Sunday Stitches and Garden Update

Another Sunday and that means it's time for a little Slow Stitching reveal and a link up over at Kathy's Quilts.https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2016/05/slow-sunday-stitching_15.html  where you can view what Kathy is working on and many other talented bloggers who like to slow down with a little hand stitching, but before I reveal what I am slow stitching I want to post about a few things that have kept me from making more progress on my stitching.

First there was last Sunday and I had nothing stitched to share mostly because I was away for the Mother's Day weekend.  My son and I drove to the Georgia Renaissance Faire held in Fairburn Georgia, just a short 7 hour drive, with a stop or two to browse an antique shop. The weather was perfect for the Fair, sunny, breezy and low to mid 70's and the evening dropped to 46 and I was chilly.

Jousting

Copper dragon fountain

some vendor shops

The grounds where the fair is held is a dedicated area with permanent buildings, stages and arenas, I was so impressed with the area many of the vendor shops had little gardens or fountains. This was the 30th year of the fair and my first visit.

A week or so before Mothers Day my son cut back all the over grown shrubs in the front of my house that I had wanted to do before I became ill, then we went on a little shopping spree for plants to put in the space.  I wanted flowering plants and leafy easy to care for plants and came away with some lovely choices. I blogged about the new plants here:
http://deborahsbitsandpieces.blogspot.com/2016/04/spending-some-time-in-my-garden.html

Yesterday I spent most of the day transplanting the plants into large pots since I don't want to put them in the ground. I just have them placed in the sun until I decide exactly where to place them. You can see in the photo below the shrubs are gone, there is a bit of debris to bag up then I can lay down the mulch and place my pots.

Yesterday while transplanting I ran out of soil and I was short a pot or two so it was off to the store, an hour later I return home with soil, pots and 4 more Persian Shield plants you can see them in the front I left a tag on one of the pots. I had to buy the two concrete planters from Wal-Mart they were priced too good to pass up at $11.00 dollars each, in this area you can't get that size at wholesale prices.

one of two concrete plantes

I have a potted Hibiscus in there right now though later this week I want to buy a larger Jamine plant for the planter.

I snapped the photos early this morning before the Mexican Petunias had a chance to open those lovely purple flowers. Here is a photo before the shrubs were cut down to the ground.

It really was a massive mess with several species of shrubs growing nearly on top of one another. I am happy to have them gone and I think the flowering plants will be a nice change.  I plan to add a few rose bushes too.

As for my Slow Stitching Sunday progress, the hand embroidery for block 7 of the Hocuspocusville Quilt is started, I don't know if I mentioned this before but I love stitching the trees on these blocks.

block 7

I plan to get more stitching done today, after nearly 8 hours in the garden yesterday my body aches so slow stitching is just what I need.

One thing I can say is the month of May has been good to me I am finally recovered from that nasty lingering bug or I wouldn't have been able to spend as much time in the garden as I did or walk all those hours at the Renaissance fair last weekend.

I hope you are all having a wonderful day whether you are stitching, gardening, reading or just sitting back sipping tea. Now I am off to see what other bloggers are stitching today and once again here is the link to Kathy's Quilts stop on over and have a peek.
https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2016/05/slow-sunday-stitching_15.html