Slow Sunday Stitching where much is contemplated and nothing is finished...

Hello there... sorry I missed posting last week but I just didn't have anything blog worthy to talk about...not that I'm sure what I have this week is blog worthy but it does have pictures... and that's helpful, isn't it?

Things have been busy busy busy here...lots of appointments and places to go ...and it has been SWELTERINGLY HOT... all those petunias and marigolds I've planted have demanded nightly watering...still hot but hoping for rain the next couple of days... for which I will be very grateful since I volunteered to water my neighbor's plants too as he's on vacation...

Since I got my patriotic display up I haven't added anything to it... I had plans to add to it but they haven't totally materialized. I did finish stitching this little piece...

This is a freebie from Marly at Samplers and Santas called Gold Star...you can find it here.  She has lots of cute little pieces that are free. I started this for StitchMaynia... after I finished I noticed I'm off at the bottom... I think I might take out that last row of navy blue stitches and then all the letters will be spaced  2 stitches from the design.

And continuing on the patriotic theme I did finish stitching this half of Farmyard Parade by With Thy Needle and Thread...

I used a piece of 32 ct linen I painted ...it is more yellow orange than is showing up here. I made the chickens darker and as I was stitching I realized that the chickens have eyes but the people don't...huh??? I added a bit of stitch to give her an eye... Brenda calls her Ora but I call her Lena since her counterpart is called Ole... and here's what I got done on Ole...

Ole has big pants and I'm not sure I have enough floss to stitch them... ordered some more and should be here next week. My plan is to display them on this frame I got at Hobby Lobby...

And I'll  Priscilla-fy it a bit with some frou-frou...but first I have to stitch them...

And then I got sidetracked ... lots of people are stitching Christmas in July for a jump on the holiday, but Halloween comes before Christmas and I want more seasonal pieces so I started this...

Isn't she a hoot???  This is Tricks & Treats from With Thy Needle & Thread. I found it here at The Silver Needle.  The fabric is brighter than is showing in this pic... 32 ct I painted... it was charted in DMC but I substituted some  Weeks for the head and the dress... now somewhere I thought I read that the dress needed 2 skeins and I couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted Weeks Oscar or Weeks Guacamole...and instead of ordering an additional skein of either one I decided to use one ply of each giving the dress a homespun look...at least that's what I'm calling it...and when I searched to find where I thought I read this BIG dress would need 2 skeins I can't find it... so I think I made that part up. Oh well, another "lady" with LARGE clothing... I seem quite attracted to these creatures and while it could be a reflection on my size I am going to ignore that fact... la la la la la la ... I can't hear you....

Then yesterday I got a wild hair to play with the new Rit Dyes I had bought...  I had a bottle of Neon Green and a bottle of Teal... and here's the trouble I got into with them.

First I decided to play with the Teal... I did notice that is has more gray in it than I thought but other than that it really seems to be pretty close to Aquamarine... I started this piece painting splotches on it but I wasn't impressed with myself, so I smushed it into the mason jar the dye was in and let it set...I like the mottled look.

This is going to be Welcome Autumn by Drawn Thread ...you can check it out here.

Now the chart calls for silks and I'm not going there so I pulled my own floss choices...

A combo of Crescent Colors and Weeks and Gentle Arts... I'm using GA Sarsaparilla for the letters ... and assortment of colors for the leaves...black crows and a Toasted Barley squirrel. There is a basket on the M that was charted in a color close to the linen color I'm substituting Weeks Kentucky Bluegrass as it is a darker shade of my linen.  Can't wait to get started on this one...

And since I was making a mess and thinking of Fall things I painted some linen for my Lizzie Kate Halloween ABCs...

This uses the Neon Green and Tangerine and Lemon Yellow... it is more intense in real life...and these are the flosses for this piece...

All the threads came with the pattern as a kit and it is still available here on 123 Stitch. Now this isn't the first piece I painted for this chart... I started out having these colors and added some purple ...and some purple splotches and that's where things got out of hand... I just didn't like it at all...the purple was too intense... so I started over and I'm happy I did. But what to do with the piece I didn't care for...well, I ended up smushing it into a mason jar with lot of tangerine dye and this is what I got...

This piece is very IN YOUR FACE in real life. I think it will make a great background for a piece stitched all in black or maybe a deep mottle purple...I'll probably end up cutting it  into smaller chunks and it won't go to waste.

So with a couple of Fall and Halloween pieces kitted up I turned my attention to Christmas...I LOVE this chart by Silver Creek Samplers... My Christmas List... which you can find here.

I love how it rhymes and how it ends with the real reason for Christmas...so I had purchased some "Natural" color 32 ct linen and it was nice but it was blah... so I started by painting some Wine Rit Dye here and there and then I did the smush it into a mason jar "technique"...

And now it is a nice mottled rosy brown which I think will go very well with the DMC flosses...

It calls for B5200 for the white but I may go with something a bit creamier... otherwise I like all the colors in this piece.

Sooooooo I have loaded myself up with projects and we won't speak of the charts I ordered last week. A nice reader sent me a pic of a new ornament by Hands On Designs and said she thought this looked like my decor...and she is spot on right...thanks for enabling me Lana!!!

 and I added this to the cart...

I LOVE that they include a tier tray and a cake stand!!! And there were some other With Thy Needle & Thread charts and some from Blackbird Designs that needed to come live with me too. I'd hang my head in shame but that would just give me a neck ache and I'd have to break out my shawl heating pad...so I won't do that...LOL

No dinner to prepare tonight...going out with my SIL and niece and her significant other and my sons and DIL to celebrate the memory of my brother James who passed away earlier this year. Every year in July he would take us all out for dinner to celebrate his stem cell transplant. At the hospital they start counting the days when you receive your transplant and continue to count them as long as you live. They consider it your  new birth date and it was ... my brother lived almost 7 1/2 years with his transplant, time which he would not have gotten without it. His death wasn't the result of his leukemia but rather from other health issues. I'm so grateful we got those extra years but it will be hard tonight... we all miss him so much. 

So my parting thoughts are stay cool and hug your loved ones... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and I hope everyone gets some quality stitching time in this week...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Patriotic Palooza on a Slow Sunday Stitching...

So perhaps one or two of you are wondering..."where in the heck have you been the last two weeks?" ...well, I've been right here in my stitching chair ... needle in hand but too lazy to post... but today I shall rectify that situation and show you all the patriotic palooza  I've been working on... let's start with the wall decor as that's what motivates me to change the rest of the doodads, knickknacks and stuff...

I have been wanting to make a patriotic quilt  for a while and I've eyed the little flag one that has been popping up all over IG but I didn't get my butt in gear...and then I remembered this quilt... I made this one a long long time ago...so long ago that I actually quilted it myself and sewed the binding down by hand... but it didn't look like this back then...it was wider and longer and had a border of that double bunting all the way around. Soooo... I cut it ...yes I did... I cut off the sides and I cut off the top and I re-did the binding and the sleeve which I salvaged and it will be this size forever more.  If you make the pic bigger you can see that the eagle and the 13 stars are blanket stitched appliqued by machine.  All the fabrics are Debbie Mumm...Debbie does patriotic very very well!!

As for the tray...

lots of bits and bobs mostly from Hobby Lobby... I want to add some small cross stitch to this and I have 2 started...hope to get them in there before the month is over.

Now onto the display shelf unit...

My theme here is patriotic/Americana/Debbie Mumm/birds...all  with a touch of yellow... very inclusive... shall we look a bit more closely?

From the top... Welcome Summer by The Drawn Thread...

Again if you make the pic bigger you can see I matted it with a navy grunge fabric and fastened that to a piece of picket fence like wood...the wood piece came from the craft aisle at Target...it was unfinished...cost $6.99 and the proportions were great for this piece. I painted it white craft paint. I will use it again for some other seasons, but I'm going to get another one to paint black or some other dark color for the Halloween Welcome I want to do.

Here are some close ups of the piece...it had quite a few decorative stitches...

I'm not a fan of backstitching but those vines and tendrils add a lot to the piece...

That flag took quite a while... and the bee skep is done in satin stitch...the little bees were little pains in the butt...I ended up stitching each one at least twice but in the end they were worth it...

The flowers in the pot are little Rhodes mounds... they pop right off the linen... very dimensional. I think this is one of  the prettiest pieces I've stitched in a long time. I'm happy with the 32 count linen I painted and my floss conversion...the piece is charted for silks... I looked at the conversion charts to Gentle Arts but didn't always like their suggestions so I rummaged through my thread stash and came up with my own choices.  I'm looking forward to doing the Autumn and Halloween versions of this Welcome...already ordered them from 123 Stitch.

Moving down...

  

That second shelf has a sparkly hat spouting sparkly fireworks ...Hobby Lobby ...couldn't resist...and the God Bless America sign was an unfinished wood piece from HL too... I colored it  with a Copic marker... maybe a little too gold but it works  for me...as for cross stitch...

Prairie Schooler July... I stitched this years ago and it has languished in a box...glad to free it... the frame was from Kohls...loved the color...it had a clip at the top that didn't work for me so I took it off and cover the hole  and filled in the rest of the space with wood painted stars from my button stash. This frame is a good size for these monthly pieces. The frame is a shiplap clipboard frame... I got it in 4 colors...this barn red, white, black and a turquoise... that should cover all my bases.

Next shelf down has more sparkly stuff...those firecrackers came  from Michaels...there was a definite glittery sparkly vibe to lots of the patriotic decorations this year and I'm a sucker for the shiny stuff...

On the cross stitch front there are two pieces....

this little bird from Blackbird Designs. It was in the booklet Souvenirs of Summer which I think is OOP. I added a #priscillafied touch with burlap and a button.

And we have one of my newest finishes... Birds of a Feather Liberty...

another enormous flag  that was so worth stitching... that ribbon was in my stash for a while and the porcelain button is at least 25 years old... glad I keep this stuff around...LOL

On the bottom shelf is another piece by The Drawn Thread... Free & Brave...

more Priscilla-like touches with a Debbie Mumm teapot ... 

Overall I'm happy with my display...this is the most I've ever had for Independence Day...I plan to leave it all up till the beginning of August when some of the stuff I had up will return and perhaps some new stuff will get mixed in.  Changing it around motivates me to keep stitching and cruising the aisles of Hobby Lobby, Michaels and Joanns... which is perhaps not great for my pocketbook but it does help the economy and that is doing my part as a productive patriotic citizen, right??? Yeah, I can BS with the best of them...LOL

So I'm thinking wherever you are you are HOT HOT HOT... I'm mean the temperature is hot, not your persona... right now it is in the 90's with  high  humidity so it feels like 100 degrees...no kidding...that's what the weather app says. And it is forecast to be this way for at least a week... I almost had a heart attack when I opened my utility bill this month...I'll be sure I'm sitting down when next month's  bill comes. The flowers seem to be doing okay...of course I've been watering regularly (and my water bill showed the results of that...sheesh)... but no one likes wilted petunias so I continue to go out just before sundown and water. According to the  local weather guy last year we had 11 days all year that were above 90...so far this year we've already had 10...and that was yesterday so we've reached that mark and will exceed it for this year...oh joy...now I don't want the sub-zero weather but I'd like it to be a bit cooler... I hope it averages out and August is more like June should have been.

I'll be linking up with Kathy's Quilts today...and if you want to see what  I'm up to in between posting here check me out with this link to Instagram... carolfun53  

Have any plans for the 4th?  My younger son and I are joining my older son and his wife and going to her parents for a cookout...need to make marinated tomatoes and pasta  salad as my contribution. Younger son is making patriotic cupcakes...should be a good time...

Hope your summer is coming along nicely...hard to believe the year  is half over... the older I get the faster it flies by...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

A Slow Sunday where maybe I should pay closer attention when I talk to myself...

Its Sunday again... don't know where the time goes... the last week was pretty nice. Had 3 full days where I didn't need to turn on the AC... take that Duke Energy... lovely temperatures, low humidity, nice breeze... my idea of PERFECT weather...and then it changed. Heat and humidity will be back this week. The only good thing about this weather is that it seems to rain a bit each day and I haven't had to water as much. 

I spent  a lot of time out on the porch/sunroom with the windows open cross stitching and I have a finish... Mrs. Maguire's  Garden by Pineberry Lane...

I can't get the color of this linen accurate ... it is a lovely olive-y green... the mottling came out wonderful and I'm happy with my floss changes... I made it a lot more yellow-y golden. I have plans for framing and priscillifying this ...might get to it tomorrow.

And since I finished one project I jumped into another...and this is where maybe   I should pay closer attention to when I talk to myself. I couldn't wait to get to  this one, Summer Welcome by The Drawn Thread...

I dithered over what size linen to stitch this on... the sample is on 30 count and the stitch count for the height is only 30 stitches...so over 2 threads that makes it 2" tall ...and that didn't seem very big... so I thought I'd do it on 28 count and it would be a teeny bit bigger... so I figured out the size piece I needed and cut it out and painted it...

 I love how it came out a nice sunny yellow...more intense than this pics shows... I got all my threads together which took a while as it is charted for silks ...which I converted to Gentle Arts...which I may convert some flosses to DMC... got my charts copied so I can make notes on them and sat down to stitch. And then it hit me... this doesn't look like 28 count..hmmm....where's my ruler.... OH carp... this isn't 28 ...this is 32...so now my piece will be even smaller than the original... how did I miss this??? The linen I cut this off of even has a note pinned to it clearly stating it is 32 count. 

I debated painting another piece of linen but I just didn't want to wait so I started stitching...and very quickly came to the conclusion that while I thought I wanted 28 count, I really really like 32... I like the coverage I get with 2 ply on 32 ...and this isn't as small as I thought...

I started in the middle because I wanted to see how that flag looked and while it isn't complete yet it  is looking good. I'm also debating how many of the fancy stitches this chart calls for...that I didn't notice till I sat down to stitch...can I eliminate...today I'm not feeling them... maybe tomorrow...so in the meantime I'll just work on the letters. 

On the gardening front, my yard is looking nice... I do think I may have over stuffed the window boxes... I have 5 of them this year and started out with a plan of 6 wave petunias to each section of window box and in total there are 12 sections for the 5 boxes... but it looked skimpy so I went and got more ...

Some of the petunias are down right leggy already...need to pinch them back...this is the corner by the porch ... got the wagon last year at Hobby Lobby... I'm pretty sure that plant behind the wagon is a week...and ENORMOUS weed but it so green I haven't got the heart to pull it out yet... I'll probably need a machete to chop it down... the stems are really thick. Why is it that weeds can look so good and the climbing rose bush next to it (that I'm not showing) looks really BAD...something has eaten the leaves... I sprayed some Neem oil and will see what happens. The lady down the street said the same thing happened to her climbing rose bush...she chopped hers back to the ground and I will probably have to do that too...maybe when I whack down that big weed. 

This is one of my views from the porch...

with the windows open the petunias smell lovely...one of my favorite flowers.

Now the Dude is sacked out on the couch today...I've thrown a quilt over the couch as the new slipcovers attract cat hair like a magnet and I'm tired of constantly cleaning it up.

I might take a little nap too... dinner is pretty much organized... doing shrimp over pasta with roasted asparagus, salad, watermelon and rolls. I'm hoping for lots of crafty time this week. Did a bit of sewing last week and want to get some quilt tops off to be quilted...and there is sock yarn to be played with and of course stitching to be done. I am never bored...and that is a wonderful thing.

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts ... do check out the quilt on her header... so pretty...hope you are having a lovely Sunday and will have an equally lovely week...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

PS... I ran this post through spell check and for some reason it doesn't like the word "wagon"... I'm clueless as to why...that's the only way I know to spell it. 

Driving by on a Slow Stitching Sunday...

Hello there... I'm just driving by ...in my little polka dot egg car with my goggles firmly in place to say "what have you been up to?"... as usual, I've been doing a bit of this and a bit of that  and after being gone for two weeks I have some stuff to show you. First lets talk about this hilarious chick in the egg car... a friend  called me the other week and left an intriguing message that she had found something while she was shopping and it HAD to come and live at my house... and this is what she dropped off... OMG is this not HILARIOUS??? What kind of a brain conceives of such a creation??? I'd like to meet them and take them out for lunch...LOL Thanks Meredith... I just LOVE him!!!

And have you guys been as hot as we've been here in SW Ohio?  I heard that this was the hottest May on records and my utility bill certainly reflects that. Usually you get a couple of weeks in the Spring and the Fall where you don't need AC or heat and you can open the windows and enjoy the breeze...not this Spring...heck we didn't really have a Spring... I think it lasted all of 3 days...maybe. 

So I put away my "spring-y" stuff and  banished the bunnies to their plastic bins and got out my more "summer-y" decorations...heavy on the bird stuff. And I've added several new cross stitch pieces...

To begin, this is Shakespeare's Peddler's Magic Garden Sampler. I started this one back around 2016..even stitched that date  on it... adjusted it for now and "priscillified" with burlap ribbon and a cool galvanized "frame".  You can click here and see all the changes I made... color of linen, color of flosses. I'm very happy with my version of this sampler.

Next we have my current favorite stitchy lady...Mrs. Maguire from Pineberry Lane and this is Mrs. Maguire - Bee Charmer.  Another galvanized piece with some burlap, buttons and pins...you can enlarge it to see it a bit better. I'm thinking I should go back and backstitch around the bee wings... I did the bee skep in satin stitches, I like the dimension it gives the piece and of course I changed the linen color (painted it with Rit dyes) and the floss colors were changed too. I think my style for this can be categorized as "bright Primitive"...kinda an oxymoron since most Primitives are browner than I like. This makes me happy and that's all that counts.

And here is an itty bitty little gal from Pineberry Lane... I just stitched her and her giant tulip from the chart "Except this Posey from a Friend" which you can see here. I may stitch her again in one of the larger pieces.  You can't get simpler than the embellishment here ... a bow and a button. I picked up that little galvanized clip frame at Hobby Lobby...in fact all the galvanized "frames" I've used have come from Hobby Lobby.  

And speaking of Hobby Lobby, I was there last week... they already have a lovely display of FALL stuff and I saw candy canes in another section... sheesh... can't we even get through 4th of July before we start thinking of the holidays? I know people who create stuff for craft fairs need to get an early start but I'd really like to live in the moment for a while.

Here's a pic of the display shelves...

Right now I'm stitching on another Mrs. Maguire piece...this is Mrs Maguire's Garden...

I dyed this linen in a small mason jar and I LOVE how it turned out...all splotchy and blotchy... it is a lovely mottled olive green... I started with Rit Apple Green and added a touch of Golden Yellow. Again I've brightened this up and I added an apron to her dress... I saw that on IG but I don't remember who did it. Along with this one Mrs. Maguire also has a hen house ...you can see it here... which I can't wait to get to.

And another piece I can't wait to stitch is this one from Drawn Thread...

you can see this pattern and her other seasonal "welcome" pieces here... and I want to do ALL of them!!! Now they aren't real big...216 x 30... so on 32 count that will be 13.5" by 2.8"...I cut a piece of linen this morning and I'm thinking of doing a mottled yellow background... the stuff it in a mason jar technique. I pulled my threads...did a conversion from the called for silks (lovely to work with but pricey) to Gentle Arts. Have everything except the blue for the letters...grrr... now I have a little of the Presidential Blue but not sure I have enough for the whole piece. I ordered some this morning but may take a chance and get started on it. I think it will fit perfectly on the top shelf of my display rack and I can change them out as the year progresses. I LOVE the Halloween one ...and the Autumn one...and the Spring one...and well you get the idea. 

I'm having a family dinner tonight...prime rib sandwiches (left over prime rib from Easter), corn on the cob, pasta salad, chinese coleslaw, sliced avocados, blueberries, watermelon and strawberries with angel food cake for dessert. Everything is prepped and ready to go so I have a little bit of time to sit on my sunroom porch and stitch. I got a ceiling fan installed last week and I have an electrical outlet too so after dark I can sit out there as I plugged in a nice floor lamp. Now if Mother Nature would cooperate and let things cool down a bit I could open the windows. The humidity is suppose to lessen this week...and that would be excellent... it feels like July, not May... curse you Mother Nature!! I shouldn't be so hard on the old gal... my flowers are liking the  rain and the humidity...

pyramid of petunias on May 6...

Same pyramid of petunias today...

looks pretty perky!!

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today ...hope you all have a great week... I have plans to plant some dahlias and stitch and maybe even sew some quilt blocks...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Happy Mother's Day and Slow Stitching Sunday where I realize I'm not cut out for certain things...

Happy happy happy Mother's day to all  of you who've nurtured a child... I saw a sign in front of the local Tire Discounters yesterday which said...Happy Mother's  Day, if it was easy Dad would do it... there is some truth to that, isn't there? LOL  Hope you are having a lovely day...mine started with fresh donuts brought to my house by my older son... and while he texted me at the ungodly hour of  7:45 am that he had the donuts, we didn't eat them till I woke up at 9:30...thank goodness I had my phone silenced...well actually I do that almost all the time... I am not an early bird...9:30 was early enough... the donuts were delicious ... I got a coconut one...and then we sat and watched the Formula 1 race from Barcelona... when he lived at home we watched these races every Sunday morning they were on... it was nice to do it again. He and my DIL are coming back with dinner later...carryout from Carraba's ...my favorite. And I am going to spend the rest of the afternoon (after I get this written and posted) sitting in the sunroom/porch and stitching. It is my tradition to start a new project guilt-free on Mother's Day...

And speaking of starting new projects... I realized this week that I am not cut out for Stitch Maynia where you start a bunch of new projects...that Catholic guilt I talked about before is real...and it came back on Monday. Now I only started 2 things...both patriotic which I do want for this year... which is good, but after working on some WIPs that I love I just didn't want to add to the pile. So I spent last week working on my  Lizzie Kate "Things Unseen" sampler...

I got all the flowers in the basket started... I filled in the bird and I stitched the house...made it brighter yellow than the called for Weeks Straw... I used my favorite yellow Crescent Colors Queen Bee and gave the place an olive green door... just like a certain little house that I'm very fond of... There are suppose to be 2 sheep to the left of the house...I'm thinking they may be replaced by two chickens... a bit more personalization. That border still needs work but it is perfect mindless stitching for "watching" videos ...right now I'm hooked  on "Call the Midwife"... I got started on the show about 2 seasons ago so I've never seen the beginning. It popped up on Netflix and I watched season 1  last week. Now I should have gotten more done but between the Midwife and working in the yard several nights I sat down in my chair, threaded my needle and promptly fell to sleep.

In my defense, I cleaned out and refilled 5 big window  boxes and planted them with about 80 wave petunia... I cleaned up the spent hyacinths...and I planted about 110 marigolds. Still need to replace some perennials that don't show signs of returning and get some short zinnias and lantana to edge the bed.  Working outside next week will depend on the weather... we've gone from winter to summer in the blink of an eye... Spring has lasted about 3 days, really it did... already  had upper 80's and today humidity has returned. Forecast for the week is lots of stormy weather and temps pushing 90...sheesh it is still May...not July...

So here is my choice for my traditonal Mother's Day start...Mrs. Maguire Bee Charmer by Pineberry Lane...

I love those GIANT flowers... I'm going to stitch it on this 32 ct linen I painted yesterday...

a soft yellow and some olive green...and now that I look at it I see a chicken in the lower left corner and a seahorse in the upper right...ROFL... I totally didn't try to do that ... oh well at least it isn't as risque as the piece I painted for the Christmas sampler... you can read about that fiasco here...you have to scroll down a bit.  I've brightened up the flosses a bit... while I love the style of primitives I like a little less brown in my pieces.

So I'm off to the sunroom to stitch... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and I'm taking my laptop out on the porch too so I can see what everyone else is doing today too...

Happy Mother's Day...and happy stitching-
carol fun

A Slow Sunday Stitching where I ponder projects and porch furniture...

Hello - sorry I didn't post last week... last Sunday we celebrated my younger son's birthday with a special brunch and dinner so there wasn't much time for anything else.  Several times last week I thought about popping in with an update but there were appointments and lunches out and garden centers...lots and lots of garden centers. Spring has sprung and we had a couple of summer like days which had me itching to pot stuff up ...and I did... again this year I potted up 13 different varieties of petunias on my pyramid...

The petunias this year were already pretty good sizes ...can't wait to take a pic of this in another month or so. If you enlarge the picture take a close look at the purple petunias in the center of the middle shelf...they are gorgeous...and the little pink one on the bottom shelf is a double ruffled petunia... I haven't seen any of those for quite a while.

And here are the pots on my front steps... same combo as last  year...and the year before... peach geraniums and purple and white accents...

And since the weather was so glorious I decided by garden chickens needed a bit of a sprucing up...so I painted them...much brighter than they were...and I added polka dots...

and some close ups...

because you don't see a flock of polka dot chickens just everywhere...LOL... now my beds need mulching ...and I have 48 marigolds to plant in this bed...and I added some new outdoor lighting to my yard...you can see one of  the lights next to the red chick...they are solar with a battery back up... very bright...10 lumens... got them at Costco.

Plans for today include getting my newest window box attached to the house...just in time for the 4 flats of wave petunias waiting in my driveway... weather for this week should be great for planting. 

As for crafty stuff I have a finish to show and I need to report  that I didn't listen to a word I said 2 weeks ago about Stitch Maynia...

Lets start out with something to be proud of before I hang my head in shame...

Ta -dah!!!  Tis Spring by Notforgotten Farm...

The frame was a bargain from Homegoods...and I only added a bit of priscillafication... but I'm very happy with this piece. There is just something about animals in clothing that makes me smile!!

As for Stitch Maynia...well I caved...sort of...there was so much chatter about it on Instagram and on Flosstube...and all the cool kids were doing it ... so I decided to join in. Now I'm not starting 18 new projects... I perused and pondered my stash of WIPs and made a plan to stitch on 9 of my WIPs and start 9 new projects. I'm trying to pick small new projects...several patriotic ones that I want to finish by July...and I'm going to put a few stitches in some Halloween and Christmas projects too. I'm thinking of it as prep work for the upcoming holidays, and yes I am trying to justify my rash behavior. So far on the WIP side I revisited two projects that are very pretty...Vintage Birds by Jeanette Douglas Designs which you can see here...and Lizzie Kate's Things Unseen Mystery Sampler which you can see here. It was fun to stitch on both of these. And I completed Shakespeare's Peddler Mystery Garden Sampler which you can see here. I will be framing this one to display this summer. 

As for starts I have 2 patriotic pieces... Liberty by Birds of a Feather...click here...and Gold Star from Marly of  Santas and Samplers.  I have another patriotic piece I want to stitch on, but today I think I'll work on  a Christmas piece. You don't have to have an Instagram account to check out what I'm up to...just click here ... carolfun53..for updates. 

Now onto porch furniture...well I can say with complete certainty that having the porch turned into a sunroom was the best home improvement decision I've made for this house. I LOVE it...the Dude LOVES it...my neighbors LOVE it... even my UPS guy told me how pretty it looks and all he sees all day is porches and doorsteps!!  I've spent lots of time on the porch stitching and reading and knitting and even napping but I think the Dude has more hours out there than I have... I liked the sofa I got at IKEA but the fabric on the cushions was a magnet for the Dude's shedding ... and I was already tired of cleaning it off every day. Soooo... I decided I would "artfully" throw some quilts on the sofa and then I can just shake them out when the shedding becomes too much...

The porch before...nice but boring...

The porch after... colorful, crazy and comfy...

I changed out the pillows with the Dude's approval...

And here is a look at that quilt... it has been waiting for a binding  for quite a while...

This pattern is Lazy Goose and you can read all about it and how this quilt came together here. Every time I go out on the porch Dude is either on the sofa or on the bench...

As you can tell he doesn't like to be disturbed... LOL... I think he may believe that I did the porch just for him...

Well I'll be linking up with Kathy's Quilts today...got my handyman coming over  to work on several projects and I hope to stitch a little...and I want some porch time for me... hopefully Dude will share the couch.

happy stitching-

carol fun