This and That

 

I have white irises in my garden. I was heading out to get my haircut yesterday and I looked at them and thought... oh, I should bring them to my hairdresser, Jen, so I went back inside and got scissors and cut a stem for her.

When I got there, another customer looked at the stalk of irises in my hand and asked if they were real.

"Yes, I just cut them." She replied she'd never seen irises quite so big. 

When I handed them to Jen a few minutes later she was absolutely delighted, and stuck them in the vase with a Rhododendron flower and some Bleeding Hearts. What's funny is they looked like they were designed to be there.

Irises don't last long, but I thought Jen would enjoy looking at them for at least one day!

I'm teaching a Birds class at Night Owl Quilting Studio on Saturday, so I've been getting ready for that.

I've finished planting the herbs in my garden, and got a hanger and macrame hanger for a spider plant that I'll be putting out on the front porch over the weekend.

Otherwise I've been listening to the tennis at Roland Garros and streaming Vera and Top Chef.

Next up is finishing the Kangamangus quilt.

Green In and Green Out

 

This is the only "green" bird I made yesterday.

I've been rearranging the birds on the design wall and trying to figure out how they will be arranged and what I will use to fill up all those blank spaces. When I am not sure, I set that aside and go do something else.

Tomorrow I shall be receiving some Salvia Amistad plants to fill these pots. They are purple and hummingbirds (and other pollinators) love them. They grow to be almost four feet tall and are really pretty. I've got these three pots ready and waiting. Those are Wave Petunias filling in around the bottom. I will put these in different places so I can see them from different spots in the house.

I've got another plant collection coming, and I've got a big pot ready for that too, but there's no point in showing an empty pot!

Julie inspired me to get a pot of Gerber daisies. I've decided that if I am going to grow flowers, I am going to plant some that I can cut and enjoy inside my house.

In the shade garden on the north side of my house, the hostas are getting ready to explode. This one is enormous, and I need to divide it, but it won't be happening this year.

Little Blocks Quilt Finished

The Little Blocks quilt is finished and has been delivered to its new home. I have also written the quilt's story. I like this quilt and may very well make another version of it.

I've been getting everything ready for my Liberated Birds Classes I'll be teaching at the Night Owl Quilting Studio later this month. (They have added two more class dates to the schedule.) I went through my class kit and updated some data and went through all my samples and example pieces so I had it all clear in my head about what I wanted to say and demonstrate. 

Years ago I set up a separate travel kit so I don't have to pack my tools when I have a class, and I know I have everything in one place, ready to go. I went through that and got that ready to go. I haven't taught an in-person class since before the pandemic (2019), and I am very excited to teach again. I had printed copies of my tutorial for reference in the class, and the kit reminded me that I have updated the tutorial since, so I ordered printed copies of the newest version. I've made a list of the quilts I want to bring with me. I'll bring Crowing About It, which is the quilt made from birds students have sent me.

The weather has been good for working out in the garden and I've been clearing the old raised bed in the yard. It's less work than I thought it would be, and I'm enjoying it. I want to plant tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, snap peas and some corn. All that in addition to my usual herbs and lettuces. I got about a third of it done, but the weather is supposed to be rainy all week, so I don't know when I can get to the rest of it. I have a gal who will help me out, so I won't overtax myself.

I was assembling a planter box on Friday when I got bitten by some bugs on both wrists. Now, mosquitoes love me, and their bites always swell up and remain itchy for days, but these bites were just next level. There must have been ten bites on my wrists and hands and all swelled up and were crazy itchy. I tried all the anti-itch anti-bugbite stuff I had but nothing seemed to work. These bites drove me crazy. I had a hard time sleeping, and actually woke up in the middle of the night dreaming of being itchy, and scratching both wrists. I tried applying ice, and that seemed to settle things down a bit.

I made it through Saturday, and had the same hard time sleeping Saturday night. The location of the bug bites made them sensitive whenever they came in contact with anything, like the sleeves of my shirt,  putting my hand in my pocket, or anything I touched. I had an antihistamine cream I had been using, but when I checked the tube it had expired in 2022. 

I drove to the drugstore and showed my wrists to the pharmacist. He winced. "OH! Does it itch?"

"Is the sky blue? It itches every single minute."

He told me where to find the Cortisone creams and said to buy the cheapest one. When I got home and looked at the directions, it said to apply it three or four times a DAY! Well, three or four times a day was about three or four times less than I needed! No matter what I had done, the itching never stopped.

I knew it would go away eventually, but sleep was what I wanted most. After applying the Cortisone cream thoroughly, I realized that perhaps the swelling was making things worse, so I took an ibuprofen before I went to bed.

This morning the swelling has gone down, and it's almost bearable.

So anyway, that's what's been going on in my neck of the woods!

Amethyst Almost Flimsy

 

Here is a detail of the purple Amethyst quilt. I thought you might like to see some of the fabrics.

Here is the almost flimsy. I say almost because I plan to add a 6" border of dark purple all around, and the fabric hasn't arrived yet.

I went shopping at Home Goods for potholders (because I had a gift card). I didn't see any potholders I liked, so I got this wreath for my front door instead. When I got to the register the gal said, "I just put those out this morning!" Lucky me!

I'm eager for the weather to warm up enough so I can work outside in the yard, cleaning it up for the new year and getting things looking good. I'm planning a small vegetable garden - green beans, cucumbers, zucchini and some peppers, the usual herbs and lettuces and a sunflower or two. I bought a smallish raised bed planter last year and put chives in it. They are coming back nicely and yesterday I planted some Arugula, Spinach and Leaf lettuces. We'll see how they do.

I love Tony Hillerman's detective novels set in Navajo country in the Southwest. I've read them all, and am in the process of re-reading them. They have a wonderful sense of place and his main protagonist, Joe Leaphorn is thoughtful and conscientious. Also in the books are Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito. After Hillerman died his daughter Anne has taken up the characters and the locale and the stories continue. Anne's books focus on Bernadette Manuelito, also a Navajo cop, who is by now married to Jim Chee. The "legendary lieutenant" (Leaphorn) has now retired, but offers his expertise in this new series of books. 

Some of the original Leaphorn books have been made into a television series called Dark Winds. I am not a fan. That they have deviated from the original storylines somewhat doesn't bother me as much as what the TV series has done to Leaphorn himself. They made him do something the original Leaphorn would NEVER have done, and it really bothers me. I'll watch the series because I'm too far along and I want to see how the TV version resolves itself, but I won't watch another one.

Birds in the Garden

It is high summer and everything in New Hampshire is very green. I like to tell my students to make birds based on the things they see around them. Here are some birds inspired by gardens and things that grow in them.

I planted coneflowers in my garden this year. This is one of them.

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 I planted this hosta as a tiny little plant in the spring of 2015. It is "Sum and Substance." I try to tell everybody how big it is...

but nobody gets it until I show them this picture.

I love making birds based on flowers...


If you would like to make your own free-pieced birds, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download, so you can get started right away. They're fun, easy to make, and you can use scraps.

Stay-Cation

I'm on vacation, and I have a long list of things I want to do. I finally put mulch around the tall grasses on one side of my driveway. It's hard to believe I planted these big grasses (along with the Yukka plant down front and the Veronicas) in the Spring of 2015.

Here's the same view taken in April 2015.

This is the Shade Garden that faces North. It is clearly a resounding success, and three years in I need to thin some things (like those grasses down front) out!

This is the same Shade Garden, but this photo was taken in June. Lots of things flowering.

This was the Shade Garden in early September 2015.

It's a nice kind of problem to have. I worked in my herb garden on Sunday, and that's looking better. It's been a bit hard. I was teaching and working on tutorials in the Spring, then it got so hot in July and then so wet for the first part of August. The weeds have taken over! My plan is to work out in the yard for an hour or so in the morning, before it gets too hot, then I'll come inside, wash up and do some things around then house, have lunch, then settle down to watch tennis and have some fun in the sewing studio.

Dead Head

The garden really got the better of me this year. I've been so busy I haven't given it the attention it deserves. All I've been able to do is keep it watered and dead head the flowers. I just toss them on the top of the big stack of stuff in the recycling bin.

Last night I cut down some geraniums, hyssop, salvia and some daylilies. This morning as I dragged the trash can out to the curb, I walked by and actually looked at it. 

Wow. Those colors! The bright hot pink of the geraniums, the purple salvia, the yellow orange daylilies, the green leaves and light purple of the hyssop and the brilliant blue of the recycling bin actually sparkled! Add some greyish beige to represent the dried stuff, and some greens and you have a knockout color combination.

You know how I always tell you to watch out because you can find inspiration anywhere?  Well, this was in my trash. I made sure to take a picture before I got in the car and drove to work.

It's That Time of Year...

As much as I'd like to deny it, summer is ending. The air is cooler in the morning, and I need a light jacket to keep me warm on my way to work. The leaves are beginning to change color. 

It's time for the Fall House Top quilt on the dining room table. Last year it was a flimsy, this year, it's the real thing.

I've also got some plants for the garden. Some ornamental grasses for the front steps, some Yarrow and some Hyssop for the side garden, a ground cover for the rock garden and a couple of things to add to my shade garden that didn't make it in this spring, some Goatsbeard and  a Black Eyed Susan.

The cooler weather also means I'll be making more soup. This is a batch of Roasted Vegetable Stock that's simmering on the stove.

It's supposed to be cooler tomorrow, so I'll spend tomorrow in the sewing studio.

Day Lilies

Driving through town yesterday I noticed signs that said, "Annual Daylily Sale." After lunch, I followed them four miles through a remote part of town to a stunning garden filled with dozens of varieties of day lilies and other amazing plants I'd never seen before, like this:

The tallest garden plant I've ever seen, it was almost eight feet tall! It's Rudbeckia Maxima and I can tell you right now I'll be planting this in my garden next year.

But I digress.

The day lilies were amazing and I bought two of each of five varieties, Khorassan, Sandra Elizabeth, Mount Zion, Jen Melon and Dun Robin Red Velvet.

What made this plant sale all the more amazing was that you walked through the garden with a list, and made notes of what you wanted. Then you handed the list over and they dug up the plants and wrapped them up for you to take. I was gob-smacked.  Not only that, but for every three named varieties you bought, you got one for free. So I bought ten plants, and got three free from a limited selection. One of my free ones is called Strutter's Ball, a lovely violet day lily.

I was so overwhelmed I forgot to take pictures of the ones I liked so I didn't notice until they were packing them up that I had bought mostly yellow ones.  Oh well! The ones I picked are different heights and  bloom at different times. And the stunning red ones are very tall and bloom last.

So, you ask, just what does thirteen day lily plants look like and how do you get them home?

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Well you sure don't jam them in your trunk!!!

I guess we all know what I'll be doing later today!!!

Update: after a couple of hours in the garden this morning, I've planted all 13 day lilies around the large landscape rock in the front of the house.

Where Am I?

I am at Kathy's house, in Maine.

We looked at her "medium to little" quilts, some of which I have been threatening to steal.

Like this one.

And this one.

And this one.

 And this one.

Kathy has a lovely garden,

 which features the single largest Hosta I have ever seen, with leaves the size of dinner plates.

but the most astonishing feature of Kathy's garden is the back wall of the building next door, which the previous owners painted a warm red-orange.

 which transforms the building into a work of art, and the garden into a warm comfortable place.

The Garden

The red peonies are open, and they are gorgeous.

Obviously, they're staying.

I'm happy with most of what's around the big landscape rock in the front yard. Yes, the rock looks like an alligator (or a crocodile). I do NOT like the cement head at the tip of it. It gives me the willies and if I could find somebody to take it away, it would be out of here. I like the Deutzia at the left. I've planted a river grass (Chasmanthium River Mist) to the right of the rock, and added three Dusty Millers and a Columbine in front of the rock. Most of the flowers in the front yard seem to be pink or purple - colors that attract hummingbirds, so I'm going to stay with that theme. I'm glad the pink front door fits in!

In front of all the other stuff though, it's a different story. The wild thyme that filled this space has mostly died because of all the road salt used last winter. Not much I can do to prevent that. I'll have to see if it comes back, otherwise I'll have to find something else to put there.

To enter my house through the side you pass under the carport. I've placed a collection of pots to one side to make it interesting (and also to prevent visitors from walking into the wind chimes.)

These are mostly different Coral Bells (Heucheras), but the pot in the upper right has a Hosta, some Phlox, a Pulmonaria and a Brunnera. The giant white Irises are behind these pots.

I've filled in all the holes in the Shade Garden, and I removed the garden cloth. I was worried it was preventing the soil around the plants from getting any water and drying out. They already look better.  There are fifty plants here, Heucheras, Hostas, Carex, Lamium, Columbine, Phlox, and some others whose names I can't remember.

And I got a gas grill (situated quite nicely next to a big patch of rhubarb),

because all this work builds up quite an appetite.