What to do?... what to do?... on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello all ... I planned on posting last week but while the spirit was willing, the flesh said, naaah... I've been putzing with lots of different things because I can't make up my mind and settle on  anything.  Mentioned this to 2 friends and they each are having a similar time... what do I want to do?  So many projects I could do... do I start something new?... always fun... do I continue to work on one of many projects sitting right next to my stitching chair.?.. or do I work on something the was started quite a while ago and left hanging? Well I did a little of each...because I CAN'T make up my mind.

I'm very happy that Nick's quilt is off to Delinda to be longarmed... I can work on any project I want... I have some cool J. Wecker Frisch Halloween fabrics sitting on my cutting table... I have this current collection, The Queen of We'en... and an older collection that goes great with it.  Thinking of simple blocks with purple sashing....hmmmm...

and I tracked down the background yardage I want for the Tulip Market pattern from Coriander Quilts. I wanted this print with the little yellow tulips from Corey Yoder's Pepper & Flax collection which was out several years ago. Gonna make all the tulips scrappy tone on tone yellows similar to this one...

Won't this be fabulous on my bed next Spring?  That's my dream, LOL. 

Then I ventured into my root cellar/quilt fabric closet where I have numerous UFO projects housed in plastic bins... thought about the one with the Basic Grey Mon Ami fabrics and the Lantern pattern by Amy Ellis... love that green Grunge...last time this one saw the light of day was 2016... thank goodness those plastic bins keep everything clean and fresh!  LOL

and then this box pretty much fell on my head... I took it as a sign ... it is the Scratch quilt from the Book Schnibbles Times 2  and the fabric is  Sew and Sew by Chloe's Closet ... another UFO from 2016... obviously I was a great starter back in '16... not much of a finisher....anyway I had a lot of this one already assembled. I had 3 of the 4 strips with the 4 patches done and the 4th was all pinned in order ready to sew. The Roman Coin strips were pretty much all cut and sewn into groups of 8 or 9... and I love the sherbet-y color and all the vintage looking sewing prints of this collection!

Soooo Tuesday when I was babysitting Elliot he wanted to play in the basement and that gave me a lot of time to sew... the TV I had mounted on the wall is paying big dividends... he had his trucks and Legos all over the floor and watched Paw Patrol and GoGoDinos and something with a robot called Blaze... not sure all the details but it kept him happy while I played with this quilt. 

It will get a border of that yellow fabric on all four sides... I  thought about making it smaller but I have everything cut out and in the box there is even fabric for the back... this glorious vintage collage sewing print... I LOVE IT!!

Now this piece looks like swiss cheese because I fussy cut different Roman coin pieces from it... I have yardage to make the back with. It was nice to sew in the basement when the temp outside was pushing 90... too hot for the beginning of June...IMHO.

As for crossstitch... I got the Ewe & Eye & Friends Primitive Lady off to the framer. Told myself I should return to the Drawn Thread Sunnyside piece... and I did for a little bit...

since I last showed this I got the cat and part of that tree done... a meager amount of stitching...oh well...but then I wandered off and picked up 1889 Alphabets by Needlework Press... started this one last year and then just let it languish ...and now it is done!  I changed the flosses around... switched the red and turquoise..

and  added my name and this year's date.  Had planned on displaying this on a spool.. but you'd only see part of it... so I think I'm going to have it framed instead.  It is 27" long but only about 4" high.  When Prim Lady is ready I could take this one in... 

And  then I stumbled on the #redwhiteandjune  hashtag on Instagram and thought why not work on a new small or two for July... so I did... this one is  from a new pattern from Sew Emma called Patriotic TypeFace... isn't she cute!

I want to do Uncle Sam that is in the pattern too... 32 ct linen dyed with Rit Lemon Yellow. 

Which led me to pawing through a bag of patriotic patterns and I found this piece started... it is from Sheepish Designs called Eagle...

now it is  suppose to be a bigger sampler ... and when I started I planned and doing the whole thing... but I changed my mind and stopped with the alphabet and eagle and some stars... it will make a nice pillow. 

While cutting down the Eagle piece I still wanted to do the little flag waving girl at the bottom... so I did.

 I still had more scraps of that yellow linen so I did this freebie from Lizzie Kate I found on Pinterest...  remember Pinterest? 

 I use to spend hours and hours and hours there... then I got sucked into Instagram where I spend way too much time scrolling and scrolling and scrolling... trying to curtail my screen time ans spend it more productively with stitching... I need some parental controls... LOL. And I will need to be productive and get these little pieces FFO'd. 

As I alluded to earlier we've been having some hot weather... and NO RAIN... my water meter is running like a slot machine to keep up.  The marigolds and the little zinnas are having a hard time getting started. So far the petunias are hanging in there with twice a day watering... the dahlias are showing signs of life and I got my first bloom last week... 

this one was in the ground and got no special attention... love the color but have no clue what the name of it is.  The squirrels/bunnies/deer are still a problem... some geraniums and petunias got snacked on... been spraying with repellents on a regular basis. Have some buds on my hydrangea and rose bushes and if I don't spray they will be eaten... grrrr... had a brief rain shower last Tuesday  and a forecast of some rain today, fingers crossed...  we haven't had any substantial rain in over 3 weeks!!! My grass is crispy... and I hate to water the lawn... 

I've been dragging my feet to re-fresh my decor... decided to just change out a couple of cross stitch pieces and leave it alone till maybe next week ... think I'll break out my patriotic stuff a bit earlier than I normally do. Then in August I'll do garden stuff and chickens... that's the plan at the moment. 

I have been enjoying time out on the sunroom porch... even with the hot temps there has been a little breeze and I run the fan too. I can sit and watch videos on my laptop and stitch and watch the birds.  I resorted to dousing my bird seed with Cole's Flaming Hot Squirrel Sauce again and it has worked wonders. Instead of filling up the feeders almost every other day, I've gone almost a week. No chipmunks eating the pricey safflower seed and I've only seen one squirrel at the feeder... he obviously a salsa lover... stupid squirrel!!

Quiet week coming up... Elliott and his parents are on vacation in Minnesota.  May go check out the local Homerama Urban Edition and the new immersive Monet show next week.  The Monet exhibit is like the Van Gogh one my kids took me too in Indy a year or so ago. I LOVED it, so I'm betting this will be lovely too and it has the added benefit of being in downtown Cincinnati, instead of an 3 hr round trip away. I think I might make reservations at a nice restaurant downtown  to cap off the day.  A little excitement but not too much... perfect for my tastes. 

Hope things are well with you... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts... gonna stitch a little and maybe go out to dinner... nothing definite yet. 

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Pulled in too many directions on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello all!  Well I'm proud of myself for getting back here in two weeks and I'm feeling much more chipper... probably because I've been doing a bunch of different things... probably  pulled in  too many directions but I've such is life right now. I've been cross stitching and working on a quilt top and gardening along with a couple of unexpected doctor appointments... no worries... everything checked out.  The weather has been getting better and better... suppose to have a nice week coming up ... sunny... maybe a bit too warm... low 80's and no rain. A forecast that will have me watering every day... oh well.

So first off lets talk about cross stitch. Last week was Mother's Day and each year I allow myself a guilt free new start. This year I picked The Primitive Lady by Ewe and Eye and Friends. Now my Mother's Day started on the Friday evening before  and I was able to finish this by the following Friday... the perfect little interlude to the BIG projects I've been working on.

Here's my lady... and yes she does bear an interesting resemblance to the stitcher. 

I loved doing those french knots for her hair.

The Sunnyside Sampler had another issue... but I was able to fudge a bit and I got another house constructed.  

Need to work on the over one stuff... don't want to leave it till the end.

As for sewing I got back to the quilt I'm making for my son. This is the Cinnamon Twist pattern that I was only able to get if I purchased a Jolly Bar of the Fig Tree fabric from Fat Quarter Shop. I just checked and it doesn't appear to be available any more. Maybe they will release just the pattern. Anyway this top has given me fits. It is only squares and HST but I've managed to put them together incorrectly numerous times. Can't wait to get this off to Delinda to quilt. 

I have one more seam to do... the one where I put the top and the bottom half together... I'm a little worried as when I pinned it to the wall the bottom half seems bigger... and it shouldn't be... fingers crossed I can ease in any excess. 

And oh the gardening I have done!!!  My son has been a HUGE help digging holes. We've planted several flats of zinnias and marigolds and about 2 dozen one gallon perennials. I had a $100 gift certificate to a local nursery that I received last summer when I won a beautification award from my little town. I'd been holding onto it because you had to spend the entire $100 in one trip... and I just realized last Friday that it was going to expire at the end of the month... yikes!!  So being one of the more upscale nursery I knew it wouldn't get a lot of plants but I sure didn't want to pass up any free plants. I got 4 or maybe it was 5 one gallon interesting  perennials and a couple of small dahlias... and I spent $99.97 cents... cha-ching... certainly got my money's worth.  

Then I had another $100 gift card to another nursery ... a present from my older son that I'd been hanging onto for a while... so I went there and spent ALL of that card and another $60... plants are super expensive this year. Almost every perennial I got was at least $16 and a couple were $22... but I did get some really pretty plants. When they are in bloom I'll show some pictures. 

 Here is the petunias as of the end of April when I was just potting them up...

Right now this is my showiest display... the petunias... and they are gorgeous if I say so myself ... and I do!

The window boxes are coming along nicely. I checked and I planted them about 5 weeks ago... but I forgot to take a picture... maybe next time. 

I'm having trouble this year getting the plants and the pots to come out even...  and my new infatuation is with coleus... so many varieties ... I had to get a second pot to accommodate what I found... I think there are about a dozen different kinds here. 

Friday I planted up my big raised bed. I lost count of how many dahlia tubers I put in, but I guesstimate about 100.  I'm trying this new idea for "staking" them. I've suspended this plant netting... I got it on Amazon...you can see it here. I've used zip ties to attach it to stakes about every 4 feet.  The plan is that the plants will grow up in the openings and that it will support the stems... and somehow I forgot to take a picture... oh well, when the dahlias start growing  I'll show it in action.   I will say that I was disappointed in the dahlia tubers I got from Costco this year. There were less in a bag, 8 tubers versus 10 and they were more expensive... I think about $2 more a bag... and that would be okay as EVERYTHING is more expensive this year, but several bags had tubers that showed NO signs of life... so I didn't plant them.  I suppose if I wanted to take the whole bag back, Costco would refund my money... but I want tubers not dollars.  If there isn't a bit of an eye bud showing I don't have much hope the dahlia will grow.  I did order a lot from several online places,  Longfield Gardens and K. van Bourgondien and Breck's. And the tubers I got were much nicer... only one or two bad ones. Yes the online places were more expensive. I held out for free shipping and two-fer sales... but you get what you pay for, don't you? 

I am planning on digging up the tubers in the raised bed at the end  of the season. I'm thinking I can store them in some hay in plastic bins (without the lids) and put them in my basement.  Even if they don't all survive, there should be more than I ended up with this year.  Of the almost 150 tubers I planted only 8 came up.  In planting the bed this year I couldn't find any of the tubers. I think they rotted... insert frowny face... however the dahlias that were in the ground have come back nicely. Maybe not every one but a substantial number are already over a foot high and look very healthy.  Well that was more than enough gardening talk... more for my benefit to look back on next year and remember what I did.

As for decorating here's the display out on the sunroom porch... more birds... cause I love the birds!

A close up....

In the living room is my large shelf unit... and yes I do have quite a flock of bird knickknacks... 

from the top is at tulip pincushion chart from  the BBD Thank you Sarah Tobias...

next shelf down has 2 new finishes... first is Good Deeds from WTN&T... I stitched this over a year ago but just got it framed recently... 

my BIG bird cookie jar perches in the middle, then there is Bobbin' Along from Notforgotten Farms, and the other newly framed piece  Tribute from the BBD book Women of Charm & Grace: A Quilting Tribute to the Women who Served in WWII.  

Next shelf is Because It's Spring from Wendy Peatross and more bird knickknacks.

Below Brite Birds by Kathy Barrick, it is a freebie you can see here... the Hello Spring pincushion from Sub Rosa Designs... 

and 2 little pillows that a snippets from the chart A Saviour's Praise by Shakespeare's Peddler. I have one more pillow to add but I haven't got it FFO'd yet. 

I finally got over to the framer and picked up O Joyous Day! by Blackbird Design... I LOVE how it turned out... now to get it up on my sampler wall. 

So the next couple of weeks are surprisingly open... no doctor's appointments or engagements... at least nothing yet. I'll be happy to stay close to home. There will definitely be yard work to be done. I've spent  3 full days cutting back daffodils  and planting stuff but there are still some that need attention. I haven't put any seeds down ... need to get to that. Finishing Nick's quilt will let me start something new... maybe something Halloween-y... and there is plenty of cross stitch I want to do.  Was mindlessly scrolling through IG and an old old old piece I started popped up... Birds of a Feather Mystery Sampler from WTN&T... you can see it here.  I started this when if first came out... 2011... twelve years ago... OMG... it doesn't seem that long ago... but it is... anyway I'd like to get it done before the end of the year.  Here's where mine is...

oops the picture is sideways... and I'm too tired to fix it... you get the idea...

LOTS more to do, but I really like this piece. Not sure if it is still in print or not.  

As you can tell I will still be pulled in too many directions... but then I almost always am... I bounce from project to project... I was ADHD before they had a name for it... good thing there aren't many deadlines in my life any more...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today..and while I've worked in the yard the past 2 days for waaay longer than I planned, I think I'll go out again today for a while. Feel like I need to take advantage of the weather.... yesterday was perfect...low 70's and a bit of a breeze ... what I have left to do should take as long today... and then I can come inside and sit on the sunroom porch and stitch... the good life!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Need sunshine and a hot fudge sundae on this Slow Sunday...

 Hello - as I start writing this, my plan is to be short and sweet... we'll see how that works out. (Spoiler alert... it isn't as short as I hope but not as long as it could have been).

 I'm starting out with whining, it is the mood I am in... sorry... and more whining is pretty evenly distributed in this post... but there are some bright spots too!

The last 2 weeks have not been very productive to my way of thinking... I've lost several days to not feeling well... each bout being a different body part that was rebelling.  Digestive tract, knees, hip, hand... good grief... I'm spending waaaay too much time just trying to hold everything together. And to add to that I had a colonoscopy and an endoscopy... YUCK!!   Results were exactly as I suspected... I have GERD... what can you do about it?  Eat a diet that doesn't aggravate it and take the meds you've been taking.

The weather has also been driving me nuts. The month of May came in cold and gray and rainy... then there were about 2 gorgeous days which had been running all over town hitting garden center after garden center after garden center  like a drunk on a binge... I got a ton of petunias and a new shelf display...

There are 20 different petunias on this shelf unit.., the shelf unit came from Hobby Lobby... it is metal ... I should spray it with polyurethane... its on my list of things to do... I like the size of it and the shelves flip up and the whole thing folds up so it will be easy to store in the garage over the winter.  Back to the petunias... love this pink one...

And next to this petunia is a tiny little fern... you can probably see it better if you enlarge the pic of the whole display. I've never seen tiny ferns like this before... it was $5  which in the scheme of things was a bargain plant this year. Individual fancy petunias are going for $5 to $8 each.  Its a good think I don't smoke drink gamble or do drugs... plants are pricey pricey pricey. 

Here's a look at some of my haul... 

There's 5 flats of those little zinnias I love to edge the beds with... they are the Profusion variety and I got 5 different colors. And I got a bunch of geraniums, orange and white... and coleus, I think 8 different varieties, and lobelia, and dusty miller and some other filler stuff and this and that. Yes I suffer greatly from FOMO... Fear of Missing Out. I want to take everything home with me!! And to exacerbate my condition I've already had 2 incidences where I went back for more a a particular plant and it was GONE... so no wonder I have FOMO. 

Here's some of the pots I've put together..

A mix of stuff including that Prince Tut papyrus and cannas and geraniums and petunias.

I did two like this, one for either side of the garage... 2 different orange petunias, cannas, and some blue lobelia. 

The lady on the front steps (and yes I complained the steps needed to be repainted last year... maybe Dan the Handyman can get to it this summer)... anyway the petunias are a color I've never seen ... it was called Cinnamon and it is beautiful. I probably should pinch it all back to make it bushier... perhaps in a day or two I will.  And I wish I remembered exactly which of the 6 nurseries I got these at... I think it was the one that is the farthest away from my house ... I'd really like one more plant... but it a 30 minute drive with a detour thrown in ( another rant... EVERYWHERE I've been in the last week has involved a road closure and a lengthy detour... I've driven more miles in the last week than in I usually do in a month!) ... Don't know that I'll make the trip.

As for the dahlias, well I have plenty to plant..

There are about 150 tubers here although I'm not certain that all are viable.  Its hard to tell through the plastic bags. I'm not happy with the dahlia bed results ... don't know if it was that brutal  cold spell this winter or if I shouldn't have had Dan the lawn kid put the extra mulch on the bed... I thought it would insulate it... but of the approximately 175 tubers I planted last year I have exactly 6 plants that are showing any signs of life.  I went out and dug around in the bed and couldn't find many tubers at all... a couple of mushy remnants at best.  I suppose this Fall I should dig them up instead of leaving them in the bed. Now I am seeing a bunch of the dahlias I left in the ground around the house showing signs of life, so that is good... and even some of my cannas are coming back... but not all of them... sigh.  And to add to my bad mood about gardening I'm having issues with deer eating petunias and geraniums this year... that's never happened before... I ordered some different repellents to spray as they seem to be immune to the stuff I used in the past.  Oh and they severely pruned my tree form hydrangea the other night too. I don't have a lot in the yard that they like... right now the yard is bursting with alliums which they hate... which is probably why they are eating the other stuff. 

So I'm chomping at the bit to get stuff in the ground... but today and tomorrow are pretty much non-stop rain and that isn't warming up the ground. I was doing some reading and dahlias like the ground to be around 60 degrees when you plant them... and zinnia seeds need a ground temp of 70 to germinate... and I bought a thermometer that can tell you how warm the ground is... and my soil is still cold... which I knew ... as even the window boxes I planted a month ago are barely taking off... it has just been too cold and wet and gray... sigh... 

In my crafty world things are also  not peak performance. I put down the Teresa Kogut Remember Me sampler and picked up the Sunnyside Sampler from The Drawn Thread. It is a smaller piece ( relative to the Remember Me sampler)  and I really thought I could power through it and perhaps get it finished by the end of May... not sure that is going to happen... here's where it stands...

I'm about half way done... and I would be closer to 2/3rd complete if not for this problem house...

It is the smallest house on the block... but it took  me 3 rounds of stitching and frogging and re-stitching to build it.  There is a large charting error so if you stitch this piece be sure to check that out... but the charting error really wasn't the cause of my problem... counting was... my first attempt had me 2 stitches off... too much to fudge on this piece as there is only one or two stitches between each house. My next attempt had me one stitch off and I thought about leaving it alone, but it would have thrown off the alphabet at the bottom for the rest of the piece and my OCD couldn't take that. I'm also finding myself changes a bunch of the flosses for this piece. I'm using the DMC conversion which isn't great IMHO... and so I find myself looking for a lighter or darker shade of the proposed color. I'm making a lot of notes since I fear I may put this in time out and then I'll never figure out what I did.  I picked it up last night for a couple of hours and so far so good...no frogging.

And next Sunday is Mother's Day... and I always treat myself to a brand new guilt free start that weekend. My dilemma is I don't know what I want to start...right now I have it narrowed down to 2  choices... 

Primitive Lady by Ewe and Ewe and Friends..

This is an oldie but goodie I found in my stash... I even had the floss and some linen in the envelope... but I don't like the linen and I'm going to change some of the flosses. If you enlarge the picture you can see the lady is a red head and her hair is all french knots... very curly... like a certain stitcher I know well...LOL

My second choice is also an oldie but goodie but it just arrived at my house this week...

a reprint of Prairie Schooler's Garden Samplers... I like the two on the right hand side... I went and got all the DMC flosses  and I have linen I can dye or paint for these... and there is such comfort in stitching Prairie Schooler that I might not have anything to whine about... hmmm... I may be onto something here... Right now I'm attracted to long narrow samplers as I'm running out of wall space in my humble abode but there are still a few narrow spots I could tuck in a finished piece... and yes I know this is crazy thinking but it does make me happy... and we can all use as much happy as we can get our hands on!!

Well I was going to wrap up this post with a bit of my Spring/ bird decor but right now technology is not cooperating.  I submitted to doing updates on my computer and my phone the other day and I've had nothing but problems every since. Things were just fine they way they were for me... grrrr..... I'm sure that as soon as I hit publish the pictures I'm waiting for will appear... sigh...

Anyway I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and go spend some time there seeing what others are up to... that should improve my mood.  I see a peek of sunlight but the weather radar has a nasty looking blob of rain headed this way in an hour or so... Perhaps I'll head to my basement sewing studio and cheer myself up with some quilt blocks... there are two new to me tulip blocks I'd like to play with... need to focus on positivity ...arrgghh... for some reason Blogger has decided that positivity is mis-spelled... which is making it very hard to be positive... and since I don't drink I suppose I could go drown my sorrows in a hot fudge sundae...  where are my car keys??

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Positivityi

A Slow Sunday where the old dog doesn't want to learn new tricks...

 Hello - well time is flying again... Hope you had a nice Easter holiday... our was low key as a certain little fellow celebrated his 4th birthday a few days after Easter Sunday and a party ensued... Four years old... where does the time go??  His first birthday actually fell on Easter Sunday ... and his daddy looked it up... and that won't occur again until Elliott is 40.  I doubt I'll be around for that party... 

Which got me thinking about my birthday this year. I will hit one of those milestone decades in the Fall...    70 years on this earth... mentally I don't feel that old... physically I'm certainly aware of it... body parts are wearing out... knees, thumb, hip, eyes, teeth... a  calendar liberally dotted with appointments to see this or that medical professional.  And as far as I know, nothing fatal in afflicting me... just annoying stuff.  With every ache and pain some young doctor ( I have shoes in my closet older than them) usually prescribes taking something over the counter... and yet I resist... I don't want things to hurt, but I also don't want to take something for it... a dilemma of my own making. 

And last week a crafty situation got me feeling old... I do crafty stuff to escape reality, but it intruded. Soooooo... I've been wanting to start the  Remember Me Sampler by Teresa Kogut... if you don't remember here's what it looks like.

Well the model was done on 40 ct... and I've stitched on 40 ct before but it hasn't been my favorite. I thought I'd try again as I determined that the problem I was having was the linen I had ( I'm pretty sure it was a Zweigert) was soft... I stitch in hand and I don't like soft linen. I prefer something with some body, which is basically just sizing, and I know lots of others think of this as crunchy linen... and it is ... but if you are holding it in your hands to stitch it gets softer as time goes on.   OK where was I going with this?   So I ordered some 40 ct linen that is Wichelt... they make my favorite 32 ct... it is stiff as a board... I LIKE IT VERY MUCH.   

Now I wanted to paint the linen for this sampler.  I used Rit dyes... a very diluted Lemon Yellow and Tangerine... the tangerine is a lovely peachy color when watered down.  So I painted the 40 ct and I was very pleased with the results.  I gathered up my flosses ... all DMC with a few modifications of my own and took myself out on the sunroom porch to enjoy the Spring-y weather and good lighting. I worked on  the sampler for hours... one ply over 2 threads... and I HATED it... I didn't like the coverage ... I didn't like how my stitches were looking... and I didn't like how I was having to poke and stab versus the sewing motion I do.  It was not an enjoyable afternoon.... Why?  All the cool kids on Flosstube rave about 40 ct... and their stitching looks lovely ... and they obviously enjoy it... but I concluded this is NOT for me.

This old dog doesn't want to learn new tricks.  This old dog loves 32 ct... I LOVE the coverage... yes my stitches aren't all perfect but I've been stitching this way for over 35 years and I have stitched tons of pieces ... and they are pretty!! IMHO...LOL... I LOVE the sewing method ... and I LOVE DMC... don't need silks to make me happy.

So I put the 40 ct aside  and got out a piece of 32 ct count and again painted it a soft lemon yellow and peach ... and I LOVE THIS!!  I have hardly put this sampler down for the last two weeks...

and yes it is going to be a BIG sampler...about 14.5" x 18.5"...  I adore the floral border... you can stitch the outline of most of the flowers and then go back and fill in... no additional counting needed... perfect for watching TV or Flosstube... it is relaxing and satisfying and enjoyable... and I'm definitely in the mindset of making every day I have left on this earth as happy as I possibly can!!

And speaking of Flosstube ... I like watching what others are stitching and I like seeing older pieces too. Viewing different channels often has me running to search for a chart I've never seen before... but I also had a startling surprise... I learned that I've been starting my stitch in the wrong place... for over 35 years... I recently watched a video from a seasoned teacher who was explaining that the first leg of your stitch should be over the vertical threads...huh... I've always started on the horizontal threads... and while I was stitching on the 40 ct I tried to learn a new trick and changed to starting on the vertical thread... which had me all muddled up when I was trying to count stitches... this old dog hones in on the horizontal threads to count... and so along with poking and stabbing my stitches were ending up one thread off... I've returned to my normal  decades old behavior... not gonna change this late in the game.

Let's move on to more pleasant stuff... as I said I've been pretty monogamous to the Remember Me Sampler for the last couple of weeks.... but I did add another house to the Sunnyside Sampler from The Drawn Thread...

and I did this small... a snippet from the border of the  chart Saviour's Praise by Shakespeare's Peddler...

I need to FFO it into a little pillow and add it to my Spring bird display.

And segwaying into decor... I banished the bunnies and broke out the birdies... I LOVE birds... 

Here's the small shelf display... lots of cool blues and turquoises...

On top there is the Spring selection from the book Seasons of the Heart from With Thy Needle & Thread... I want to get the Summer piece done on this one this year... and the Spring Alphabet  Sampler from Lizzie Kate.  I've done all 4 seasons from this series... stitched them years ago and still LOVE them...

In the middle a BIG square turquoise plate... LOVE it ... got it for free as another friend was going to take it to Goodwill... and I just got these birds this year. at Hobby Lobby ... and off the subject at hand, but have you been to HL lately?  They've definitely upped their game with the decor items. Remember never pay full price... I find that the sales alternate each week between Wall Decor and Table Decor so I snag things during the right sales week... The little lady with the big posey is part of a chart from Pineberry Lane ... you can see it here.  the little Hope pillow is by Hello From Liz Matthews... you can find it here ... its a freebie.

And on the bottom Funky Bird from Barbara Ana designs...

I feel like I have a lot of bird things but this time around my displays seem less busy than the bunnies... I'm by no means a minimalist ... and yet I'm liking the calmer feel of my displays right now.

On the wall I have my favorite Stack N Whack quilt...

the fabric is giant petunias from Phillip Jacobs... all the blocks came from that border fabric. I had planned on having a new wall quilt for Spring, but I'm just not feeling quilting as much as I'm into cross stitch right now. 

Here's the tier tray...

The top piece is a Lizzie Kate... the bird was something I got off of Pinterest years ago and the little pillow on the bottom was something I copied from a photograph I saw online... it was from Blackbird Designs... I love a petite sampler.

I'm still working on the large shelf display and the sunroom porch. I have 2 small projects I want to finish before I show them, so stay tuned. 

Well the weather here is definitely Spring -y.... 80 degrees one day followed by a touch of frost the next day... which coincidentally is the current forecast. I'm itching to work in the yard.  Flats of annuals are sneaking into garden centers... I did succumb to a flat of marigolds and a flat of  dark purple petunias... I put them in my window boxes because I hate empty window boxes... so far the frost hasn't bothered them. It helps the boxes are a minimum of 5 feet off the ground and right up on the side of the house. I think that gives them some protection. If the frost does get to them I think the marigolds will be fine, its the petunias that could be vulnerable... but they aren't the expensive Wave petunias so if they don't make it I'll replant them. I knew prices would be more than last year and they are. The flats I got were from the least expensive garden center in my part of town. I paid $18 for a flat... each flat had 8 cells with 4 plants in each... so 32 plants total... and that seems like less than last year. I thought the marigolds I got last year had 6 plants per cell and I remember paying $14 or $15 for a flat.  I also priced ferns... anywhere from $14 to $20 this season. Last year I paid $10... so far no bargains.  I did see those fancy petunias I like at Meijers. They come in little 4 inch pots... they were priced at $5 each... yikes... I know they were no more than $4 last year.   I keep hearing that inflation is going down... and it is but that doesn't mean prices are going down...they aren't and they won't... that's basic economics... I understand it but I don't like it.

I'll hop over and link up with Kathy's Quilts... planning on a quiet day ... perhaps motivate myself to work on Nick's quilt... definitely get some cross stitching in.... The weather next week doesn't look bad but doesn't look warm enough to do any planting. The daffodils are gone but the alliums are just starting to open... I love those purple lollipop flowers.  I have seen some signs of life from  the cannas and dahlias I left in the ground... that makes me happy. Haven't seen anything coming up in my big  raised bed. I should go out and dig up some tubers and see if there are any sprouts. I hope so, but I'm wary of what I might find. I do have over 100 tubers in the garage. Last year I planted 175 in that raised bed, so if I lost some I should be okay and I hope I didn't lose all of them... fingers crossed. 

Hope you are getting some Spring time weather and some crafty time too!

happy stitching-

carol fun