Projects inside and outside on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello ... well last week has me believing that Spring may have sprung...the trees are budding, the daffodils are blooming and the temperatures are warm enough  to open the windows and air out the house! I've been feeling energetic and bouncing around from project to project... but they aren't all crafty stuff ... I'm getting several outdoor projects started and that makes me happy! 

Here's how the week played out... after being cheated out of an hour's sleep which I haven't fully recovered from....I was still of the mind that I'd leave my snowmen up another week or so... but by Sunday afternoon, with the sun and the warm temperatures and the windows open in the house I knew that their time had come... so I banished them to their plastic storage bins and Nick carried them back down to the storage room. 

Monday he carried up the Easter stuff and I set to work making displays and getting the house looking all Spring-y... and here are a couple of pics... 

I went with the same wall quilt as I LOVE that yellow and pink combination... the fabric collection was Verna from Kate Spain and the pattern was Jelly and Jam from Fig Tree...

I got out the yellow tier tray and added more pink and yellow... 

up top is Be Hoppy by Emily Call ... who doesn't love a big pink bunny? And below in the tin  is Holiday Hoopla Easter by With Thy Needle & Thread... and another pink bunny....

Here's a look from across the room (and no the room isn't nearly as large as it appears in this picture)... I love this Stack N Whack quilt and it looks so good IMHO on the back of the green velvet couch...

Here are some close ups of the blocks... they were all made from the fabric that is the border. It is  Phillip Jacobs print called Brassica... which means cabbage... but when I whacked it, it looks more like roses... I call this my Coleslaw quilt...chopped cabbage... get it? Oh I crack myself up. 

An aside... they still make this print... and they make it in a bunch of colorways... you can see them here. 

Middle...

Left...

Right...

This is the easiest Stack N Whack... it is squares ... you only need 4 repeats and you have 4 different possiblities for each block. I went back through the blog and this is the best pic I can find of the total quilt... this was my design wall back in April of 2012.... time flies, doesn't it???

As I remember the bunny tier tray next to the TV came from Dollar Tree a couple of years ago... 

up top is a piece from Jelly Bean Jubilee by With Thy Needle & thread...  I stitched several from this booklet. 

and below are a bunch of bunnies from Prairie Schooler No. 178.

In the middle of the TV cabinet I have  more bunnies and more stitching... 

the little brown bunny in the arched flat fold is freebie from Pinker N Punkin called Bunny Jar.... and the framed piece is Spring from by Prairie Schooler No. 50. 

On the bottom is the  Spring chart from the booklet Seasons of the Heart by WTN&T and I stitched a teeny tiny pillow of the tulips from this same pattern.

Now I have a few more cross stitch pieces I want to add to the displays and that's what I worked on this week... three of the little stitch cards from Lori Holt...

the bunny and the carrots are from Set T and the tulips are from Set A... I went with the same border on all of them... but if I had paid attention I would have opted for the border from Set A... but I had the bunny and the carrots stitched before I realized I like the border on Set A more... oh well. 

I also pulled out Faith, Hope, Peace, Love from Teresa Kogut... th, some is is a Patreon chart and as far as I know it hasn't been released yet... 

Now I'm changing all the colors starting with the linen, which I dyed with Rit Apple Green... this is charted in a very limited color palette... a couple of shade of blues and bunch of beiges and browns... it is nice but not my cup of tea... this isn't a great pic of the linen... it is prettier in real life... really it is...

I've picked a palette of blues, greens, coral/peach, and a bit of brown and beige. I started this in April of last year and I was agonizing over my color choices for each motif... but now that it has had time to "mature" I'm just kinda winging it... I love that it has all my favorite motifs ... birds, houses, flowers and an alphabet... I'm content to work on this for a while... hoping to get my Needlework Market orders this coming week and something there may change my plans... will have to wait and see...

As of the other projects that have been keeping me busy... I decided on a company for the sprinklers and drip irrigation. Put down a deposit. They sent out the crew that marks the underground utilities and are planning to start the job tomorrow, weather permitting and the forecast looks favorable.

Then with a recommendation from a friend I found a contractor who will do the porch/deck/landing for the front door area. He has done a ton of work on my friend's house and her house is gorgeous. It's not a big job like her home was but he said he'd likes having the small jobs too. No date set for the start of this project, but it would be better for the sprinkler project to be finished before he starts as they would be getting in each other's way.

My lawn guy is going to have his employee start on my raised beds ... and as soon as the sprinklers are done he's going to work on re-seeding my lawn... it is a mess... the hot dry summer did a number on it along with my lackadaisical watering... new grass seed and fertilizer and sprinklers that are on a timer should make a big difference. 

Oh and I have one more project I want to get to.. I want to get the blinds cleaned... they are so dusty ... I had a company come once before and the take down the blinds, take them out to their truck and clean them and then put them back up... all in a couple of hours... need to set that up too. 

And I'm having an urge to purge some stuff out of the house... picked up some big cardboard boxes at Costco and need to go through a bunch of my display stuff. I have a ton of risers and trays and knickknacks that I liked when I bought them... and some I've used  but some have never seen the light of day. I'm hoping this urge holds long enough to actually get stuff done... fingers crossed. 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... hoping to spend some time on the sunroom porch stitching... have a great week!

happy stitching-

carol fun