A Surprise

Last summer I purchased an artichoke plant for our veggie garden. It had beautiful, deeply cut, grey-green leaves and for that reason alone I will probably try to find another one this year.

I had checked several times thru out the summer for the formation of artichokes, but never found any. Today I found three. The beautiful plant of summer is shriveled and dead now, but there were 3 small artichokes that had started forming before it froze. The one in the photo was the largest.

TIRED!!!!

You know those flower gardens I mention in my Profile???????? Well, we cleaned some today. I am tired and I am going to bed.

My progress

I am posting twice this evening.

The second post is the crocus I am stitching for Lesson 2 of "Fertile Earth" with Susan Sorrill. This class is great fun and a little different from anything I have done before. Yes, the crocus is green, but all will become clear as time goes on and I eventually explain what I did. One thing I did forget is how much thread embroidery takes.

Something a little different

Today I was sitting in our sun room this afternoon stitching away on Lesson 2 of the "Fertile Earth" class I am currently taking. I happened to look outside for a moment and there in the evergreen tree were these sparkling lights, blue and silver. I was more than a little surprised, picked up the camera and took a photo. I then went about determining where this strange light was coming from. I finally discovered it was from sunlight shining through the glass of our front door and on to the evergreens in the back yard, approximately 80 feet away. It was very pretty and something I had never seen before. Maybe because it is Sunday.

I finished one!!!!

I swore I WOULD NOT enroll in an online class for awhile. Oh well, so much for that resolution. I love online classes. I have learned a great deal from many wonderful instructors.

Currently I am taking a class thru Joggles with Susan Sorrell. It is entitled "Fertile Earth". It is a great class, I am having a difficult time keeping up. Mostly because of cleaning the sewing room and making the challenge quilt.

Our first assignment was fruit or veggies. I manipulated the photo in Photoshop of a lemon and limes. Then I stitched the resulting manipulation on to fabric. My fingers are so sore!!!! My mind is having a hard time getting around handwork and embroidery. Haven't done any for some time, but I am enjoying it. Will enjoy it more when my fingers aren't so sore.

It was nice......

It was nice not having to worry about finishing the little quilt today, since it was completed yesterday!!! That is my usual way of doing things, putting in the last stitch right before I walk out the door. I thought I did fairly well this time, 4 1/2 days to make this quilt, hand appliqued and machine quilted.

I am ready to leave for guild, with the challenge quilt and relishes in hand for our soup supper AND I have the sewing room straightened up as well. Thanks Judy for introducing me to the crystals. Hadn't decided how to handle the area around the middle petal, didn't want to use French knots. I finally have used the crystals on a quilt !!!

Finally!!!

This is the dragonfly on the quilt I have been working on since Tuesday. We had a challenge in our guild for the March meeting which is tomorrow.
We were given a fat quarter of fabric which can be seen on the dragonfly's body. We had to use a piece of the challenge fabric on the front side of our quilt. It could be no more than 100" in total around the outside. I have completed the thing and I will post the entire photo of the quilt on tomorrow's post.