Some things out of place and some are missing on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - it was one of those weeks where I don't know where some of the days went to... how did I miss them?  I did get a few things done but it seems like I should have more to show for my time...sigh...

I'm going to start outside today... on the happy side I got an award from my little town for my yard full of flowers... the Deer Park Beautification Award... I've gotten this about 8 out of the 11 years I've been here and it makes me happy... ignore the lawn... last week I had I treated to kill the nut sedge...which it did but it also killed some of the grass too...I know it will get better, it just takes time...

Anyway, aagain this year it appears that the flowers are eating  my house... I overplant ... 

and I know it... 

but I can't stand empty spaces when I start putting things in the garden in the Spring and then they grow and multiply and other things grow and multiply that I didn't plant. Currently these are popping up in my garden beds...

the official name is Lycoris... but around here we call them naked ladies because they have to leaves... I have never bought or planted this flower ... I have no idea how it got into my garden ... and even though it isn't planted where I'd like it to be I will leave it be....

Also this year I have had an abundance of cleome popping up that I did not plant this year... it is a different variety from the ones I did plant... 

the larger flower in the foreground is a renegade... the smaller blooms  behind it are the ones I planted this year... I will say the smaller ones are very hardy and have hugely multiplied ... much more than I expected... and they don't tend to droop during the day like the larger bloom variety... BUT... I really LOVE the larger bloom ones... I planted them a year or so ago but I couldn't find that variety this year so I went with what I could get... and now the larger variety is popping up in places I would not have planted it... but I can't bear to rip them out... like these blush white ones...

so they are out of place and  they will stay that way... I do hope I can find the larger variety next year... or maybe some seeds... the larger variety has only emerged in the last month or so and has just taken off like a rocket. I only wish they were coming up in the back of the beds instead of the front where they are blocking out any view of other plants I put in... 

I also have a love/hate relationship going on with the zinnias I planted from seed... the package said they would be 8 to 12" tall ... it is a LIE... they are easily 24 to 36" tall and if I had known that I would NOT have planted them in the front of the beds... but again I can't bring myself to yank them out.  I planted a whole raised bed of what were according to the seed packet cactus zinnias... full and kinda shaggy... the are neither ... they look just like ordinary zinnias and they've gotten tall and floppy... why do I believe seed packets??  And I have a patch of weeds that is quite green and robust... it has a little yellow flower... and I'm leaving it alone for the moment but next year I think I will plant cleome there as it tend to take over... gonna try and crowd out the weeds... as a gardener hope springs eternal!!Blac

We did have a  little rain this week...not enough... and it is back to the upper 80's lower 90's... there is a forecast of rain Tuesday through Thursday on one of the weather apps on my phone (the other has no rain forecast) but I have as much faith in this as I do in the descriptions on seed packets. 

As for crafty stuff... my finish of the Noel Sampler spurred me to pick back up the Blackbird Design piece  The Sweet Birds Sing...

I wanted to add an alphabet at the bottom ... and I was going to graph something myself when I came across this alphabet in the book Thank You, Sarah Tobias... this is a OOP book but you can see the projects that are in it here...

I think it fits well with the style of the birds and it was an easy stitch... so being happy with my finish I went and ironed the piece and started to head out to the framer when I realized ...it was NOT finished...

you see that little Smyrna cross I circled... there are 29 more of those I need to add down the sides...sheesh... glad I found it in time... I have 2 samplers on my walls that I know of that are missing stitches ... I didn't see the omissions until long after they were framed ... so I try to be more watchful and be sure I didn't miss something... but it happens... 

Now thinking that I had the Sweet Birds finished I picked back up Teresa Kogut's Faith Hope Peace and Love...  I started this in May of 24 and the last time I stitched on it was April of this year and I should be able to get this done this month... this is a Patreon pattern that hasn't been released as far as I know...

Here's where I left off... the color of the linen is awful in this pic...

And here's where it is now...

The linen color is truer in this pic... think DMC  471 with a brown under tone. As you can see I changed the orientation of this chart and I  just have that last section to do.... oh and I need to re-do the letters  H I J K as they are in the wrong color floss. Now I was patting myself on the back that I had made copious notes about this piece as I've changed  almost every single color... it is graphed in a couple of shades of blue and tan and I "colorfied" it... however I had put this down for a while and in checking my notes I found out that I have notes that are totally contradictory... and it definitely took looking at this in natural light to realize that I stitched HIJK in a different floss than the rest of the alphabet... luckily it is the square with the fewest letters... 

Not sure what I'm going to work on next... maybe some Halloween or there's a new Tiny Town by Heart in Hand titled Quilted Tiny Town...

I want to add this to my Fall display... so it may be up next...

When I first looked at my calendar for next week  it looked wonderfully bare of engagements and then WHAM... now I have 3 places I need to be on Monday...two I'm looking forward to, one not so much... Elliott on Tuesday and I think this is the last Tuesday before school starts... Wednesday only one thing, working out with Anna... Thursday hoping to do lunch and some quilty stuff and Friday I have a funeral to attend... the Mom of a dear friend passed away last week.  

So I hope your upcoming week is a good one... only doing things you want to do... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... doing dinner with family that has come in town from California to visit... and hopefully some time to work in my garden and sit on my sunroom porch and watch the birds... I've been getting a ton of birds lately, mourning doves, purple headed martins, cardinals, blue jays and some sparrows... and yesterday I had a couple of hummingbirds that were feasting on the cannas and the pestamon... such fun to watch!

happy stitching-

carol fun