Visitng Some Old Friends

After I completed my little Olympic piece, there were still a few days left to the Olympic celebration, so I pulled out this old friend, 4th of July 2011 by Aury TM. It's a complimentary design on her website, one of 4 patriotic designs she's done in this style.

I had originally begun this last year when all my husband's health problems began. I discovered I was off one thread after completing many hours on it. I gave up in disgust and put it away. Several months ago, I pulled it out again and frogged all that I'd stitched and started again. So far, so good!

With the end of summer upon us and football preseason on TV, I decided to pull out Sunflower Garden Sampler by Prairie Schooler. Last night while watching the 2nd half of the Cowboys game, I did the bird after the V & W and finished the pole for the birdhouse. Now, I just hope everything lines up when I get to the bottom of the alphabet!

Our bathroom project is on hold because we have to wait for the plaster to dry. If you think watching and waiting for pain to dry, try being patient while the quick-drying plaster dries!! Of course, having 200% humidity for the past 2 weeks doesn't help matters any. Now, with Isaac heading closer to us than originally predicted, no telling what the weather will be like for the next week. (I'm several hundred miles north and west of the predicted landfall, but our weather pattern will be affected.)

I know I've talked a lot about little Daisy Doodlebug on my blog, but I am amazed at how she is *still* settling into our home. She has finally gotten comfortable coming down into our bedroom. She now spends an enormous amount of time in the window on my side of the bed in the afternoon, much to Mr. Tumbles' dislike. That's *HIS* spot, thank you very much! Daisy also comes down and jumps up on the foot of the bed, walks up Mark's side of the bed, walks onto his nightstand, and then sits on the windowsill every morning before we get out of bed. If we stay in bed longer than she thinks we should, she walks across his chest and up onto either my chest or side where she plops herself down and kneads and purrs. This afternoon, I had just woke up from my nap and she settled herself behind my knees. That's a first for snuggling!! Woohoo!! She has also started to engage Hannah in play, which Hannah doesn't want to partake. LOL Additionally, Daisy will often interfere on Hannah's part when Tumbles starts to get too aggressive and starts to bully Hannah. Hannah is comfortable with Daisy, but they are not friends by any stretch of the imagination. Most of the time everyone lives harmoniously, but there are times when it gets a bit dicey.

I will leave you with some pics from my garden over the past week or so. The cooler temps have brought out lots of blooms!

Evergreen Progress

Here's proof that I have been doing a bit of stitching in addition to playing in the dirt. Last week, I stitched on it for a few nights and then I picked it up on Sunday for my Sunday Incentive Project Stitching time.



And a view from my fertile driveway...



:o)

Who Sent the Frog Back to Me???

Last night as I was finishing up my stitching for the evening on Emmanuel, I noticed a mistake in my stitching. Now, I want to know just who sent that frog back to me?!? I haven't decided whether or not to frog it or to just work around the mistake, yet. I'm going to put this away for the week and work on my exchange piece and then I'll turn my attention back to this monster.

Here's where I started last night for Saturday Night Stitch:


And here's where I finished:



You're not imagining things if you look at the wing in the upper right part. The bird is right side up, but I've been stitching it upside down (turn my fabric and my chart upside down). Everyone take cover, I've sent that little frog packing!!

Closing with some views from my flower and veggie beds today.


Blue Bedder Sage & Rudbeckia

Mr. Lumpy Pumpkin getting his color on.

Garlic getting its stalk and leaves.

A view of the lettuce bed (& weeds--mixed greens!)

Baby spinach plants

Closing in on a Finish & Other News

My latest progress scan on Heart of America. It's creeping ever closer to a finish!! I've run out of English Ivy which is used on that bottom swirly thing that's not finished, but never fear! I have more in my stash closet, I just have to put my hands on it. I so want to get this one finished before starting on my new incentive piece, so I'm torn as to what I'll stitch on today. Do I try to finish this or do I go ahead and start "Give"? Decisions, decisions, decisions!!

In other news, I had a little gardening accident this past Tuesday while out harvesting bell peppers. I tried to lop off the side of my finger using my hand held pruning shears! OUCHIE!! This resulted in a trip to the minor emergency clinic, a DPT shot (diphtheria, pertussis aka whooping cough, and tetanus) in my arm that is STILL bugging me, and 5 pretty stitches on my finger. The stitches only impaired my stitching for a few hours. LOL I go back to see the nurse practitioner (a fellow stitcher btw) on Tuesday for the removal of the stitches. Things are healing nicely. I'm still putting some Neosporin on the wound and also some vitamin E gel on it to reduce scarring. At home, I try to go without a bandage, but if I'm going to be out and about, like at work, I put a bandage on it. I'm down to one band-aid now. Progress!

Here's the finger, all mummified after my visit to the clinic, with Callie investigating and protecting me:


When I first cut myself and was sitting on the couch trying to get the bleeding to stop, Callie immediately jumped up behind me and settled down on the blanket up there. She wouldn't leave me as she knew something was wrong with me. She was watching over me and wouldn't let Mark move her one inch! LOL When we got home, she followed me around constantly and was either on the floor near me or laying next to me at all times. I just love that cat!

Here are my not-so pretty stitches:


Surprisingly, I've not experienced much pain from the actual wound. Most of the pain and some bruising I've experienced were from the nerve block shot the NP injected into my finger to deaden it before beginning her little stitching project. I did experience some throbbing in the finger the day it happened and some tenderness, but mostly it's been pain free. Of course, if I manage to whack it on something, then it hurts, but left alone, there's no pain. I can even type normally now.

We have a few firsts in the garden! We have a pumpkin! After battling the squash vine borers, drenching rain, and heat, we've discovered at least one baby pumpkin on the vine. Woohoo!


We also have our first winter sown Purple Coneflower (echinacea)! I planted the seeds for these way back in February of this year. They've been slowly growing but have really taken off with the cooler temps and rain we've recently had.


Lastly, our first Green Zebra tomatoes! This was one of the heirloom tomato plants we got for $0.50 at a local nursery in May. We've babied these all summer and now they're producing babies! This tomato will not turn red, but will stay green with greenish stripes. If you click on the pic to see it larger, you'll see the green stripes already starting to form. Will be so fun to watch them mature. There's a total of 3 babies on the plant so far.



Fall is definitely here with football season well underway, the temps down to near 90º, and the days getting shorter. This is my favorite time of the year. Enjoy your fall!

It's a Wrap and I'm Building an Ark!

Design: City Stitcher Country Stitcher
Designer: Little House Needleworks
Fabric: 32 ct. Autumn Harvest from R&R Reproductions
Fibers: DMC and Crescent Colours

I'm so happy to have this one finished! It's a former incentive piece project from 2007. I remember stitching on it while my husband was in the hospital after falling from a ladder. After I brought him home, I was so busy taking care of him and doing everything else, that this went by the wayside. I did leave off the weather vane on the "country" house on the right. It has French Knots on it and I was having all kinds of problems getting the knots to stay on the top side of the fabric! I love doing French Knots and normally don't have any problems, but today was not my day!!


This was our rain gauge on Friday night. We had 3.75" of rain on Friday night between 6pm and 11pm. That's an insane amount of rain for such a relatively short period of time. It rained fairly hard for about 2 hours with lots of thunder and lightning. However, it didn't stop there! This morning, I dumped out another 3.5" of rain, and we've received almost another 1/2" today! We're supposed to get more this evening and into tomorrow. I feel like a hurricane has come ashore and we're getting the after effects. I'm thinking I might need to start building an ark! Here are some pics from my morning stroll of the yard in the drizzle this morning.

Crepe Myrtle blooms laden down with rain

Rock Rose (I LOVE this plant!!)

A very wet Blanket Flower. I have another one that shows a very soggy flower head.

Black-Eyed Susan


This bucket hasn't been emptied since the rains started. Just think, there's more water in it now!

An Evening Stroll Through My Flower Beds

The past week, we've had awesome temps, so things are really starting to green up (including the weeds) and I've been itching to get outside and get some dirt on my hands. I'm also gearing up for the spring plant swap. Hope to be able to get some great things as well as give several things away.

The Texas Gold Columbines are really taking off. Starting in February, they start putting out lots of new, green growth in preparation for their annual profusion of blooms. Found my first buds almost ready to pop today! Sorry for the blurry pic, but I was so excited to find the buds!



Among the leaves of covering among the columbines, Pigeonberry is starting to show its leaves.



As always, the Four Nerve Daisies are strutting their stuff.



The daylilies have really leafed out! They look so mature this year, like real clumps! LOL



The poppies are growing. Can't wait for these to set buds and bloom. I threw these out late fall last year. Not even sure how big they get or when they bloom, so it'll be interesting with them. Sometimes the best gardening is trial & error.



This Hummingbird Sage (aka Texas Sage, aka Salvia coccinea) survived the winter and has buds on it. They're about to pop!



This is a very prolific bloomer and seeder, so I got TONS of seeds leftover from last year's harvest. If you're interested, I'm happy to share.

Lastly, my winter sowing project has been a hit! At the beginning of February, I started about 13 milk jugs of seeds outside. I wrote about it on my gardening blog if you want the blow-by-blow description. Out of the 13, only about 4 or 5 don't have anything peeking out yet. I'm most excited about the one pink skullcap seedling I saw today. Here's a peek into a few of the jugs today.

I think these are one of the salvias I planted. These will definitely need to be thinned!



This is a low growing mix from Wildseed Farm. I have no idea what's sprouted in there! LOL



Here's the container of Gaillardia, better known as Blanket Flower.



This is what's been occupying my stitching time as of late. Maybe next week I'll have something stitchy to share!! LOL