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Sunday, April 29, 2018

Slow Sunday Stitching and Garden Works to send off April.


This is the last Sunday in April I thought I would share my newest hand embroidery piece Entering the Forest Clearing on Beltane Eve.  A fitting piece for the end of April.

Just when I thought the stitching was complete until I noticed there was no ground to stand upon. Using one of those pens that remove stitching lines when pressed with a warm iron I must have 'erased' the ground when I was pressing out lines to make a few changes. So literally I am back to the drawing board. Some day I will learn not to make changes midway through my designs.

The weather here has been lovely dry and cool pleasant enough to get out in the garden and clean things up a bit.  After the winter freezes we had I wasn't sure any of my plants would survive but lucky for me Mother Nature had different plans for some of my plants.
My Canna Lily bloomed last weekend so this week I cleaned away all the dead debris and she will get a larger pot this week.  
There is a new shoot coming up, so glad I kept this one.  I  first spotted this plant at the Silver Springs park a few years ago so I did a little research and sure enough it blooms through late summer dies off and returns in the Spring. Even though it's a perennial I had my doubts after the hard freezes we had and the cover came off twice.
The Mexican Petunias are looking quite healthy now that I cut off all the dead stalks these will be transplanted into the large pot this week.  The Caladiums and the black Elephant Ears are burst out as well.
I pulled out the dead leaves yesterday I'll plant these in a large pot or possibly the ground, here is a stray from a spent leaf I tossed last summer peeking out from behind a few empty pots.
These elephant ear are all from spent leaves I just tossed in a half filled pot, last year while away the planter feel over leaving me a bunch of dead plants upon my return.
Then it wouldn't be Spring without a few new plants to perk things up in the front of my house.
There is Lantana, Pentas, Lavender, and Rosemary, another Lavender and Lantana plant, all will be planted into larger pots this week.  I had every intention of transplanting them yesterday but when I opened the garage the large bag of soil waiting was garden soil and not potting soil and I learned a few years ago there is a big difference when planting in pots.
Butterflies love Pentas and Lantana so I have those just for that purpose, The lavender is for me because I love it one is a culinary type.  This Rosemary was so lush and healthy I just couldn't pass it up.
So this week while the weather is pleasant I will be working in my garden, I don't plant to do much this year while I'm house hunting because truly I don't want to have to pack up a bunch of plants because the last time I moved I lost the majority of them.

Today though with  my allergies in high gear I have plans to sit and get in some slow stitching and hopefully finish the Greenman embroidery and perhaps start new project or two.
There isn't much more stitching to go on him and I'm looking forward to completing him, but first I need to add some ground to my Beltane Forest piece.  I will be linking today at Kathy's Quilts click the link and find out what other bloggers are Slow Stitching today. 

Sunday, April 22, 2018

A Visit to the Butterfly Rain Forest

Some photos of my trip to the Butterfly Rain Forest at the Museum of Natural History in Gainesville yesterday with my sister and Tessa.

And a few bugs and crawly things that always seem to grab my attention, Tessa likes looking at bugs close up. When I first moved to Florida I was amazed at the size some of the insect were, years ago I snapped a photo of a grasshopper measured of 4 inches long, then there was a beetle with a horn like a Rhinoceros, there are several in the display case in the photo.
And a few more butterflies
and waiting to become...
and yes it's real
and on the move inside the science lab
It was a beautiful day with just a light drizzle falling later in the day, we made it through the first round in the rain forest without rain, spent some time in the museum and made another round with the butterflies before a visit to the gift shop.
Bought a few trinkets and a t-shirt for Tessa and some plants to attract butterflies for my sister's garden.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

April's New Moon Orts

It's a new moon and time for the April TUSAL  ort report. Below are my orts for April so far,  lots of great color mostly from the two projects I am currently working on.  
I'm so glad I keep my orts in my little thread catcher (barely visible in the photo) because I needed a short piece of green to finish off part of a leaf on the greenman and I didn't want to cut a full length and split the thread when I knew I would be moving to my other project.

The blue fabric the orts are sitting on will soon be used for another spirit doll, in the meantime I need to pull out the satin floss to start the moon that is barely visible in the photo but is in the left corner of the tree.
So that concludes my Ort reporting for April, if you are curious about what a TUSAL is head on over to check it out.  https://itsdaffycat.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-totally-useless-stitch-long.html

The new Gail Pan book arrived in today's mail I pre-ordered a few months ago and can't wait to start the projects in this book.
I love the the simplicity of Gail Pan's designs and would love to just trace each pattern in the book page by page so they are ready for stitching but I have a few projects waiting in the wings and I need to complete the 2 pictured here first.

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Bits-n-Bobs and Some Slow Stitching Too.

Some stitching progress on the Greenman has been made though not as much as I had planned. It won't be long till the stitching is complete you can see my needle in the bottom corner I paused to snap the photo.  This is a pattern by Urban Threads.
My own piece is another project I am making for a friend an antlered Goddess as evident in the photo, I have made several changes along the way and I'm sure there are a few other changes to come before she is done. I am posting today here on Kathy's Quilts for slow Sunday stitching  https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2018/04/slow-sunday-resting.html
Bits of cast off fabric, the odd button or two and beads, a few loose charms, thread, yarn with other fibers add a little bit of air dry clay and few wooden clothes pins, mix some of the ingredients to get a few Spirit Dolls.

No scrap is too small to keep, any loose button is tossed into one of my button boxes for another day,  all those orts that on each new moon are lovingly stuffed into my orts jar waiting...sometimes the wait is a long time in coming then all at once those items are gathered and transformed.

Whether I am slow stitching hand embroidery, or hand piecing a quilt square or two (made from old cashmere sweaters) or putting bits and bobs together to create a few spirit dolls.  I love slowing down to do hand work.  Molding air dry or polymer clay feeds my need to get back into a pottery studio, for now it's enough.  



Saturday, April 14, 2018

Heeding the Sirens Call


"It's new every morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest sunshine." ~Anne of Green Gables




A Morning Dove stops to rest
A cloud feather floats by
The sun shimmers in the west
Day is done my heart sighs...