Things seen and unseen on a Slow Sunday...

Hello - well just as I expected last week was busy busy busy... I spent a lot of time waiting around for people to show up for appointments and none of them came on the day or the time I had written down...am I losing it?  or was this just a bunch of random stuff?

Dealing with the sprinklers and drip irrigation that I want for the yard, one guy came an hour early, another didn't show up on the day I expected, but texted the next day at the time we agreed on for the day before. But it was pouring down rain, so that got rescheduled for the following day... and he ended up being early too. And setting up the appointment for the"inspection of my HVAC, required me to call in between 7:30 and 8:30 am to find out when guy would arrive... I called (and if you know me I'm not a morning person so this was a pain in the butt for me to do)...he also arrived early and then it turned out that he didn't even need to come into the house so I'm not sure why it made any difference what time or day he came at all... and my personal trainer was sick so that appointment got cancelled.  A week of thinking stuff was going to happen on a certain time and day and none of it ended up that way... sheesh. 

Anymore if I know I have an appointment I'm not likely to start a task I don't think I'll have time to finish... so I spent a lot of the waiting around time doing nothing. I'm hoping this week will be better. Dan the handyman is coming today... but I bet he'll be late because the damn time changed last night... oh don't think I'll miss my semi-annual rant on the time change... we'll revisit this later.  On my calendar for this week is my cleaning lady, the gym with my trainer, Anna and dinner with friends on Monday...  physical therapy appointments for Tuesday and Thursday and a lunch on Wednesday with friends for the birthday of one of the group... cake and ice cream to follow at my house and I'm looking forward to that!!

So what did I accomplish this week. Well when last we met I said I was going to start a new tulip quilt... but I didn't ... instead I remembered some other flower blocks I started back in...let me check.. 2020... and while they briefly escaped from their plastic bag last July, I haven't touched this project for 5 years... I had 9 blocks completed and 1 more cut out... originally I was going to make this a bed size quilt...LOL... that idea has died... it is going to be a throw ... and right now I'm going with this layout... 3 blocks across and 4 blocks down... 

Setting the blocks on point and adding the plain blocks certainly pumps up the dimensions. I sewed up 1 more block and I have the last 2 cut out... instead of doing them mono-chromatic I'm making them super scrappy like this one...

I'm thinking maybe a narrow border and then a larger floral border... gotta see what I have yardage of in my American Jane stash. Oh the pattern for the block is called Fresh As a Daisy byt Pen and Paper Patterns and you can see it here...

As for cross stitch, I was able to to finish Vibrant Flowers by Kathy Barrick. 

notice I personalized it a bit...

 made the lady's eyes blue and her hair more red and I made it curly.. like a certain gardener I know ...LOL  

Then I was scrolling through IG and saw that someone had finished the Lizzie Kate Mystery sampler, Things Unseen.  I started this in 2014... bought it as a kit with the linen and the threads...  it came in 3 sections...and as far as I can tell the last time it saw the light of day was November of 2022... and as of today, it is almost done!

All I have left to do is to fill in every other space in the bottom border and sew on some pretty mother of pearl button to that basket of flowers! I'm not sure what has gotten into me... I keep thinking I want to start new projects but I'm getting pulled into projects that have been started years and years and years ago and are still hanging around... not sure why I'm compelled to tie up these loose ends... but I shall go with the flow at the moment. 

As I type this on Saturday evening I think I can finish this tonight... tomorrow at the latest.... Then, I do think I'm going to do a couple of small Easter pieces... I found an Easter Bunny I stitched last year that needs to be FFO'd and when I'm in that mood I like to do more than one piece... the ones I have in mind will only finish about 2" square. After that,  I'm going to pick back up one of my many many many WIPs.

 I pared down my list of stuff I wanted from the Needlework Market... ended up concentrating on the Brenda Gervais stuff and the Blackbird Design booklets and that long sampler from Little House Needlework. Had to buy from 2 different sellers as I couldn't find one who had everything I wanted. I expect I should get stuff in a week or so and that may be the impetus for a new start. 

As for decorating, I contemplated putting away the snowmen, but that's all I did... contemplate. It was still cold Thursday and Friday so I wasn't feeling "Springy"... Perhaps the end of this week will be a good time to return them to their plastic bins. However longing for Spring... and as I sat out on my undecorated sunroom porch I knew I had to do something to it... so I did... I changed out the quilts... 

I love the green Grunges in these quilts and the fabrics are vintage Momo but in a very Spring-y color palette. 

And then, I decorated the little apple green shelf unit... 

now this is a bit of a change for me as the cross stitch is secondary to all the pottery. I love 50's vintage pottery, particularly McCoy and Shawnee and I'm very fond of the greens and yellows of that era... and I really like how this turned out.

On the top, I have my Prairie Schooler March Daffodils Book No. 146.... which I think goes nicely with the lamb and that McCoy vase. I also think the silk daffodils are a nice addition. The pin pillow with the daffodil is Hello Spring from Sub Rosa. 

Middle shelf has three pieces of McCoy pottery... and two little pieces of cross stitch.. in the double tulip piece is Alphabet Birdhouse by Little House Needleworks and little girl is  freebie from Pineberry Lane called Wee Crowned Maiden which you can find here. Oh and I got that little bow tie quilt quilted... makes a nice accent to all this green and yellow... IMHO...

Bottom shelf had a cool McCoy pottery bowl, a pear from Annie Beez pattern Spring Green Pears.. and my version of Liz Matthews Bower Birds. 

If you enlarge the pics you can see the details better... I took some close ups but for some reason they haven't uploaded to my computer and it is late and I want to wrap this up. 

I usually do the porch in all bunny heads for Easter,  but I might leave this up another week or so and then bring the bunnies out here. The weather is suppose to improve dramatically... saw a forecast with 70's for T/W/Th/F... and I saw a robin eating a worm on my front lawn... a sure sign that the weather will improve, right??

And a tiny crocus popped through the mulch...

And the daffodils and hyacinths are about 6" tall... Spring is coming... it's coming... 

Ok - here's the time change rant... you can skip it if you want, but I think I make some pretty good points... if I say so myself ... and I do...

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I have been ranting about this for years and years and years and years... in the past I've said pick one and stick with it. Now I know exactly which one we should stick with and that is Standard Time... now I know a bunch of you will say  you want more hours of sunlight in the evening, but it turns out that Standard Time is better for our circadian rhythm. The brain has a master clock that's set by the exposure to sunlight and darkness. Morning light resets the rhythm. By evening, levels of the hormone melatonin begin to surge, triggering drowsiness... and who doesn't  need some help in falling asleep? 

Too much light in the evening (that "extra" hour from DST) delays that surge and the cycle gets out of sync. It also affects our heart rate, blood pressure, stress and metabolism...does that sound like a good thing? 

Right after the clock shifts in March, there's a spike in workplace accidents, road accidents and medical errors due to sleep deprivation and cognitive impairment, as reported by experts at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine... see I'm not the only one who thinks changing the time is not good for us. Be careful out there!!

A Gallup poll just last week said 54% of the US would prefer Standard Time. 

Now there are suggestions of how to adjust... like moving your meal times and bed times up 15- 20 minutes earlier starting the week before... but it's too late for that now... another suggestion is to go outside in the morning this week. The weather should cooperate here in my neck of the woods and when it is nice I like to sit on my sunroom porch in the morning and do my word puzzles. 

I'm not sure if this time change will ever stop... I'm definitely for Standard Time, but even Daylight Saving Time all the time would be better than this twice a year farce where we think we are getting more daylight. 

When told the reason for Daylight Saving Time the old Indian said, "Only the government would believe you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket". 

I agree with the old Indian... 

Hope your week ahead is a good one... and that you adjust to the time change... Arizona and Hawaii don't have this problem... we should be like them!

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and Quilting is Better than Housework...

happy stitching-

carol fun