Tuesday 28 April 2009

A Garden Full of Flowers And A House Full of Frogs

What a long title but it just about sums up this post.



First of all the garden where the bluebells and whitebells are the best they have been for a few years now. The lavender and wisteria are just coming into flower, and the forget-me-nots are as always running riot through everything. When Keith is at work I like to use his computer as it looks over my little garden. Yesterday despite it being a grey rainy morning everything looked so pretty and fresh so I could not resist taking a couple of pictures to share with you.














And now for the frogs. Oh my gosh where is my head this week. Although I have had very little time for stitching I was pleased that my secret project was going well. I was trying to make a covered tape for my daughter - just a little extra for her birthday which was on Sunday. Friday night I put the last stitch in, most of which was 1 over 1 on 32 count (I know that is big for some of you but with my eyes I can assure you that is really hard work). I started to whip stitch the top to the side and by the time I was half way round I knew I had a problem. Either the top was too small or the side too long as it was quite obvious that I was going to have side to spare by the time I got round the top. I got the tape out to check against it and OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH the top was far too tiny to fit it (which meant the bottom was too). How did that happen I hear you ask - well doing things in a rush is the short reply. I have done these tapes several times now and because I like to play and design for the person to receive it I have a template for the border and for the top/bottom section on my computer in fact i have two sets one for 28 and one for 32 count and yes you guessed, in my haste I had run the template for top and bottom off at the 28 count size. Not all is lost as I still have the border but the top and bottom are binned and I will have to do them again - but not for a week or two I can assure you. Just to add to the fun I have worked two lots together as I was making one for a friends birthday too, so that means I actually have two lots of tops and bottoms to do again.



Saturday I had a wonderful day at the Crafty Natter meet-up in Derby, but when I finally sat down at night to do an hours stitching before bedtime I fell asleep in the chair, and as there was more talking and laughing done during the day than actual stitching I think I had about a total of 12 stitches for the day lol.


Sunday evening and the house free of children and dogs and all back to normal I wanted to get back to some sort of routine, therefore pulling out "I Still Do" was a real pleasure. I stitched the G and the little heart motif close to it and then went to start on the H - wait a minute something is wrong the H is not going to go where it should. Back to the map and I eventually realised that the orchid motif had been placed two low - thank goodness it was that one which I think is not too much work to restitch, but the rest of the evening was taken with the frog hopping up and down on the arm of my chair whilst I reverse stitched the orchid. One think that I was really worried about was with the thread being a dark red there would be some bleeding of the dye into the fabric and it would leave a mark but luckily this did not happen and after using sticky tape to clear the area of all the fluffy bits its hard to tell there was ever anything stitched there so tonight the orchid will be redone and I will carry on. Just crossing the fingers that the frogs are back in the pond.

It is now 8.30 so I must rush off and get dressed as its Mums shopping day and I have a good bit to do before I go out.

Hope everyone is well, I am doing my best to keep up with blogs but sadly I am again well behind so please forgive me, I will eventually catch up with myself and get my hectic life back on track.

Thank you to all who visit and leave comments. I have had a few new visitors recently but as they do not appear to have blogs of their own I would like to say a special welcome and thank you for the lovely comments to each of you.


Hugs


may your frogs stay in their ponds

19 comments:

Mary said...

Your garden is lovely! I'd want to sit and gaze at it every available moment! Sorry the frogs came out to visit, but hopefully they are gone for now. Happy stitching.

Tammy said...

Your garden is from my heart. My goodness, I love it. I think I'd spend my entire day, every day with coffee in hand admiring the beauty.

Sorry about the frogs. They can be nasty little critters when they are the mind to be.

Stitchabilities said...

Lovely flowers well they are certainly getting a watering!!
OH dear sorry to hear the frogs have visited ,keep them in your pond though I don't want them LOL
Hope you had a lovely shopping day with your Mum!

Pam said...

I know all about that frog this week! He's enough to make me want to go screaming into the night. I hope the rest of the week is frog-less, for both you and me!

Chiloe said...

Frogs: grrrrrrrrrrrr .... Hope they will leave you alone now ;-)

Your garden is beautiful !!!

Karan said...

You have a beautiful garden Helen. :0) Barb has offered to send round the frog strangler so I can pick up SS again - I can send him on to yours afterwards, if you like (((hugs))).

Cyn said...

Hi Helen,

The garden is beautiful!

So sorry that the frogs decided to visit but at least is sounds like they all came at once so hopefully they won't be back for a while! :-)

Cynthia
Windy Meadow

Concetta said...

Your garden is so beautiful Helen, thanks for sharing these lovely photos! I notice we have some of the same garden furniture too!

Beatrice said...

Your garden is stunning!!!I would love to stitch there.

Sorry you have frogs...

Julie said...

Nice garden, very pretty and tranquil looking.
Sorry to hear the frog came avisiting.

Anonymous said...

Sorry the frogs paid you a visit Helen, hope they've hopped off now! Your garden is lovely

Mylene said...

You have a beautiful garden, Helen.

Brigitte said...

You have such a beautiful garden, Helen. I love sitting in the garden adn reading my books, and thta's what I usually do during the whole summer. So my stitching time is always reduced in the summer.
You seem to have had some froggy days but hope fully this has come to a stop. Enjoy Still I Do.

Nicola said...

Your garden looks very pretty Helen.

Sorry about the frogs - err, you could always take 'em round to Colly's and leave them in her pond. (LOL)

Edna Melo said...

Hi Helen!
Sorry about the frogs, but your garden is really beautiful!
Hugs.

Von said...

Your garden is so delightful. Mine is a frightful mess, but I was able to get out and work in it about an hour tonight. If only I could do that every day, and longer on some days, I might see more satisfying progress. Ah well. . .

So sorry about the problems with the frogs. I hate when I put myself under pressure to finish a project as I so often do something to mess up. I'm sure you'll set it to right soon. :)

Angela said...

Your garden is lovely. All the talk of Forget-me-nots has got planting some seeds that I had of them and Aubretia. I've had both packets for a couple of years so I hope they will germinate and then I can plant them out this Autumn and enjoy the flowers next Spring.

Pointless planting the seeds directly into in my garden so it has to be this long-winded method.

Hope the frogs stay away from you, although I'm happy to have them in my pond.

Kathy A. said...

What an absolutely gorgeous garden and what a view out those windows. You are one lucky girl.
And those frogs, I'm afraid they came to visit me too and thought the suckers had moved in for a while. At the moment, we are frog free. I hope you are too.

Tracy Dixon said...

Beautiful garden the flowers look lovely I love Wisteria I bought one for my garden last year but haven't had a flower as yet, shame about the frog it's horrible when they visit more than once xx