Welcome to my view!

The world outside my front door is yellow and blue. The forsythia hedge glows.

This naked tree appears to be wearing it as a skirt.

Yellow daffodils nod their frilly heads in the sun.

And now for the blue. This little flower is all by itself in the middle of the front yard.

Do I dare to say I think spring has finally arrived?

Free to patient home:

one over-exuberant

pant-leg-grabbing

hole-digging

truffle-hunting

flower-bud-eating

bog-trolling

Bella.

P.S. Just kidding ya know. With all her

faults

charms we love her dearly.

A progress report on both Spring and my first tea towel completed!

Spring is somewhat hesitant this year. Instead of bursting forth in a glorious display she is taking her sweet time. Frankly I don’t blame her. The weather has been a bit here and there. We’ve had rain, snow flurries, temps well below freezing at night and climbing only in to the 40’s during the day. Yesterday was a “nice” day; sunny and making it almost to 60 but the chilly wind made it feel colder. The forsythia hedge has a few bloomers but it mostly looks like this. Waiting. Afraid to bloom.

Things are popping out of the ground left and right. I can see that my foxglove have broken ground and here is my bleeding heart bush.

The bank of ferns are starting to show their heads as well, but they haven’t grown much in a week. Smart plants.

More rainy weather is on the way for later today and tomorrow. I know, I know. April showers bring May flowers. Maybe I am just expecting too much from April. It’s hard to get out and trim up the main flower bed with all this rain and wind. I could bundle up in warm clothes and gloves but that somehow just doesn’t feel right. Aren’t you supposed to be in the garden working with the sunshine streaming across your back instead of the wind whipping your hair around your face so that you can’t see and the cold turning your fingers blue?

I have only one hyacinth and I’ve been checking on it daily and watching its progress. Yesterday when I went out to get a photo of it this is all that was left. Bella strikes again!

And look at this poor daffodil bud. Nipped in the bud, so to speak. Even though I put the bulk of daffodils behind bars this poor bud must have been sticking out so it got chomped on. Darn dog! I may have to fence the whole flower bed off is she continues in this fashion. I certainly don’t want her ingesting the foxglove! Maybe it’s a stage she’ll grow out of. Personally l think she’s part truffle hound. Always digging and finding things in the woods that I didn’t know were there.

Behold the first completed tea towel! Ta-da!

These particular towels have a hanging hook at the top, so I placed the pattern in the corner at the bottom so if it was hanging on a hook the design would be right side up. I’m satisfied with the way it came out although I could nit-pick at several things. I would have been finished a lot sooner if I hadn’t had to rip out several things several times. My color scheme did not work once I got it all stitched—too blah. The pattern seemed to have the quality of disappearing ink as time went on because it got lighter and lighter until I could barely see it in spots. What’s with that? I was afraid to rip out the clothing stitches in case the pattern was too light so Rick had the brilliant idea of leaving the stitches in place and just working the new stitches right next to the old. It did work. I almost left it this way because I thought it was interesting, but in the end I ended up ripping them out. Then I ripped out the new stitches on the trousers ..... well, you might be getting the idea that parts of this fellow just weren’t working! What do you think, should I have left it double-stitched? Do you like that effect?

Also in the photo you can barely see the imprint for the scarf. That’s how light the pattern became, so at times I had to guess. Same with his shoes—the pattern was pretty much non-existent.

This towel was a learning curve since I have not done this particular kind of embroidery before and it’s been a loooong time. I learned a few neatness tricks as I went but the back is not exactly what I would hope for. Still, not too shabby. And it certainly kept me occupied. I was surprised how fast it went when things were going well. The cactus went without a hitch and was the most fun thing to stitch.

Now on to the next one: the señorita with the chicken on her head. Her skirt looks like it could pose a few problems, but maybe just a series of straight stitches? Here she is hot off the pressing.

I’m hoping she doesn’t start doing the disappearing act too.

More...

I have nothing to photograph outside. I was going to try and get some photos of the forsythia hedge which is starting to flower, plus the buds on the daffodils, but the wind is blowing too much. At least the sun is out today which is a welcome change from yesterday’s weather, but it’s cold! Instead I am trying to think warm thoughts so I’m sharing some photos I took last summer while on a weekend sojourn to Long Beach Island. The little shops at Viking Village in Barnegat Light were fun to browse through with their eclectic wares.

The day before yesterday was a bit like Christmas. I had ordered several things due to arrive in the mail and I assumed they would all arrive on different days having been sent from various parts of the country on various days. (1. a new, faster camera lens. 2. A guide book on San Miguel de Allende. 3. My iron-on embroidery transfer patterns and towels.) When Dennis (our mailman) drove in our driveway and up to the front door I knew he had a package for me. I walked out to greet him saying “I thought you might have a package for me today!” He responded with “Not just one, but THREE packages for you!” Like I said: Christmas!

Alas, trying out my new lens in the kind of weather we’ve been having is not much fun. After the rain stopped I snapped the photo above. I liked how the raindrops clung all glisten-y to the wind chime. (My other lens did not allow apertures below 5.6 even when completely in manual mode, so I wanted something faster so I could shoot in lower light situations. )

I was very excited about starting on the embroidery. In anticipation of their arrival I had purchased an assortment packet of floss at Michaels the day before, and since the surface of my iron was shot I also bought a cheap new one. I was ready to get this project started!

I chose the “Down Mexico Way” patterns with my mother-in-law in mind. Rick’s parents are in Mexico (hence our visit to San Miguel) for several months and I thought they would be cute in her kitchen. I don’t think she is reading the blog while she is there because she only gets online to read her email since she has to go to Rick’s cousin’s house to even do that. But in case she does read this: Surprise!

I had a false start with the transfer. I don’t know if the iron wasn’t hot enough or what, but it wasn’t transferring. And even though I had the pattern pinned, it slipped and left a double impression. If I looked at it with my eyes crossed it might have looked normal. sigh. Since the transfer was so light I decided to wash the towel and see if it would wash out. It did and I began again. This time I turned the iron temperature up one notch and instead of keeping the iron moving across the transfer I left it in one place for 5 seconds, then moved to another part of the pattern. It worked! Nice dark lines. See for yourself.

It was like magic! I have never done this before and after the fiasco with the first try at an impression I was very pleased.

Sometimes I have a hard time choosing colors for things. I am not an artist, so planning it out ahead of time always helps. I photocopied the pattern and tried different color combinations. I wanted to use as few colors as I could. After trying a few different ones I decided on this:

And here is the WIP:

It was fun and relaxing to do. A very different experience than knitting altogether, so it’s a nice change. I hope to get quite a bit more done today but it’s so dark (rainy) I will need to sit under a good light source instead of my usual spot in the sun room.

Also on my schedule today is a quick trip to the grocery for coffee, trying to keep the dogs entertained since they can’t go outside, and another Spanish lesson with the Rosetta Stone. Rainy days can be enjoyable as long as you have something entertaining to do!