catching up

I spent much of last weekend outside. We've been cool and wet here and while I had the chance, I got some garden plants in. We had a mostly nice weekend. On Saturday we bought plants, always a fun excursion, and dirt and on Sunday I got busy and planted them.

We buy our plants at a local place, Field of Flowers (Joe Orr Road in Chicago Heights) and enjoy seeing their changes and additions each year. They do wonderful hanging basket and planters. I wish we had a place for a hanging basket, but I've never figured one out. (We have a very shaded house and yard, good for the electric bill, bad for pretty flowers.)

Most of our garden is perennials, I got a few photos this weekend of the roses and peonies. We also have lilies of the valley going strong and violets, the phlox, day- and tiger-lilies are on their way, the passion flower vines are poking up...

I have some huge pots around the yard and I planted some flowers in front (the same as last year, I still can't remember their name), dill, rosemary, parsley, and thyme in the back yard and cherry tomatoes in the new pot.

I did some stitching. I mostly worked on the Hardanger State Day project, hours spent, little to show for it, so I took time out to stitch Susan Johnson's new beaded design--a pretty and quick project. Here's the booklet with my stitched heart below. It was a fun project to do. (I kind of felt bad, but I walked into her studio and said "I WANT IT!" and then made her kit it up for me. I don't think I'm usually quite that pushy.) The kit is available to order from her website.

I stitched it on perforated paper like the model. I haven't worked on perforated paper for a long time and I enjoyed it. I've been contemplating finishing possibilities. Of course, I've thought of stitching it to a slightly larger wool felt heart, perhaps pink, and making a pin. Or backing it and making it a scissors fob. Or adding it to a collage of some sort. The design is charming and I can see it added easily to a lot of projects.

I need to get some more beads from Susan and then stitch a few more hearts on canvas or linen.