April 2024

Lately, I have been posting around the 25th of the month.   This month I am early.  I have an extra babysitting assignment tomorrow and Wednesday I head out of town for four days, so I post today and take another thing off my to-do list.

Fortunately, the rain seems to have slowed down before we needed to launch the kayaks!   I can’t believe how as I drive through the county there are soooooo many yards still with standing water.   In the first week of April we got more rain than we average for the entire month.   This made it hard to get my hands in the dirt since everything was so soggy. On the brighter side, it wasn’t snow!   

Another successful month of stitching.   Yeah WIPGO!    First up, my assignment was to finish 3 of the remaining 6 months for Year of Celebration from Hands on Design.   All three stitched and fully finished by the 15th of the month!   I counted them as one assignment done since they are part of a bigger project.  These help in the justification for having stash because it has been fun to ‘shop’ my stash for fabric, trims and buttons to do the finishing.

I managed to squeeze in this name tag.   Our EGA President’s Challenge for 2024 is to create a chapter name tag.    Going with the theme for the needlebook I made in February, I stitched this up in time to wear at our 50th Anniversary Dinner.  

 The other WIPGO assignment was to finish a wool candle mat I stitched last summer.   Again, a tiny amount of time required to move this from the WIP side of the list to the completed side of the list. I had finished all the way up to attaching the backing.    Well it seems, like as I often do, I charged ahead with the appliqué all higgly-piggly…….only to find that it didn’t fit the pre-cut backing.   So I put in down and walked away from it.    When I was making my 2024 WIPGO board I wanted to focus on things that had gone stagnant  and this one was an immediate contender.   All I needed to do was look through my supply of wool (which of course I have) and find a piece big enough and an afternoon I was done.   That makes 9 WIP’s done so far this year!   Hip hip hooray!   I am on a mission.  

And I hope you are all sitting down, I will have completed the wallpaper removal by the end of the day today.   I only have about a 2 foot by 3 foot section to finish up.  It only took about eighteen hours spread out over a couple of weeks.    Most of the walls are scrubbed of any glue.  Just need to get the paint!   It was a messy job.  Who knew 30 years ago I was so good at putting up wallpaper.    I missed the boat on finding an ex-military man that likes yard work and DIY projects.  But such is life….and life is good.  Better yet, another job that has been plaguing me crossed off the to-do list makes me grateful.   

I have kept on track with my Temperature Tree.   We have such a mild winter that some weeks the colors are not varying as much as I thought they would.  This tree is still meeting expectations.  Adding the leaves is so easy to do that I only work on this every other Sunday. 

I have made, pat myself on the back, progress on my French Alphabet Sampler.   This is my 2024 Leap Year BAP (Big Awesome Project) SAL.   I calculated I need to stitch 52 x 70 stitches or 1/4 of a pattern page, each month to stay on track to be done by February 29, 2028.    I know I could jinx myself by being all impressed with my current pace is putting me ahead of schedule.   I am almost done page one of the chart and mayhaps by April 29th I will have it completed!   Trust me, I know come November and December there will be little stitching time so to be a bit ahead right now is good.    I am looking forward to when I can get to the personalizations.

 

 

I did manage to get garden beds and my vegetable garden ready to plant. The veggie garden is raised beds so it wasn’t soggy to work on.   I hope to not get bored with it like I did last year when the  heat of the summer gets too much.   I still need to power wash the deck and to get all the deck furniture out and cleans. For the rest of the yard, I plan to add some plantings to existing beds where things are looking sparse.    I want to add a forsythia to anchor a property line bed and then maybe put in a couple of peonies for some spring color, or maybe Burning Bush.  I think I will round it out with some moonbeam coreopsis in purple to naturalize and fill the area from June to September with lavender colored blooms,   Maybe some Dianthas.   Due to mulching and remulching by landscapers, I have lost my grape hyacinths and some tulips.  And then there is the Back 40 Project. It is another project that come hell or high water, I mean to get done this spring.   I have managed some time and I am getting the final stage closer to completion so I will only have maintenance going forward.    Can you hear that?    I am laughing out loud at myself!    A gardener, like a stitcher, is never done with their projects.  And just to reinforce that concept, I’ve already sent my order into Breck’s for a fall bulb delivery!   

I am heading to for Lancaster County mid-week.  I am making a one-day stitch-in in Strasburg into a 4-day get away with fellow stitchers.    I have such an affinity for Lancaster County, PA.   Lots of shopping, strolling, antiquing, good food, good friends and stitching will be done.   

May is pretty much an open calendar, again I laugh at myself.  I have plans to spruce up and pick up the yard.   I’ve got a summer outside crafting idea but I refuse to start it until I wrap up some House and Garden WIPs!     I hope to be able to start my ‘special’ project in June and spend afternoons on the deck working on it.  More to come on this one as long as I am successful in completing sone projects in May.

Thanks for stopping by and …..keep on stitching.