This is the view to the right of the garden, my lovely yellow lupin is just breaking out into flower today, the beds along here are predominately blues and pinks with touches of lemon, I have campanula in a beautful blue/purple, agapanthus, lilies, london pride, a bright day lily and a hydrangea, all to grow a bit more yet. further up this side is the small rockery with our little water feature
The left side has my red hot pokers, and lots of different clematis, the peony has budded up well and I hope that the weather won't batter it like last year, this leads round to where my poppies and ivy bed is, today saw the first oriental poppy pop open. The pot you can see in the foreground is again a clematis, but as usual I have forgotten its name, we only planted it last year and it was very poor with no flowers, but fingers crossed this year it seems to be growing well, but I haven't found any flower buds yet.
hidden away in a display cabinet and it perfect for Pearl Orchid. I have padded the top of the box slightly and placed it in the lid.
has finally arrived, typical for it to come on such a overcast day, but I am quite excited about it so I just had to take a picture, even tho' the house looks grayer and gloomy. If you look to the right you can make out our beautiful azalea, it comes with us from house to house so far and in the foreground is the wonderful montana clematis which we call mile a minute, its drenched with flowers this year and looks amazing from the other side of the road.
My RR has finally come home to me - whoppeee!! I joined a DT RR late last year, there were 4 of us in it, Marie-Louise, Wanda, Nelly and myself, I have in past posts put up the work I completed on theirs. For mine I picked DT's 'Summer', but with additions, I placed the house and trees on the top as the design wasn't really big enough for 4 of us to put an input onto, so my work on this was the house, trees, bird and border round, the ladies have done an absoluely wonderful job on stitching on this and I am really pleased with how it looks - Thankyou so much ladies for the work on it.
Whilst I was over in the North East last weekend - gosh it seems like ages ago now, I went to Guisboro' and into Leven crafts, oh that shop is so tempting I'm glad I only go in a couple of times a year I treated myseld to some new stash, I couldn't resist the DMC colour variations that have just come out here in the UK. 
Also they were doing a breast cancer material charity squares which was a really good buy there are 40 squares two each of 20 different fabrics I have some ideas using Essys friends to do something with them all. They also had some beautiful 7mm hand-dyed silk ribbon which I just had to get some of and buttons beautiful shell buttons, which I have forgotten to take a picture of.
and here is the delightful MailArt I received, now I don't think it was Sandra who was sending to me and as yet I haven't discovered who it was, but its a delightful envelope, I really like it.
Never again to I want a day like today, in fact lets forget about the year so far!!! Lets begin at the beginning, - January,microwave blew up, February, washing machine blew up, March - dishwasher blew up, April - whilst placing a plant support in the garden on Easter Saturday Mark inadvertantly managed to puncture the gas pipe to the house - major catastrophe, May - now bear in mind we are only 3 days into May, we awoke at our usual time 5:30am to go to work, carpet in bedroom sodden and I mean really wet just what you want when you blearly open ones eys. Water leak from the airing cupboard, now from the photo it doesn't look that bad, but photos LIE, Tash bless her, is trying to help as you can see, and by then the water was turned off, so I had an impromtu day off work today with Mark and his uncle repairing the pipe which meant carpet lifted and floorboards, my nice cream carpet now is a funny greyish colour and I'm still drying it out with a heater, the photo doesn't show that so well either. So now I have a tidy and dry airing cupboard as everything had to come out of it and its not that huge anyway, so its been all go all day.
BUT in the post today I got my lovely french kits for some smalls I wanted to do, luckily they are translated into English as my french is not so good, all three are by Au Fil des Reves and are all themed on Maison de brodeuse, I love them and I am not going to wait to start them, I'm starting tonight.
Also the final part of the attic stash big 40 arrived there were 10 beautiful Vicki Clayton silk threads so I can add them to my silk box, so between washing towels and bedding that got very wet with very yukky water, I've been fondling my new stash. Luckily I have a wonderful Mother in law who because we had no water sor half the day, took away some of the horrible wet yukky bedding and towels, and not only did she wash and dry it she also ironed the lot for me and brought it back at tea-time - Thanks Mu, I love my MIL.!
We have been doing a bit of work in the gardens over this Bank holiday weekend and before, as I may have mentioned in an earlier week, Maark and the nephews pulled down a tree and made me a water feature. It will look much nicer when all the Hostas have grown around it and the climbing Hydrangea is in flower.
This is as far as I have got on mums (Veronicas) Neighbourhood RR, The house is taken from Daisy Lane Cottage chart by Little House Needleworks, I stitched the roof using DMC flower thread and the main body of the house is stitched with DMC Linen thread, still a way to go yet as I am still planning the garden in my head, but I'm pleased with it so far - hope mum will be.
Sewing wise I have completed the next stage of the 'Bunnies' SAL I knew I would have to change something, I just knew I would, its the bird I didn't feel the blue for the main part was different enough and so I have stitched mine in Blueberry Grunt by OWS, hope Ellen doesn't mind my colour change and I am now looking forward to the next part.
Next I made myself a wee pinkeep - this was my quick Easter project, The design is stitched on 32ct hand-dyed fabric from Sugar Maple it was one of their one of colours, the design is called 'Bunny Hop' by Gentle Arts Sampler Threads and I used Heavenly Hues threads and added the charm,
the back of the pinkeep is an alphabet taken off a chart by Isabelle Vautier, it was exactly the perfect size to fit and again its stitched with Heavenly Hues thread. The ribbon I used to edge is a silk ribbon by Polstitches, there wasn't enough really o do what I wanted so I had to gather it instead, I thought it looked OK. Other progress?? Well I have done a wee bit of tidying up with my stash but haven't the inclination or energy to much more and I have also started on mums Neighbourhood RR, my first house choice was too small and so have picked another and have started to sew it now, Woodland Walk has had no progress for a fortnight and hopefully this weekend will see me back on track.
Whoopeee! I was so excited this morning when the postman arrived My parcel had come from Jaynes attic for Jaynes 40th she had organised a 40 stash pack for sale, its full of 40 things, poor Jayne has had delays with one part of the pack and we have been holding on and holding on for it as she had wanted to send during March, but in the end she has sent it now for us and sending on the stash thats held up the pack as soon as it arrives, Its a wonderful pack full of hand-dyes and some charts and fabric. I have not included in my picture a couple of things as I want to give them as gifts, but as you can see this is a wonderful package and we still have 10 more items to arrive which I am so looking forward to. 
Here is Pussies Willow a cute freebie by CEC, I have wanted to stitch this for ages. I've finished before Easter with it being egg shaped - but although I love it and was happy with it when I had finished stitching, finishing it into an ornie proved harder to keep the egg shape so its a bit skew wiff, but I think its still cute - might send it as a wee gift to a family member - can't say more than that. Its stitched on 32ct linen using SSS - Tandy for the background, Squirel gray by Dragonfloss for the pussies the rest is using DMC. Used a sheer voile ribbon for the hanger and the tails.
I know I'm spoiled, my friend Gels who lives in the U.S.A has sent me this wonderful box today - OK not today but I received it today, we periodically send each other a box of goodies, but boy have I been spoiled, I got Cedar Hills Herb garden sampler which I have wanted for the longest time, a lovely Trilogy with the sentiment being friendship, (we have been epals now for about 6-7 years and not yet met up - nearly did tho'), some smellies, and fun pasta, a trifles and tokens card to stitch which is wonderful, and WDW - Gels has been helping me collect these for ages and I owe much to her sending that I have the collection of them I have got.A lovely wooden and tin box with a bee on it - she knows me well as bees and hives are among my very favourite things. -THANKYOU GELS 
I have joined this SAL on stitching smalls board, its such a lovely one to do, and today I have managed to finish the first weeks target (its supposed to be ready for tomorrow), so I am pleased with myself that I have hit the target, its a quick stitch really to do and I started it on Thursday night and stitched for a couple of hours.
I am stitching it on the recommended fabric 32ct Summer Khaki and using the recommended threads (OWS), apart from the green which is supposed to be Solitude green and where I ordered it from didn't have any, so I am using WDW - Ivy instead.
Well seing as Blogger still won't upload my pictures, I'll use Picassa instead today, so you'll all still have to wait to see my HE finish and DT finish.
