Easter decor and MORE... on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - well March certainly marched quickly by me... next week is Easter and a certain little guy's 4th birthday... Time does march on, doesn't it?    We are finally having seasonal weather and I'm itching to get out and work in my garden.   However before that can start a trip or two to the orthopedic docs is on my agenda. Hope to get a shot in my knee on Monday and my thumb looked at later in the week... my body is a temple... it is ancient and crumbling....

As for gardening... the outlet nursery opened this week and I was there on Thursday  buying new shrubs with Dan... the Dan who mows my lawn, not to be confused with Dan the handyman...  9 new boxwoods, a gorgeous golden Amber Jubilee ninebark, a Kodiak Black diervilla, and a Aphrodite  sweetshurb.  All of these are to replace bushes that got frozen to death during that arctic cold snap we had. I wanted to go and get this project started before everyone else is out shopping to replace their frozen to death shrubbery. Everywhere I go I see brown dead shrubs.... I suppose that is better than seeing dead people, right?  The garden centers are going to do very well this Spring.  Dan will be around in the next week or so to dig up the dead stuff and plant the new live stuff.  Its still too early for me to do any planting... those 100+ dahlia tubers in the garage are calling to me, but I will resist their siren song. I did pick up one of those seed starter trays... I can plant it up with some seeds... that will hold me for a while.

Inside I'm all decorated for Easter... here's the small display unit...

I love that little mini quilt of tulips... since I can't do tulips outside... deer buffet... I shall have tulips inside!

I stitched that little sampler pillow last year but just got around to finishing it last month. I like the beaded rickrack finish, even though it does take a bit of time.  The pattern is Hello Spring from Sub Rosa...you can find it here. 

In the middle,  a small from Lila Studio and a freebie from Pinker N Punkin Quilting.

The little birdie pulling the cart is from Homespun Elegance and is called Delivering Posies... and there's a bunny from Prairie Schooler No. 178.

On the bottom, Spring from Lizzie Kate and two more little bunnies from Prairie Schooler  No. 178 in a carrot boat  sailing away from my fleet of carrot cars... 

The big display...

Starting off with another carrot car, a chorus line of egg cups with feet and  below that a piece from Blackbird Designs  called as I remember "Breath of Spring"... I only did 2/3rds of it.  

To the right, more Below BBD,  a piece from the book,  Thank you Sarah Tobias... it was suppose to be a 2 sided small pillow but I like it better this  way.  The sampler with the pink linen is from Stitchy Princess Black and is called Easter Rabbits...you can see it here... I brighten this one up  quite a bit... and my favorite monthly stitch from Prairie Schooler.  Love the soft colors and the alphabet hidden in the grass and  daffodils at the bottom and the painted linen. It turned out great if I say so myself and I do...LOL

One shelf down it Sampler Hill from With Thy Needle & Thread... another piece with the alphabet in the grass... and some cute pink and yellow knickknacky stuff.

Moving down is Ah 'tis Spring by Notforgotten Farms... you can find it here... I love my animals with clothes on...LOL... that is Holiday Hoopla: Easter by WTN&T in the little tin and Garden Friends from the BBD Sewing Club book ....I made that  ribbon rose on the top at least 25 years ago. I picked up the wired ribbon at a little gift shop in Modesto CA when I lived there in the early 90s.... how can I remember that and not remember what I had for dinner last night?  sheesh... 

 

And I LOVE those little bottle brush carrots that are vertical... picked them up at Target last year and saw them again this year... the pink is an unusual color but it works perfectly here... IMHO...

Over on the TV cabinet I have this little display...

picked up that bunny tier tray at Target... it folds flat... that will be great for storage... the crossstitch is from Jellybean Jubilee by WTN&T and all those adorable chicks are salt & pepper shakers from Cracker Barrel. 

Are you still with me?  I know ... I'm exhausting at times... LOL

As for what crafty stuff I've been doing, I'm still working on Nick's quilt... I have the last 2 blocks pinned to my design wall but I can't remember a project where I've made sooooo many mistakes... I'm working on the 3rd block and I've re-sewn it at least 10 times... it isn't just that the points won't match (actually they aren't too bad) but I've sewn units together in the wrong order over and over and over....

So I've been concentrating more on crossstitch.... I finished Prairie Schooler  The Twelve Days of Christmas...

I'll be taking this to Hobby Lobby to be framed when the stuff I dropped off is ready for pick up. 

And while I've been stitching I've been watching a lot of Flosstube when has lead to several new purchases... these charts... more Prairie Schooler have arrived in the last week.

The Birdsong I and II are both cardstock charts  "new old stock"... love that... 

And I'm anxious to put some stitches in some things from my Market haul... I planned to work on this one from Teresa Kogut... 

but then this chart from Teresa popped in my mail box ...

Isn't this fabulous?  Don't know how I missed it before ... I want to do bits and pieces from it as small pillows... would make a great dough bowl display, wouldn't it?

But while contemplating all of those choices, I picked up this sampler which I've had kitted up for quite a while... Sunnyside Sampler from The Drawn Thread...

I am really enjoying stitching this one... even the over one... I'm using the DMC conversion and I made some changes of my own too. Doing the windows in DMC 414 gray instead of black... the black was too stark... made the crow 3371, again a bit less stark and  where 3371 was called for I went with DMC 3781 and I'm using DMC 3362 for the letters... and changing other stuff as I go along... I am writing everything down as I'm afraid I'll put this down before it is complete and won't remember what in the heck I changed.  One of the biggest lies I tell myself is "I'll remember that"... and I don't... 

I'm doing this on 32 ct I painted with very diluted Rit dyes Lemon Yellow and Tangerine... the Tangerine is very peachy when you water it down... I think I want this same background linen for the Teresa Kogut Remember Me chart... 

People always ask me about how I paint linen and there really isn't any trick to it. I treat the linen like a piece of paper. I start with it dry. I dilute the dyes and to test the color I paint a little bit on the edge. Remember it will dry lighter than it looks wet, so you can always go back and make it darker. When I paint it I put down swaths and splotches of the dye trying to keep it kinda blotchy... all I can say is give it a try. If you paint it and it isn't to your liking when it dries you can over paint or dye it darker or you can get some of the color out if you bleach it... I've resorted to both methods now and then.  I iron the linen when it dries to "set" the dye. Now I don't every wash my pieces after I've stitched them, but I think the dye would be pretty stable.  I do find that dyeing and painting my own linen makes me happy... it lets me put my spin on a piece... 

Well that was certainly a rambling post... hope you enjoyed it... I plan on more stitching in the next couple of weeks and working on Nick's quilt and checking out garden centers... Walmart has some great prices on dahlia tubers, if you need to know... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts ... and I think I'll sit out on the porch and stitch and watch the birds... hope you have a enjoyable week ahead...

happy stitching -

carol fun 

Lots of questioning "where did the time go?" on a Slow Sunday...

Hello - I had every intention of posting last week but between catching a cold and the time change I was feeling puny all weekend.  The cold has pretty much cleared up but I'm still suffering the effects of the time change...and if you've read this blog for any time at all you know I DETEST the time change with EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING... a bit over dramatic??? NOPE... I've tried going to bed earlier but I'm not falling asleep... just laying there...  I can't seem to shift that hour. I did set my alarm to get up earlier, but then I'm tired during the day, end up taking a nap and repeat the cycle... again and again... Just leave the time where it was. Yes it is lighter later, but if you wait 3 weeks it will be exactly where we are today.  We get 2 to 3 minutes more daylight every day... times 20 or so days and bingo... 1 hour difference....  See I told you I DETEST the time change... I'll get off my soap box  now.... but the time change, and then add to that the gray and gloomy weather, and  I just haven't been feeling really productive.

Spring retreated and we are having second Winter... the weather we should have had in February has shown up in March... I knew we would pay for those 70 degree days... they made me so excited to get out and work in the yard. I've had to content myself with reading seed catalogs and picking up packets of seeds here and there when I've been out and about.  I think I'm going back to Meijers and pick up one of those seed starting kits I saw there.... hmmm... this could get me into trouble...LOL

I did manage to get all the snowmen put away and brought out the bunnies.  The house is decked out in yellow and pink... very Spring-y... and the perfect antidote for the gray skies.   Here's a look at the niche in the hallway...this is my new favorite spot to decorate!

This pink bunny  is a new one from Salt & Pepper Stitching called Egg Hunt.   It was charted brown but I loved the pink bunny she did last year (and that piece is in the tier tray) so I just substituted those colors.  Now the frame was a saga... it was a gray color but the size was right, so I knew I could paint it...and I did... 3 times... on the WRONG side... good grief... it probably could use another coat on this side (I only did 2 ) but I had had it with myself by then...

The egg piece was a gift from a friend a couple of years ago... love it!   And the long skinny pillow on the telephone book ledge is Lizzie Kate Spring String... a good fit for that spot!  I was happy to pick up a couple of new Johanna Parker pieces... I do love her whimsical vintage-y style. I can feel a new collection coming on... just what I need, right?  LOL

I have had the chance to sit out on the sunroom porch a day or two... as long as I crank up the space heater out there. It does put me in a good mood to sit out there and stitch and watch the birds...and those pesky squirrels...  at my feeders.

My collection of bunny heads... which when I type it that way seems a bit ghoulish... is decorating the little shelf unit out here.  The big one on the top is a sort of sparkly paper mache I bought years ago... I think at Hobby Lobby. The little bunny piece was a freebie, but I forget from where... and the pillow was from Jellybean Jubilee by WTN&T. 

 The little bunny piece was a freebie, but I forget from where... and the pillow was from Jellybean Jubilee by WTN&T. 

And the bunny head with the yellow glasses is my favorite bunny head... which again seems very weird when I type it out...

I'm particularly fond of the sampler on the wall... 

this is from The Drawn Thread and is called My Favorite Things... a lovely soft palette and the initials of my sons  ... my personal favorite things... are at the bottom.... 

looking at the date on this ...1995...my thought is where does the time go???

I went with the yellow and pink Fig Tree Jam & Jelly quilt in the  Kate Spain Verna fabric... looking back this quilt is almost 10 years old... where does the time go??? I'd love to have a new Spring quilt for that wall. been thinking about doing  tulip blocks in some of the Tilda fabrics I've been collecting... 

The tier tray has another piece from Salt & Pepper Stitching, this one is called Be Hoppy.... and the Easter pillow and the little bunny are from Jellybean Jubilee. 

The quilt on the back of the couch is a 4 patch Stack N Whack done in Phillip Jacobs Brassica fabric.  Now Brassica are cabbages and since I chopped up the fabric/cabbages I call this my Coleslaw quilt...LOL... and it is also at least 10 years old... and I still love it!! And looking at this one makes me want to do another Stack N Whack 4 patch... sigh... so many things I want to do... just need time...and motivation....

and this angle makes my living room enormous...which is isn't.... but here's a close up of some of the blocks and the border fabric which is what all the blocks are cut from....

I had hoped to get more sewing done. I did put one more of the big blocks for Nick's quilt together, but that was the extent of  my sewing.  I need to get Nick's quilt done... right now it is a guilt project, even though Nick has told me not to feel guilty about it, but I know he's like a new quilt for his room and I did say I do this one months ago... and again where does the time go??  Perhaps today I'll spend some quality time with my sewing machine. 

As for cross stitch well I got something finished... something big... O Joyous Day! by Blackbird Designs...

I started this back in 2019...oh my goodness I didn't realize it has been hanging around that long... another one of those where did the time go moments... darn I'm having a lot of them lately.

I left the satin stitch bands and the over one till the end... not sure that was a smart move as I had a hard time motivating myself to get them done... but I'm glad I did!  Those satin stitch bands really add a lovely touch to this piece. I decided to stitch Home Sweet Home instead of O Joyous Day as I didn't have any particular joyous day date I wanted to include... 

I even got this off to the framer. I took it out to the Hobby Lobby in Eastgate as I've heard their framer is great with cross stitch. I will say their prices were great. About half of what I would have probably spent at the framer I have been using. I do miss getting things framed at my local Joanns but they haven't gone back to doing any framing since covid. I may try Michaels too. 

Getting a sampler done motivated me to pick back up the Prairie Schooler 12 Days of Christmas.  

I'm halfway done and these go pretty quick. I'd like to have this finished to take out to Hobby Lobby when I pick up my framing. They said 2 weeks and I think that is doable for me. And I'm anxious to get this one complete as my goodies from the Nashville Needlework Market are coming in and of course I want to start something new.  The Remember Me sampler from Teresa Kogut is really calling to me... picked up the called for DMC yesterday... just need to paint some linen for it. 

I've got no appointments on my calendar for the next 2 weeks...and I hope it stays that way... I've been a bit of a homebody lately... content to stay home and stitch or knit ...  Got some dahlia tubers in the mail the other day... waaaaay too early to plant them... and I'm still not sure how the tubers in my raised bed fared from the bitter cold spell we had back in December. Fingers crossed.  I do know that my landscaping took a hit. Dan who does my yard ... different from Dan the Handyman... came by and looked at the shrubs... 6 of the 9 boxwoods are dead... they are planted in groups of 3 and of course there are 1 or 2 dead in each group so all 9 will need to be dug up and replaced. The cherry laurel is toast... literally the color of toast... it should be green... and I lost a holly bush too... Dan who does my yard is going with me to pick out new bushes when the Natorp's Garden outlet opens the end of the month.  I'm also making a list of things I want Dan the Handyman to attend to which are also outdoor projects... repaint the shutters and the front steps and maybe the foundation. I had the foundation painted gray several years ago and now I wish it was tan to blend with the yellow brick. And my older son wants him to paint the shutters on his house as he's getting new siding... gonna keep  the Dans busy busy busy...

Hope things are well in your part of the world.. I think we are all looking forward to real Spring. I'm happy my daffodils are looking good... 

and I'm seeing where the alliums are poking up too. Lots of flowering trees in the neighborhood bloomed... like the gorgeous magnolia at my next door neighbor's house... but then it got zapped the other night and went from pink to brown... so sad... Mother Nature can be quite the b*tch... oh well... beauty is fleeting, right? 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts... always lots of eye candy there...

happy stitching-

carol fun

Creeping into Spring on a Slow Sunday...

Hello - another couple of weeks have whizzed by me... my crafty mojo moved from crossstitch to quilting for a while .... and the weather has me all discombobulated.   The weather has been nice... very nice... and it makes me uneasy as it is waaaaaaaaaaaay too early to be this nice in SW Ohio.   Here are the daffodils on the south side of the house... in full bloom...

and I have some of those petite irises in bloom too...

and I can see my hyacinths and alliums coming up.  We've had several record high days in the low 70s... makes me want to get out there and plant stuff!!  But I know all too well that we could get a frost up to the middle of May ... and that is what?  10 weeks from now... that's a long time.... Instead I was in Costco the other day  and they had just put out the bags of dahlias... so I got a few... a couple... oh I got A LOT!!  

I got these...

and these...

and these...

and there is a 10th bag I didn't  photograph.... that makes 80 new dahlia tubers ... oh and I forgot I ordered some online too... somewhere around 40- 50 more... yikes!  I'm not sure how all the tubers in the ground fared with the really bitter cold snap we had... if it hadn't been for those couple of days this winter has so far been very mild. Fingers crossed that they come back....

As for crafty stuff I got 2 quilts done in the past 2 weeks... the first one is a hold over from last year.... this is Vanishing Time done in my beloved Momo fabrics... here's a link to the construction of the block...

now I made mine starting with a 9 patch  block of 5" squares... one with 9 lights and another with 9 darks... I went ahead and cut them into quarter square triangles so I could mix things up more.  When I got done my blocks were about 13"... but they were a bit wonky... there is lots of bias in the middle of these blocks so I trimmed them down to 12.5'.... I ended up putting 1' finished sashing in because it was a pain in the butt to get the intersection points to match... even with the cornerstones and sashing I still had to finagle the corners...but that said... I still like it. Dropped it off at Delinda's last week... staying with the theme of time I chose a panto called Clockwork... 

Then in a burst of manic energy I made this Giant Disappearing 9 Patch with my American Jane fabrics...

This is the 3rd quilt I've made with this pattern. I like it because you start with a 10" square and you can show off those special prints.  For this version I started with a treasured vintage layer cake of Potluck... probably my favorite collection of American Jane as it has the tape measure and little chick prints. I picked out my favorite ones for the 10' blocks and then cut another layer cake in half... the collection called StoryTime... so I had 5" x 10" pieces. I made the 5" "cornerstone" out of the tape measure print in the brown colorway... This quilt is around 85" square and you can make this in a couple of hours. It took me longer to lay out and rearrange the fabrics than it did to sew it together. It went off to Delinda too!

And I've been working on Nick's new quilt... have all of the HSTs made and all the rest of the pieces cut. This block is HUGE!!!  32" square... only need 4 blocks for the top and then some HST sashing...

I've got the 2nd star halfway done....I'm using the pattern Cinnamon Stars which you can see here. 

As for crossstitch I put down the Prairie Schooler 12 Days of Christmas and the Summer House Stitche Workes Fragments in Time 2022 and picked up Blackbird Designs O Joyous Day... 

Very close to finished... have to fill in those flowers at the bottom and there are a couple of rows of satin stitch.  I'm going to replace the "O Joyous Day" with some sort of little phrase... perhaps " My soul is fed by my garden"... somehow those flowers bigger than the house make me think if my house and my yard. I was looking at pictures I took last summer.... by August the house looked like it was going to be swallowed up by the flowers.

Which leads me to what I'm looking forward to getting from the upcoming Nashville Needlework Market. Brenda Gervais has some wonderful charts... .. first is these bunnies... look how dapper he is with his checked pants!

and then these robins... 

I do like my animals nattily dressed...LOL

And this sampler from Teresa Kogut is gorgeous!

Totally reminds me of my home... I may make the house a bit more yellow but those flowers are perfect.

And somehow I think I need this one too...

There should be a version to include fabric and yarn too!  ROFL!!

As for decorating I got all the snowmen decor put away yesterday and my son helped me haul out all my Easter/Spring stuff. Right now I'm surrounded by  66 qt Sterlite bins filled with quilts and knickknacks... anymore I have to keep telling myself "Rome wasn't built in a day" and " Carol, you can't do all the decorating in one day either. "   I have Sunday/Monday/Tuesday to get it done. Elliott's coming on Wednesday and while I love him to pieces I don't need his "help" with this project. 

I did do a couple of small displays for Valentine's Day....

These are the 2 new pieces I did... the top pillow is called February Basket from Cosford Rise Stitchery and 

LOVE is from Calico Confectionery. 

Been thinking... which always gets me into trouble... about life... a sweet neighbor of mine...only 4 years older than me passed away last week from cancer... so sad... and each passing month has me experiencing another ache or pain... finally got some of my dental work done, a bridge... nice to have that chewing surface back, but had pain for about 2 weeks in the tooth it's attached to... has subsided... glad of that. My arthritic left knee is acting up. Trying to hold off on another cortisone shot until its a bit closer to when I can work in the yard.  And my right hand, also arthritis, has been bugging me too... I'm falling apart a piece at a time and I'm feeling old... and I guess I am old. I'll be 70 this year...how did that happen??? Also have had a stretch of time here with money leaving faster than it is coming in... taxes, my teeth and last week I had to get a new set of tires for my car, oh, and new glasses for Nick.  I have the money but it isn't the kind of spending that brings any joy... Hope March can be a quiet and inexpensive month. 

At the moment, the week ahead looks fairly quiet... a semi-annual checkup for my son, and Elliott on Wednesday, and maybe lunch with a friend. I like the quiet weeks... last week got crazy busy and  even  with me re-scheduling  some stuff.   Things have a way of piling up when you're not looking. 

So today I'm going to sit and stitch for a while and watch some Flosstube videos and do a little decorating. Each season I try to move things around a bit but anymore lots of pieces only fit in one spot due to their size. I looked at my displays from last year and I really like what I did then... might not change much around. I do have a new piece or two of cross stitch to add... and a couple more Easter knickknacks. I wanted a new Spring wall quilt for the living room but I never got around to it.. I realize I need to start like 6 months in advance to get things done in time... may still play with the tulip quilt I wanted done... and then it could be done for next year. 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... always pretty things to see there... I hope you have a great week ahead... Spring officially arrives in 22 days... around here the trees are already budding and as I said earlier I already have  nice crop of daffodils... with a forecast of 60 and 70 degree days next week it sure feels like Spring!

happy stitching-

carol fun