Sunday, June 28, 2020

Visits

My son came to visit us two weeks ago and stayed for a week. It was so nice to see him after 3 1/2 months. I got a picture of him when we went to walk on the boardwalk at Jones Beach.
The clouds with the sunset over the water was pretty.

Now my daughter, her husband and their pup, Ruby, are visiting. We last saw my daughter in February and her husband and Ruby in December.
It is so nice to see them again. Ruby likes to give kisses...
and sleep.....sometimes.
I have been working on Patriotic Bunny. The hat is done as well as the first arm. Now I am working on the flag. I am concentrating on this piece only right not to try to finish it soon.
I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. Maybe I can finish that flag on this hot, muggy day. It's a good day to stay quiet in the air conditioning.

Our pool is open though also so we will probably take a dip in it in the late afternoon.
You can see my Kousa Dogwood in bloom in the background.
It is quite pretty this year. 
The astilbe in front of my house is very pretty too.
Speaking of astilbe. I took some pictures of my mom's astilbe also.

Mom has many different colors that she planted over the years. I have taken some baby plants from her for my back yard every once in a while. I will show you those another time.

Thanks for stopping by!


Sunday, June 21, 2020

Stitch Along Update

I have been busily stitching on Three Boats for the past 3 weeks. Here is where I was then. 
I had finally started working with colors other than black. That is a tree trunk that has the color. 
I have since mostly finished the tree trunk and I am back to stitching with black floss again. 

It will be littered with other colors in between though that I will be adding as I go.  I am about halfway done with the first of 24 pages.

A sincere thank you to Avis from Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this SAL. Please take the time to look at the work of the other bloggers that are participating:


Thanks for stopping by!


Father's Day Slow Stitching

Happy Father's Day to my dear husband. 
Hubby has been a wonderful Dad to our two children for over 30 years. 

Our son has been visiting us for the past week. The last time we saw him was February 29th. He will be returning home today. He did manage to have short social distance visits with the two grandmothers yesterday. I hope we get to see him a little more often from now on.

I have made some progress on my Patriotic Bunny, but I don't think he will be finished by July 4th. That's okay, I am enjoying the stitching, though I have to say that the navy blue fabric is hard on the eyes some days.
His hat still needs another stripe of white on the right.

I finished reading both "The Book of Life" and "Time's Convert" by Deborah Harkness. I had read these books previously. I love "The Book of Life" which is the 3rd book of a trilogy. I remember now that I wasn't as thrilled with "Time's Convert". It is a continuation of the trilogy that is not as satisfying a read. It is still an enjoyable book, but not as good as the first three. 

I don't have any books queued up on my Kindle at this time. I think I will try to read some of the magazines that I have piled up.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I will add a few stitches to Patriotic Bunny today.

Thanks for stopping by!



Sunday, June 14, 2020

Bunnies

I have been busy working on my Patriotic Bunny. His face and ears are finished. 

Now I am working on his hat. 

We have the cutest baby bunny visiting our yard....


and on our deck.



Isn't he/she adorable!

I have also added some more green grass below the church to October Morning.


I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I hope to add some more stitches to Patriotic Bunny, but my son is finally visiting this weekend so that may not happen. 

We haven't seen him in person since the end of February. I already made the Tomato Mozzarella Salad that he and Hubby like.

It will go nicely with our steak dinner tonight.

Thanks for stopping by!




Sunday, June 7, 2020

Slow Sunday Stitching

I have been fairly busy stitching my Patriotic Bunny. I am motivated to finish it for July 4th. 
Isn't he looking adorable. I don't have two of the colors recommended, but I am happy with the substitutions that I have made. One of them is the lightest pink on the ears. It is supposed to be a pale salmon, but I think the pink works just fine. There aren't any craft stores open here yet and it is way too expensive to ship just a couple of floss skeins. 

I have also added a few stitches to October Morning. 
Can you see the light green just below the church? I still have to finish the few stitches at the bottom left of the church, but I got interrupted. Next I am going to try to fill in some more of the grassy area below the church.

I was baking again last week. This time I made Lemon Pound Cake Muffins
They are delicious. The remind me of the Lemon Pound Cake at Starbucks. If you are noticing a muffin trend with my baking, it is because I can easily share with my mom and MIL. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I will continue to work on my bunny and try to finish those green stitches on October Morning.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, June 4, 2020

Knitting, crafting and reading

I am trying to learn how to use the new Blogger format when writing this post.
Thankfully Barbara from Cat Patches has published some handy tips. Please bear with me if I make some mistakes.
First I would like to share my progress on the Butterfly Baby Blanket. I am about 2/3 done with it. I knit a couple of rows each night. 
Here is a close-up of the pattern.
Isn't it looking great? No, I still don't have a recipient, but I will keep it for the future. 

Do you remember these floral arrangements that I made for my daughter's bridal shower last summer? There were two of them.
Well, I finally took them apart and repurposed them into this tobacco basket for my master bathroom.
I am really happy with how it looks on the wall.

I have been doing a whole lot of reading as well. Since my last reading update I have finished "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah. You can read my impression of it here. I have also finished re-reading "Knit Two" by Kate Jacobs.
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I had read this previously, but I want to read the 3rd novel of the series and couldn't remember many of the character details. Since none of the books that I had on hold for my Kindle were available, I decided to read an actual book that I had on hand.
I am now in the middle of "Bellewether" by Susanna Kearsley.
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 I knew nothing about this book. I was just scrolling through what was available on my Kindle through my library and decided to borrow it. I am thoroughly enjoying this historical/contemporary fiction novel. Supposedly there is a little mystery also. As a bonus it takes place on my home turf of Long Island. There are some references to actual towns around here. Other than "The Great Gatsby" I don't think I have read another book set on Long Island. 

Now I have lined up on my Kindle "The Book of Life" by Deborah Harkness that I have been waiting for since March and "A Girl's Guide to Moving On" by Debbie Macomber. The latter I may just have to let lapse once I am done with Bellewether as I really want to read "The Book of Life" that I have been waiting for. 

Well that is a little bit of what I have been up to. I think I have figured out most of this new Blogger format.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Vintage linens 1

When I was looking for my summer bed skirt, I came across a mystery storage container. I just wasn't quite sure what was in it. What I found was a poncho that an aunt knitted for me when I was a kid as well as several vintage linens with crochet and embroidery. I want to share them with you over a few posts.

First, I want to ask you what you think these pieces might be?
 They were made by my Aunt Gerri from Wisconsin. When she passed several years ago, I inherited much of her crafty items. I was her only niece and I know that her embroidery gifts to me over the years nurtured my interest in needle crafts. 

At first I thought these might be kitchen towels, but I am not so sure anymore. You can see above that the motifs are centered as if to be hung as a towel, but the edges are not finished. Perhaps they are just embroidered pieces for use as something else.  
 The fabric is quite course and the bananas' fabric is quite dirty.

I realize that the plums aren't finished. You can see on the top left that there is still a flower and some leaves to be stitched.  I will have to do that as I have all of my aunt's floss. 
There are strawberries
and cherries? too.  
I am thinking that I may cut these into squares and place them in a quilt someday. Though quilting through the fabric will be difficult. Maybe I should use them as towels, but that doesn't appeal to my sense of saving the embroidery.

Besides Spring cleaning, I have been planting all of the flowers and veggies that I purchased. I planted two types of cherry tomato plants and one yellow bell pepper plant.
I usually get a good crop of tomatoes and only one pepper. 
I also planted some basil and scallions.
I was glad that I ventured to my local nursery early one day and bought a bunch of plants.
I always have two planters that flank the steps from the deck. These are filled with purple salvia, petunias, impatiens and creeping Jenny. 
 I never got around to saving the creeping Jenny from my pots last year so these are new. I usually plant it in my flower beds to keep over winter and then dig it up for the pots the next summer.
That is verbena in the pot below the second planting above. I don't know what the plant below is, but it looks good in this pot. I usually find a flowering plant that will hang out of the pot, but the nursery didn't have any.

Usually I can get a small version of the plant that is in this hanging basket for that blue pot.
Finally, I planted two pots that stand by the sliding doors to my living room.
They too have salvia, petunias and impatiens as well as that pink leafy plant you can see in the front of the red pot and some dianthus. I am hoping to plant the dianthus in the flower beds at the end of the season as they are usually perennials also.

As I was checking out of the nursery I saw a display of gazing balls and picked up this beauty.
My old purple gazing ball was looking quite sad.

I have a few more flowers that I have planted that I will share at a later time.

Thanks for stopping by!