Lovely Spring Days

 I hope you all had a nice Easter. We did. It was such a beautiful day. Perfect weather. Lovely people to visit with. 

This is my current project. When I saw it, I thought oh easy peasy. I could whip this out and get it framed and it will be so much fun. It has the loveliest colors. Then I got the pattern. It has six pages! 

Six very involved pages.I don't know if I am the slowest cross stitcher in the world but I have been working on that tiny roof on that house for three days. I feel like I am no closer either. Did I mention that is has the prettiest colors. After I did The Eye is on The Sparrow, by Beth Twist, I never wanted to do a big project. I think I worked on that for three years. Two pages has been my max. I still really like it so maybe that part will win out.  Its much bigger than that picture. 

I am ready to get back to Magdalena's Goat. I really love this pattern and I love how it is turning out. 

He is a really nice goat. I thought I had more done. It will be so nice to get back to this, but I am beginning to wonder about my sanity and why do I have to always make big projects? When I was reading Saundra's blog from her rug camp, those giant rugs she posted pictures of, really had me wondering how long would one of those take.( ***I slapped myself upside the head and came back to my senses.)

One of the things I do love is working on wool projects from Blackberry Primitives. I have always wondered what certain colors were in some of Maggie's patterns so I ordered some wool and some velvet. Oh what wonderful colors and textures. 

The top picture is velvet and the bottom is wool. I love having all of these lovely colors to work with.

I forgot to post this picture of one of the other projects I finished last week.

I think I will frame it. Its not something I do that much, frame things. It was such a fun little project though. It was fast too. One single piece of pattern. 

I have the house cleaned up from yesterday now. Time to move on toward May. We have lots of birthdays in May. I think even more than March birthdays. 

I hope that wherever you are today is the best day ever. 

~Kim~

 

I take for granted one of the things I love about California, is the fresh fruit and vegetables. This week, I saw so many little fruit stands with strawberries. When I made my jam last week, it was with all fresh berries. I remember talking to a lady from Cambodia. She was one of the boat people a long time ago. She said, that coming here was so shocking after starving, to see all of the food that grows every where. I was reminded of that this week.  

Happy Easter

 This is my favorite picture that I have in my photo albums. I love that there was an empty tomb and I have the benefits of all that happened during that week. 

I hope whatever and wherever you are you have an awesome day. 

I have been AWOL this week. I always call it selfish on my part. I did all of the things I love to do and try not to feel guilty.

I made jam. Three berry, (raspberry,blueberry,strawberry) and strawberry raspberry. I made loaves of cinnamon raisin bread and regular bread so everyone would have fresh bread and fresh jam. My house smelled wonderful, like berry cobbler. Which I love. 

I hooked, sewed and finished projects. 

I finished this Stacy Nash. It is really such a pretty pattern. I think I will try and do the winter one called Merry, Merry. 

 

I finally finished this one by Brenda Gervais. I am not a very fast finisher. I have this issue, I have to have a clean house and the laundry done, and sometimes even the flowerbeds cleaned. Which is why I am not a very fast finisher. Oh, and of course, I don't have to go anyplace nor can anyone be at home. 

I have no idea why I must meet my own criteria, but all of those things must be met for me to get out my sewing machine. I think that is why I quit quilting. As each of my babies came, it got harder and harder to find days to do that. 

Next I finished this.

I dug it out and worked on it, as much as I could. I am about the worst punch needle person in the world. I stab myself so much that my hands will hurt for days. I got it finished though. If I did these projects more than I do, I am sure I would get better with the craft. Its hard though, as Max, the cat, thinks that needle threader is the most amazing thing he has ever saw. He will creep in and find it and run away with it. I have got smarter because I see him walk in and hide it first. He always is so disappointed. He steals my rug hook but that is much easier to find. I will put my rug hook in the bottom of my sewing basket and he will dig around until he finds it and then he carries it to the front door. I have no clue why. He tries to hide it under the hooked rug at the front door. 

Then I finally finished the Whale rug. Which means I finished hooking it and I have steamed it. Now I need to bind it and steam it again, so I am almost finished. Its such a lovely rug. 

 I am looking forward to finishing this one. I drew out two rug patterns and I would like to start those after I finish up Magdalena's goat. My rug list never seems to go down. I have a basket of projects I wanted to do for this year, and I keep adding to them. 

We are having the I never know what to call them, our kids? Our young adults and their wives and husbands? Those grown people who live here in this town? You know those people, for dinner on Easter Sunday. We should have lovely weather. Of course, I will make too much food. It will be nice though. I will miss the older two and their families. I am getting the urge to go visiting. I really need to see our grands. I have forgot the hard part about driving for 4 days to North Carolina. I can only remember what fun it was to go camping for two weeks, being with our grands and our kids. Talking all hours and just enjoying being together.

Then of course, all I can remember when we drive that 10 hours to Tucson, how beautiful the desert is, how good I feel in the desert. I feel like I bounce up and down on the seat like a little kid because I will get to see the Arizona grands and their Mom and Dad. I just need to try and ignore that price of gas thing. 

That is the Petrified Forest by the way. The part that they let you see. One thing I learned on that trip was the government really keeps the good stuff for themselves, and they don't want you to see anything that will change the narrative of what they want you to believe. It was kind of eye opening. You aren't supposed to take any petrified wood, but down the road as you are coming into the park, are three huge places you can go buy all you want. 

I have to go start my cooking and baking. Its cloudy outside and a great day to bake to my hearts content. 

I hope you have a lovely day, thank you so much for stopping by my blog today.

~Kim~

"He is not here: for he is risen, as he said."

Matthew 28:6

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello April

Happy April!

I finally have some thing to blog about. But first, I have to talk about the weather. Today its a beautiful beachy kind of day. High clouds and the smell of spring in the air is wonderful. I always think that is the smell of the ground warming up. We went to a plant sale yesterday. Emilie our daughter works for Edible School Yard. 

What a beautiful place. We really had a nice time exploring and seeing all of the amazing food that is grown there and then she gave us a private tour of the kitchens. 

This is in the middle of town. Its next to a school and the kids get to come and do classes here. I couldn't believe they have this much food that is almost ready to be harvested. 

 

When we put in those cattle panels at our last garden at the other house, I love to stand and stare down the arches. We get squash beetles so bad here, hopefully it will help. It helped our squash and cucumbers for awhile. I hope it works for them. The property is owned by Grimmway Farms so I think they know what they are doing. The apricots were already so big on the trees. The orange trees were in full bloom and it just smelled amazing. 

The Artichokes were huge! They were already loaded with artichokes. There were lots more but I couldn't get them all in the frame. They also had this wood burning pizza oven. They were selling pizza that they were making with the produce they have and it was so cool. I think I would love to have a pizza oven like that. Behind the pizza oven, they have grape vines covered in little grapes. On beyond that is a olive orchard and they make their own olive oil. I bought a bottle of it. In the school kitchen they use it like this.

They grow and dry and use their own herbs too. Can you see those drawers? I loved that I would take out some of my kitchen cabinets to have something like that. I thought it was so cool. Emilie has been doing a cooking segment on our local news for the school. Our youngest son Peter and his girlfriend Belle came too and we walked around enjoying the morning and of course, buying plants. It was nice to have Emilie take us on a special tour of the kitchen. 

I couldn't believe they already have onions to harvest. They let the school kids come in and harvest so they will be doing this pretty quick. Emilie asked if we wanted some, I said, of course. They were serving coffee, iced mint coffee Julep. Lemonade and water and of course pizza. There was homemade scones and other breads. There were so many people there, yet it never felt crowded. 

Ron and I got our garden beds ready before we went, in case we bought anything. We bought some tomatoes and peppers. We have 95 degree temps next week! This does not bode well for summer. I don't normally put in tomatoes and peppers this early, but it may be okay. 

I am almost finished with my whale rug. 

I have loved this rug for so long. I really like it. Then I bought this very cute pattern. I just love it. I worked on it way too much yesterday. 

I just loved this pattern. I loved that that big bird is standing on a wool penny. I think I bought it just for that. I just love whimsy. 

So that is what I have been doing. Nothing crazy. I hope you have a wonderful start to April. 

~Kim~

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.

(Francis Hodgson Burnett)