Day 3 May Catch Up

 

My soon to be back porch sewing table.  It's been floating around forever and will be perfect for early morning sewing sessions before the heat and humidity kick in.  Started sanding off the old paint, which was taking forever and making my arms feel like they were going to fall off. lol  Grey suggested I use paint stripper.  It will have to help, as the paint is thick.  Fingers crossed I'll be spray painting it (purple, of course) as soon as it's been stripped.

I had fun reorganizing all my paper patterns.  They're in a two drawer filing cabinet now, which means I can just flick through them whenever I fancy.  Much better than before when they were in a plastic tub.   

The pattern came with preprinted calico, which meant it could be started straight away.  DMC'S Hunters Green is my go to Christmas green.  

A stash button finished off this little pillow.  It's one of Melissa's designs over at Pinker n Punkin Quilting & Stitching  She is the epitome of Stitchy Kindness, as she shares all her designs with us as freebies.  I always look forward to seeing a new post from Melissa, as her blog is lovely to read.

Crescent Angel by The Primitive Needle was finished during Stitch Maynia.  It's one of the few SALs I take part in, as it's pretty much do what you want.  So, since I was in the mood for working on WIPS, I chose four.  This one was started in 2019 and kept going to the bottom of the WIP pile last year.

Made progress on Double, Double by The Prarie Schooler.  Looking forward to adding some green seed beads for the flames under the cauldron and vapors above it.

 This is being stitched on a tea dyed scrap of 25 count Pearl Linen.  I don't know if Zweigart make it any more.  Stitchers Corner, my Aussie LNS  of 30+ years used to bag up remnants of cross stitch fabric and keep them right at the front door.  It was a great way to build a fabric stash with a wide variety of colorful linens and aida.  It's prpbably the reason I will have a dabble with other brands, but always go back to Zweigart. ;)  There's a video of the shop from their Facebook page here  

I helped Grey with a Mjöllnir (Thor's hammer....don't ask me to pronounce it lol).  I'm feeling more confident about using the torch to heat things.  I find it awkward, as it's attached to two heavy hoses, which are attached to gas tanks.  

The 17 year cicaidas are at the end of their life cycle and it is noticeably quieter!  With so many trees here, at their peak they were loud!  I'm sure there's a lot of wildlife that will be sorry to see them go! lol

We had a finch nest above the front door this year, which managed to avoid the attention of snakes.  Seeing a pair of little heads peeking over the side of the nest always made me smile.  My favorite way to start the day is to have a cuppa out on the back porch just before dawn listening to the song birds.  If I'm lucky, I'll spot a barred owl.  I'm more likely to hear them at night than see them.  They have the most amazing (and creepy!) calls!

The ruby throated humming birds have been back for a while.  I put out a feeder with a sugar water solution for them every year.  There's a male who visits many times a day just now.  I've not seen any females yet, so I'm not sure if there's one sitting on the nest.  They are ferocious little buggas and have no problem telling me that I'm an unwelcome visitior to the back deck when I go out there. lol

May is all caught up. Blogger is no longer booting me out when I try to post on the computer.  Hurray!  That makes things a lot easier and much more fun than poking around on my phone to write a post.