Flower projects

There was a lot of working in the garden this weekend,  It was the perfect stress relief after a challenging week.  And, I finished a flower related needlework project.   

This is a kit I bought at the quilt show last month.  I love the simplicity of wool appliqué.  I did a fabric substitution to get a better green for some leaves and I added the white flowers to cover up a placement mistake I made in the middle where all the melon colored flowers come together.  I saw this kit at the quilt show in September and wanted it, but it was very expensive and looked complicated for a first wool project, so I picked something different then, but after a couple other less expensive kits, I felt ready for this one.  It's mounted on a linen background.  It's the first time I've done wool appliqué on a background that wasn't also wool, but the loose weave made this as easy to sew through as wool would have been.  

Rob got flowers last week from a friend.  Who doesn't love getting flowers unexpectedly.  

I spent a good bit of time working in this part of the garden.  I took out a stone retaining wall that wouldn't stay stacked and replaced it with bricks.  I'm terracing parts of the garden to retain the water that would normally flow right though to the street.  Our yard is on a hillside and all the water from the hill flows through it to the storm drains.  Why not keep as much of that free water as I can?

After a great show from the Amaryllis, the iris are starting to bloom.  This yellow one was first.  Not sure why it bloomed so close to the ground, but the clump has also put out longer stems for me to enjoy from more of a distance.   

This multi-color also popped up a pretty bloom.  I'm still not sure where this one came from.  We thought it came from a house Syd lived in, but that would have been too recently for me to have so many clumps of this.  I call them brown because that's the color before they open, but they're really purple and gold and yellow and lavender and white on the inside.

Everybody have a great week!  Enjoy a little nature if you can.  Spend time with loved ones and keep your chin up.  Times are hard and sometimes, we just need to take a breath and enjoy what's happening right now.  

Lane