My Spring Ritual

It's that time of year again. The time when I can't wait to play in the garden, but it's still winter. So the next best thing (besides looking through every garden book and magazine I own:) is starting seeds.

First I plant a few perennials. I really don't need much as the borders are pretty packed. But there are always new ones to try or in this case, plants to replace those I inevitably lose each year. These are
Carnival hollyhocks, a single variety. I also planted soapwort, bellis, and mallow.

Above are some cobaea scandens, or cup and saucer vine. I guess I didn't realize when I first planted the seeds how quickly they would come up and how big they would get right away. I'm going to have a jungle in our basement before I can get these babies outside!

I used a new method for labeling my seeds. I got the idea for using clothespins from Elaine at
 http://www.sunnysimplelife.com/. Why didn't I think of this years ago???

In a couple of weeks I'll start planting annuals, both flowers and vegetables. I'm excited to try some new varieties of  heirloom tomatoes. And then spring planting will come! 

Our Valentine's Day

We had a cold, blustery Valentine's Day here in Indiana. Not a good day to go out at all! It's a good thing I had decided to make a nice dinner at home this year. We had steak, (Rick braved the back porch to grill it - brrrr)  baked potatoes, salad, and cheesecake for dessert.

We don't do big presents for Valentine's. Rick got me some beautiful roses and a cat garden ornament that I had hinted I liked:) I made him a cute card and got him some candy. Simple and sweet.

After working around the house and dinner, we had a great game of Scrabble. I say great, because I won! That doesn't happen too often:(

Stay warm friends, and have a wonderful Sunday!

Valentine's Day Swap

Don't you just love swaps? I get so excited anticipating what my partner has in store for me. And crafting for a swap is such a good excuse to make all those cute little things that only another crafter would appreciate.

This swap was hosted by the wonderful crafter Vivian of http://vivs-whimsy.blogspot.com/. My partner was Shirley from http://zettasaprons.blogspot.com/. She sent me some goodies, don't you agree?

Lots of fun embellishments, including ribbons, washi tape, and scrabble pieces. (Love!)  And look at this sweet notebook and hanger she made with vintage Disney images:

I love this shadowbox that Shirley made. Such sweet images and details. (Thumper is my favorite:)

She also included a box of truffles, but they were gone before I could get a pic of them! Thank you, Shirley, for all of your thoughtful crafting. 

Here are some of the things I made for Shirley. I decorated a tin and filled it with things I thought she could use for more Valentine's crafting.

 

 I also decorated a small box and filled it with buttons, pins, ribbon and flowers.

I love making tags! I had just bought some glitter paper and wanted to use it with this love die. What's Valentine's without glitter and bling.? (I loved Shirley's use of red tinsel on her shadowbox.)

So, what kind of Valentine's crafting have you been doing? I would love to see!

Klaus

Jasper

Please don't blame me for more baby pictures:)

Let Me Present...Marquis Handyman Service

 After almost 30 years as a carpenter with Purdue University (with a short time as a special education teacher) my dear husband has retired. And he is doing something he has wanted to do for quite awhile - he has started a handyman business. He is so happy! And we are so happy for him.

Custom made cabinet for the kitchen.

He can do just about any kind of home repair; doors, drywall, flooring, window replacement, etc. And he can build almost anything out of wood! All I have to do is give him an idea (or picture) and he will build a piece of furniture or garden structure for me. He's pretty handy to have around:)
Check out his website: http://www.marquishandyman.com/ . As you can see, it's a work in progress. We will be adding some photos and text soon. So if you live in the Lafayette, Indiana area and need some home repairs, just give him a call!

New Quilt for Winter Stitching

Even though I am hand quilting my churn dash quilt, I sometimes get the urge to work at the sewing machine. Meaning I want to start a new quilt:) I have so many scraps, I just needed to use them. I chose the brighter pastels. I used a tool to make the wedges - so easy! I am getting them sewn onto the white muslin and tomorrow I'm going to the quilt store for the sashing and center circle fabric. I am excited to come up with the quilt pattern for the corners around the plates.



We have had a crazy couple of months here. If you happened to catch the post I deleted, you know that I was going through a bad time. I don't want to go into to it, but things are much better!And I am ready to get back to blogging. Crafting helps to keep me sane and I have been doing a lot of it! I'll be back to show more of what I've been working on.

Have a great week!

Gourds Galore!

I planted out our gourd seeds after Father's Day, as per a Pinterest suggestion, and didn't get any bugs on them! That's never happened before. The plants were so healthy and as the summer progressed, they kind of took over the garden. And that didn't include the large pumpkins. We put those back near the compost pile. Sadly we only got two small ones. Not enough time to get large.

It actually took several times to harvest all of the gourds and mini pumpkins. We kept finding more hidden under the strawberries and wound around the perennials. I have been putting them all over the house and porches, and giving them away to anyone who wants them. Maybe we should put up a table and "free" sign in the front yard!

A Simple Quilt

Well, it happened again. Just like last year, I got sick as soon as I got settled into the new school year. Luckily it wasn't mono!  But I've been sick with bronchitis for two weeks and I'm just now getting better. I actually did a little work in the garden this evening! Yeah! This fall weather we're having is perfect and I want to take advantage of it. It's supposed to rain this weekend:(

I was at the quilt shop last week and came upon this beautiful floral print by Holly Holderman for LakeHouse. It's so cheerful and sweet, I just had to make something with it. I didn't have anything in mind, but I bought some yardage along with these coordinating tiny prints. Back at home I went through about every quilt book I have trying to find just the right pattern. I finally decided on a simple churn dash with white in the middle.  Easy to sew up and perfect for some embroidery!

Not too long a go I bought this book by Gail Pan. Lots of cute projects using my favorite techniques. I decided to use some of her little drawings for the centers of my blocks. Some needed a little tweeking to get the size right, but it works!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful fall so far. I've been enjoying the autumn decorating on blogs and pinterest. I'm going to get out my Halloween stuff this weekend. And maybe do some crafting. I know, it's only Wednesday, but I live for the weekends now!