Sleepy Little Monkey

Triumph! Well... sort of. I'm still on schedule with my Cole's Quilts finishes. Here's the May quilt square, completed... in May!

The fabric is actually a soft baby yellow, but the camera isn't seeing it. Two more squares to go!

Happy Stitching!

Color

Oh, hi. I was supposed to be posting wildly, wasn't I? Well, I have been--as we say at our house--OBE... overtaken by events. Mr. Wonderful has been incredibly busy in the last couple of weeks, and I was swept up in his busy-ness, so we're blaming him for the lack of stitching and posting, okay? Right.

One thing I have been doing is playing in the dirt. Every spring I look forward to getting outside and fixing up the flowerbeds. We live in quarters, so I'm limited to the beds (in other words, I can't do any landscaping or any other alterations), but I try to make the most of the flowerbeds. We had a long, hard winter and I wanted lots of color this spring. 

Scotch Broom

Dahlia

Lantana: This is my favorite variety and a little hard to find up here. It grows quickly, spreads and trails beautifully, is deer and drought resistant, tolerates full sun, and blooms constantly from May until the frost gets it in the fall. Pretty much perfect.

Coleus: The back yard is shady all day but I wanted some color back there, too. I'm a big fan of coleus in all its varieties, and I think it looks so great when lots of them are planted together. I'm trying to resist the urge to buy tons of them and do a huge container, but I couldn't resist this one. So pretty.

And now for the hosta. We call this "Scary Hosta" because it is gigantic and a little intimidating and looks like it's trying to engulf the yard, small animals, possibly the neighborhood. Mr. Wonderful also refers to it as "Franken Hosta." It's almost 5' across. I know I should have divided it this spring, but I was really busy getting ready for my trip to Texas and just didn't get it done. It looked normal when I left. When I got back, it was way too big to divide. Now we're afraid if we fall into it we might not get out.

Another variety of hosta... not quite so scary.

So that's what we've got at the end of May. I'm waiting on the day lilies to bloom, and I've got some Speedwell that's between blooms. I also rescued a sad little Mexican Heather plant that was needing a home (love, LOVE Mexican Heather). I'll post some updates throughout the summer when everything really gets going. 

Happy Mother's Day!

Under The Sea

Here's April's quilt square for Cole's Quilts. I just love that little jelly fish.

Three more to go!

SAL Update: Keel Hauled

Not much progress to show as I haven't touched this in about two months, but I figured if I'm trying to get back on track, I may as well post an update... with a whole two hours of stitching. I'm getting clooooose!

Here's a close-up of the old guy getting keel hauled. Wonder what he did to deserve that?

It's only the fourth of May and I've already posted as many times as I did in the entire month of April. I'm on fire. (I'm still winding floss, too.)

I'm back.

Had to go to Texas for a bit, but I'm back now. I can't remember the last time I stitched. My April Cole's Quilt Square isn't finished, and I haven't touched Skeleton Crew in about two months. And I haven't even started the Brooke Nolan Advent Animals. {sigh} 

When I got back from my trip I was too tired to stitch, but I needed something to do to keep my hands busy without taxing my brain. Solution: wind floss. I've had dozens and dozens and dozens of skeins of floss that needed to be wound onto bobbins for, oh, I don't know... years. So I plopped down in the floor and started winding. With help, of course.

I'm pretty sure winding floss is Tiger Lily's favorite stitchy activity. So much potential for mischief. Happily, she was well-behaved. Or, perhaps more accurately, closely watched. So I was cross-eyed tired, but still productive. Look how pretty!

Isn't that delectable? 

Anyway, I've been having this delusion that I will have a super productive month of May and catch up on all those projects I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Maybe I'll succeed. After all, I'm off to a pretty good start. I wound a bazillion skeins of floss that have been waiting to be wound for years, so... yay me!

Happy Stitching!