Pansies, Poppies, and Painted Ladies

My Fitbit logged more than 20K steps yesterday. Apparently there was a lot of walking. Just my walk with Sue logged over 14K, and so it doesn't take much more once I get home. With laundry going on, and me in my sewing room, it doesn't take long to rack up a lot of stepping.

In the sewing room, I sewed the Pansy Mosaic into a finished flimsy.

I'd forgotten about the yellow border around the outside, and so it took a little longer than expected. When the binding is sewn on, the yellow border will be just half an inch, and so it looks like a flange.

My next sewing goal was to get caught up on the Tiny Tuesday blocks. It was late in the day, and so I had time to cut the first one. This is the Spinning Star from Zana's Ninis.

It was partly sewn together before Mike got home, and I decided to quit for the day. I'll finish this one up today.

It was such a beautiful day yesterday, sunny and warm, and so Mike and I sat outside for a little while before dinner. While we were sitting there, a Painted Lady butterfly showed up on the lilac bush. It spent quite a bit of time there, moving from blossom to blossom.

I imagine the Painted Ladies have been in Oregon for a while now in their migration northward, but this is the first one I've seen. I was hoping it would open its wings a little more, but this was the best I could do.

Also, in yesterday's post, I showed you our Golden Chain tree, noting that it was just barely getting started blooming. By yesterday afternoon, it was fully opened, and looking marvelous.

But here's the thing I'm most excited about now...the poppies from Ireland. I've counted no less than four flower buds on it, and I suspect there are more.

We unleashed it from its chicken wire protective shield since the flower buds were squashing themselves against the wire, trying to get out.

It's probably safe from squirrel digging now anyway. This next one is the first one I noticed, and the green guard petals are starting to pull away from the flower inside. Can a fully-opened blossom be far behind?

Patience with poppies is hard to find, but we wait expectantly.

Today will be a busy day. I'm going to spend a little time with my slow-stitching this morning. I'll stitch the words at the bottom, but then it will be time to take it out of the hoop and do a little more of the scary fancy stitches. I'll be making a bullion rose inside the small heart, and I'll finish off the flower to the right of the word "Stitch," using a buttonhole stitch and bullion petals around the outer edge.

The kids are coming for dinner tomorrow, and so I'm making dessert ahead of time today. Mike has requested a Bailey's Chocolate Chip Cheesecake. Dinner tomorrow shouldn't be too much trouble. Mike is doing a prime rib on his Traeger grill, and so I'll just whip up some mashed potatoes and some green beans, and we'll call it good. And since I didn't do any housework beyond laundry yesterday, I suppose I'll clean the place up a little. The pots need watering, and the bird feeders need filling, so there's plenty to stay busy on this sunny Saturday.