely woman but punctuality is not her strong suite... now I expected it to be a long appointment as they dilated my eyes and I had to do some testing but waiting for almost an hour by myself in a darkened exam room was not how I thought it would go. Luckily I did have some knitting with me to pass the time and she said my eyes were fine.... come back in a year. 

My primary care doctor appointment took a fraction of the time the retinal specialist did ... and  nothing happened. The nurse took my vitals, reviewed my meds and chatted... the doctor came in, asked the exact same questions and listened to my heart and lungs and said come back in 6 months. Took less than 5 minutes... I got more attention from the front desk receptionist. Think it's time to find a new primary. I was assigned to this doctor when my previous primary left the practice... I really like my previous primary...never felt rushed and she always asked a question or two about what was going on in my life... I'm sure it was in her notes but she'd ask about my gardening or my hobbies or my son... a personal connection... and I like that and don't think it is too much to ask ... like I said, time to find a new primary care doctor.

So to distract myself from those annoyances I did get some crafty stuff done... I worked a bit on the new WTN&T piece, A Daily Reminder.... 

Excuse the wrinkles... I really like doing those big Smyrna crosses!  Now lots of these flosses have a low contrast to the linen I'm using... gives this piece a very different look from the cover picture...I got the Crescent Colors Queen Bee floss on Friday to do the house... that will brighten this up... and  I think the outside satin stitch border will really make this piece pop... but it's going to be a while before I get to it... I plan to stitch that last so it doesn't get fuzzy from handling the piece.

The only sewing I did was making a pillowcase for Elliot's birthday party yesterday... I put Christmas gifts and birthday gifts in a pillowcase as a way to wrap up his gifts... this time I used a fabric with robots... he's into robots right now. 

Didn't get any more blocks done on the 18 patch Jelly Roll quilt.... maybe later today I'll sew up a few more. I did sit down and write down a list of projects I want to get to... bunch of quilts that need bindings ... and a bunch of precuts I've purchased... I made the list because there are 2 Kaffe Fassett jelly rolls sitting on a shelf that I bought not that long ago... and I had something specific in mind for them... and now I can't for the life of me remember what that project was. So I'm going to take some notes ... try to keep track of projects I've seen that I want to do... like a version of the Peanut Butter quilt... this is a  free pattern ... go here and then scroll down where you see Quilt Pattern.... you have to put in your email but you can get a PDF sent to you... I'm thinking yellow sashing and blue cornerstones and low volumes ... and I saw a pattern called Cheese Platter... which you can see here... and I'm thinking of using my Tilda stash and low volumes for it... and there is the Lori Holt quilt I started a month ago and the American Jane quilt that I started a year ago and it made a brief appearance a couple of weeks ago... so many shiny things that catch my eye...LOL

I got 4 Easter cross stitch pieces FFO'd... in the nick of time... this is Hoppy Easter by With Thy Needle & Thread... I finished the stitching last Easter but never got around to FFO- ing it. I stitched this on a pink linen but it isn't showing up as pink as it is in real life... 

I used chenille trim from Lady Dot Creates in the color Snow on the outside.

And I closed the slit on the back with a carrot ... I really like that touch!

I also finished the 3 Lori Holt Easter charts I stitched in March... 

I kept these simple... a little pompom trim and some floral fabric ... further down this post you'll see how I displayed them... something a little different. 

As for my Easter displays here are the 2 in my living room... first the "small" shelf unit... a nice selection of cross stitch and knickknacks and a little quilting...

Up top there is Lizzie Kate's Spring Alphabet... I love it on the pale blue linen... 

and opposite the sampler is my little tulip quilt ... this was a free pattern on the FQS blog ... start here and you can see the block... click underneath that picture and it will take you to the website where you can download the pdf for all the block in the QAL project... this was block No. 24.  I want to make a quilt with this block in the larger size someday... maybe after I get to the 4 or is it 5 other tulip quilt patterns I want to sew up...LOL

On the shelves below on the left side, I've got a flock of yellow ducks in assorted sizes... and the cross stitch bunny driving a carrot car is from the pattern Spring Parade by Lila Studio.

On the right side  the basket of tulips has a Lizzie Kate piece from the pattern Spring Smalls  and the pink bunny in the pink frame is Egg Hunt by Emily Call... and my ever growing fleet of carrot cars! 

Here's the big display... so hard to get a good picture of a large rectangular object into a square format but I try...

From the top... some old stuff and some new stuff....

Here's where I displayed the new Lori Holt Easter pieces... this is a McCoy pottery bulb planter ... a vintage pieces that I love!

Below left to right...2/3rds of a chart from Blackbird Designs called Breath of Spring...this is OOP as far as I know... and I love the foil wrapped bunnies... they look like they are real chocolate, but they aren't... which is good because I'd probably have eaten them by now...LOL

in the middle is Sampler Hill  by With Thy Needle & Thread..  I like how the alphabet is lurking in the hill and as I recall there were 100 tulips in that border. 

Moving down...Easter Rabbits from Stitchy Princess Black... I totally changed the color palette on this one... 

and  the Easter pillow is from WTN&T Jellybean Jubilee...

Wrapping up the cross stitch on this display is this tone on tone sampler called Tribute from the OOP Blackbird Designs book called Women of Grace and Charm....

and Ah Tis Spring from Notforgotten Farms with my favorite egg cup sporting bunny slippers!

I haven't finished re-doing the little bookshelf display on the sunroom porch... need to do that today and I'll post it next week...which will be a short and sweet post as it will be Easter Sunday... and how did it get here so quick?? I was focused on Elliott's birthday which was yesterday and now I need to get an Easter Basket together... I do have a couple of things but haven't gotten him a chocolate bunny yet... somewhere I saw one that was a Reese's peanut butter bunny... and he loves Reese cups... 

Weather last week was blah... couple more rainy days ... a peek of sun... one warm afternoon ... hoping for improvement this week... temperatures may be a bit warmer... perhaps a 60 degree day ... but MORE rain is predicted... Mother Nature ... it was a joke... just because I got the new sprinkler system installed doesn't mean you have to rain and rain and rain and rain. I talked to Kevin who's company installed the system and he said when I'm ready to use it he'd come and walk me through the process... the way this is going that's gonna a be a while. 

So far the only stuff on my calendar is Elliott on Tuesday and an appointment to get my teeth cleaned on Wednesday... perhaps I'll get some sewing done and maybe I'll find the motivation to do some straightening up and purging of carp in my house... I've been talking about it for weeks... and mentally I've cleaned out a closet and a chest of drawers... but in actual real life all I've done it look at the box of giant trash bags I bought... it is so much more pleasant to sit and stitch, isn't it??

Hope you have a good week ahead... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and see what's going on over there.

The birthday party festivities wore me out... gonna sit in my chair on the sunroom porch and stitch and probably take a nap too!

happy stitching-

carol fun