Garden surprises, slow stitching a goddess and a wonderful book to end off March

The flowers on the Milkweed are nearly devoured by very hungry caterpillars. I was hoping to get caterpillars this year and I was not disappointed. 

I finally have the name for the little purple wildflower its a lyre-leaf sage.

The Lantana along the driveway is doing quite well after the rains we had this week. It sprouted out a few weeks ago where the Holly tree used to be. I'm going to cut a piece to see if I can root it and plant some in another area. I would love to have some along the fence. 

I finished week 13 piece for the K3n.clothtales SAL it is a Friendship Star. I was reminded how much I love hand piecing.

I am working on another slow stitched Goddess this one in shades of purple fabrics

She is almost ready to be cut out along her template lines so I can put her on a backing fabric to continue working.

The Spring goddess is waiting for me to decide how I want to continue with the piece.  I'm so glad I ventured into slow stitching in this way. I feel more creative with each piece I make.

The Untamed Thread by Fleur Woods arrived a few days ago while I only had time to browse through the pages I will be taking the time to read over the weekend.  

The full color photos are breathtaking to say the least, the fiber art among the pages are so beautiful I ache to run my hands over them.

If you were thinking of buying a copy and haven't taken the plunge yet do it you will be so glad you did. It's a great addition to your fiber art and needlework library.

If you aren't familiar with Fleur Woods her Instagram and Website links are below:

https://www.instagram.com/fleurwoodsart/?hl=en

https://www.fleurwoodsart.com/

A quick update, about 5 hours after I snapped the photos of the caterpillars I found them starting to spin a cocoon.

Nature is amazing.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!

The month of April started out on the wrong foot with me in the hospital for a few days getting IV antibiotics for a horrendous colitis attack, honestly I never knew anything could be so painful as an infection in the intestines.

The first photo is the antibiotics hanging along with the IV fluids I was getting to recover dehydration. The second photo is the two plugs I had to pull out everytime I needed to use the restroom. My foot in the yellow non skid socks to keep me from falling on my butt.  I’m home now recovering, feel weak as a kitten and so tired but hopeful to be feeling my old self soon.

 
Right before I got sick I had just added a few new plants for my garden, herbs and green beans, lantana and milkweed for the butterflies, jasmine and native honeysuckle vines and 2 rose bushes and a hibiscus.

 
Well the day after I had the new plants arranged and waiting for transplant I had the colitis attack and was only able to water my plants and two days later I was in the hospital, meanwhile we were about to have a change in weather from upper 90’s to normal 70’s and finally a forecast of rain.  The rain did come however most of the large plants fell over in the wind so missed a good soaking from the rain.  Needless to say when I arrived home I was heart broken and didn’t take a photo of the near dead plants.
 
Happy to say after my son righted the plants and they were watered a few hours later most were looking good.  Two days ago I gave the herbs a good soaking and they look okay except the sage which may bounce back with a good trim.  The green beans have sprouted a few beans in a matter of days.

There was a stowaway on the Milkweed plant in the form of a caterpillar just looks like a dark shadow under the leaf it ate its way through the buds and leaves on the plant and decided to hide for a while.

This is the latest photo taken yesterday afternoon of the herbs a bit worse for wear but surviving. Greek oregano, chives, Italian oregano, basil, thyme.

Hello December and Some Slow Sunday Stitching

The last few weeks have been busy with things picking up now that Thanksgiving is behind us. This year with Thanksgiving falling in the last week of the month sales have been crazy, but a good crazy for the business.  Unfortunately it doesn't leave me much time for anything else.

This year I went to my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner my sister's youngest daughter who recently moved to Tampa and will move on to Chicago this summer was there, my son's girlfriend (aka The One) Megan as joined us for dinner, it was a wonderful day and the first time I celebrated with family other then my son in over 20 years.

On the stitching front I haven't done much in the way of hand embroidery but I did finally have time to remove the stitch and wash product off my greenman piece, now to iron out those pesky wrinkles.

Nothing will be done with him until after the holiday season when I have the time to find the right frames for him and the Greenwoman piece. I plan to do some Slow Sunday Stitching today.

My plants are doing well and I added a new Rosemary this week, I could resist the Christmas tree shaping.

The lavender is growing fuller and filling out nicely, I had planned to transplant to larger pots this month but I don't think they need it yet.

Oct. 2019

Dec. 2019

The Mums have re-bloomed and changed color from a light orange to a deep red orange and are just lovely, I love how they change color, a few years ago I had Mums that re-bloomed 4 times each with a new color.

November 2019

September 2019

This week I'll pick up some poinsettia plants to add more color to the front and near the rocks along the driveway.  But for now I plan to get in a bit of stitching before the busyness of the day begins. I plan to pull out the Celtic Cross piece to work on for a while today and I am linking up to Kathy's Quilts here:https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/12/slow-sunday-stitching.html

I am going to try to hand stitch every day throughout the month of December even if it's just a handful of stitches I miss the quiet calm that stitching brings to me.

A Freeze the Week Before Spring, Slow Sundays and a Sneak Peek.

We had our usual cold snap before Spring last week with temps dropping to 28 degrees one night and 32 the next, I was keeping an eye on the Accuweather website for the weather report each day and happy to say I remembered to cover all my plants.

Moved everything together 

at my entryway

Stuff a few under the table

I uncovered everything yesterday afternoon, place them all in full sun and so far all the plants look fine a few a bit faded and one of the hibiscus is spindly but it keeps blooming so I don't want to cut it back.

Uncovered 

spindly hibiscus before the freeze

the spindly hibiscus after the freeze

The tomato plant has been bursting with fruits though the leaves are looking a little worse for wear hopefully a few days of warm sunshine will help.

tomatoes

more tomatoes

and still a few more tomatoes

On the hand embroidery update the stitching on the greenman was completed last weekend, now I am deciding whether to frame him or make a wall hanging.

I posted the photo on my Facebook page and my friends tell me he looks quite 1968 mellow it took me a moment to understand what she meant, she's right.  Those spaces on the side and along the top and bottom are part of my design I'm going to add fabric leaves to the piece regardless if I frame him or make a wall hanging, at least that's how I saw it in my mind when I began the piece.
I will be linking up today at Kathy's Quilts today for Slow Sunday Stitching here is the link to check out what other bloggers are slow stitching today:
 https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2017/03/slow-sunday-stitching_19.html

Here is a Sneak Peek at an upcoming project I have in the works, the project is a jewelry making project I ordered these charms about a week ago and they arrived on Friday.

elemental charms

 Several will be used for a jewelry project and a few may be put to use on the elemental goddess hand
embroidery I did a few weeks ago so I can give it the finish I had envisioned.

I will be joining the linky party at Supermom No Cape on Monday why don't you click the link and have a look at other blogger's wonderful projects and perhaps grab one or two of the free vintage embroidery patterns sure to bring a smile to your face.
http://www.supermomnocape.com/