Good morning, my friends. You'll be happy to know Smitty is helping with this post. It should have far fewer grammatical errors with his careful editing.
This morning I noticed the squirrel-chewed poppy had opened. You can see how many buds are still awaiting their turn.
You might remember when I showed you this image about a week ago. The petals kept getting longer and longer, sticking up from the greenery, and looking pretty comical.
Well, laugh all you want because it was first out of the gate. The petals are a little damaged from the squirrels, but it's still nice to see this big red flower. I don't expect to see more for at least another week.
In other blooming news, the purple rhododendron is starting to produce more flowers.
Across the sidewalk, this one is picking up speed too.
And the lithodora has created a pretty carpet of dark blue flowers.
So let's just take a look at the cruel Rosy Prospects peony. Two of its buds are beginning to open. The flowers are still immature.
On the other hand, it has at least a couple of dozen buds that look like this one. Not even close to opening. So, I remain hopeful it will produce a mature flower this year, but it still isn't giving me any reason to be optimistic.
This morning, I posted to a "Peony Lovers" group on Facebook. I'll be interested to see if anyone there has any ideas about it.
Smitty is happy to report the Dwarf Japanese Maple tree has leafed out enough to function as a proper "umbrella" tree. This has been a favorite seating area for all the cats who have ever resided at the Three Cats Ranch.
There was a Dwarf Japanese Maple tree in this spot when we moved into our house in June of 2002. Some years ago, a huge branch fell from a spruce tree beside it during a wind storm and smashed the dwarf maple. Of course, we had to replace it for the kitties. It has taken a few years for it to establish itself, but it's back, and being put to proper use.
In sewing news, I made another hour's worth of progress on my collage piece. It really has three layers of subject matter. I've finished the farthest back of the background. Now I'm working on the middle background. The last step will be to bring out the details in the subject. It's coming along, but I'm still not motivated to work on it beyond the hour-long requirement. Any guesses?
From there, we went to work on the 19th Tiny House. Smitty was my helper cat yesterday.
Are you absolutely pawsitive you don't want to work on something else?
After some time, it was finished. I hate working on these blocks. Nevertheless, I know I will love the quilt when they're all finished, and so I soldier on.
Okay and so that was a good day's work. This morning I'll water the annuals, and there is one short housekeeping chore to do. Mike is feeling better this morning, and so things should be pretty much back to what passes for normal around here. I'm looking forward to plenty of sewing time today. After I've put in my hour on the collage piece, I'm going to start sewing together the blocks for the Shop Hop 2.0 quilt. It's been waiting in the wings for me to stop dragging my feet about Tiny House blocks.
It'll be nice to do some straight sewing...straight seams, no fusing, and no paper. Just good old-fashioned mindless pinning and sewing. Who could ask for a better day than that?
6 comments:
And the wind upon its way whispered the boughs of May, And touched the nodding peony flowers to bid them waken. ~ Siegfried Sassoon
Right now, it looks like a balloon to me. I bet it's not thought. :-)
Currently I haven't got a clue on what the collage piece is but as you add bits my brain will wake up and wonder why I couldn't see it before. I love your tenacity, I wouldn't keep going on a paper pieced pattern not matter how much I loved it. I can now do the odd block and sometimes I enjoy making them, so maybe one day a whole quilt will emerge.
Pretty flowers! I have all but one piece finished on the tiny house! Hopefully I can get it put together tonight!
Your collage piece looks like the state of Illinois, to me, but I suspect it is something far less mundane.
I miss having my kitty supurrvisors in the sewing room. Smitty and Sadie make me happy.
I don't have a clue where you're going with the challenge piece, but it looks as though a face would fit in the blank area. Mind you, I know faces are a total pain to create, so I doubt I'm even remotely close.
The Peony-That-Disapoints is living up to its reputation by the look of it.
Post a Comment