Erica's Stitches

Last year, my birthday present to myself was some wildflower tulips from here .  It was a very dry winter and tough spring, alternating between above average temperatures and below average temperatures.  There would be a few days of warm and sunny weather followed by blizzard conditions for a few days.  This cycle continued for over a month.  I was afraid the bulbs would die. But, the tulips survived to bloom.  First where some bright magenta ones that defied photography.  Now there are yellow and white ones blooming. Tulips are on my mind.  So, as I was finishing up my last project a SAL invitation involving tulips arrived that I couldn't resist.  If you'd like to join it's not too late. All the supplies from the last project are put away so I've been picking out my supplies for the SAL.  With visions of spring colors I started going through my scraps for some suitable bookmark shaped fabric.  The best I coul...

After I finished my Harvest Biscornu I wasn't quite happy with the fall colors and was thinking spring. So, I actually stitched another one - this time with spring colors. Now the biscornu is brighter and more colorful - just what I was looking for.  It's also slightly bigger.   Hmmm, and I thought both fabrics were 28 count.  I must start labelling them better and test the count before stitching. Luckily the spring biscornu doesn't have to fit in a specific basket. I always seem to end a post with something else I'd like to do.  But this time I think I've had enough of this pattern and I'm no ready to run off and try it again.

Look what I found in my garden.  At first the leaves puzzled me.  Then I remembered a gift of some miniature tulip bulbs. I planted them in the height of a hot, dry summer and promptly forgot about them. What a great surprise. Some of the leaves are a different color.  I wonder what color the flowers will be?

A beautifully warm and mild March day brought me outside to inspect the garden. Instead of spring pastels I was greeted by purple and orange more suited to fall. However, it is bright and colorful and a sign of summer so I'll take it.

Spring is here! In town the crab apples are blooming.  I brough a camera along on my lunchtime walk and captured the pretty blossoms. The evenings are warmer and lighter and I'm finding more to work on than stitching.  Still, I'm alternating between too many projects making slow projects on each one. The blossoms reminded me of another project that I've added back to the rotation.  I started this over the winter and put it aside to work on Christmas ornaments.  They are meant to be wild roses but they look very similar to the apple blossoms.  At the time I couldn't decide whether to stitch white flowers or pink flowers, so I tried it both ways.  After seeing the glorious apple blossoms this spring, I've decided that both colorways are correct and I'm more anxious to finish this and my quilt and my scarf and the State of Colorado.  Eventually they will get done.

This is the same pattern as the Smyrna Cross only using eyelets instead. I stitched and finished using pastels to remind me that spring is coming soon. Same pattern + different colors and stitches = totally different look 

At the beginning of April the pasqueflowers started blooming and now they are almost finished with their annual showing. The crocus-like blooms announce the beginning of spring.  The end of spring is heralded by their fuzzy seedheads. At the start of spirng, the flowers a few inches tall.  By now they are about 12 inches tall and going to seed. What a transformation!  They seem to be a different species now. I would be sad, but in the last week or so other flowers have started blooming - bluebells, goldenpea, kinnikinnik, desert parsley and assorted weeds. In the next month the penstemon, cranesbill and dogsbane will appear - a summer full of flowers to look out for.

Wild Roses and Chives - now that's a strange combination.  But, it's my fault for not taking care of the problem earler. This is my herb garden but the only herb in it right now is chives.  I've kept this plant alive for over 10 years now.  Every spring they come back without fail.  The light green you see in the planter is lots of baby chives coming up.  All spring and summer I'll be snipping off the chives for seasoning.  Anything else I plant makes it for a year or so and doesn't come back.  There's a lavender and thyme in there right now that may or may not be dead.  I'll give them a few more weeks to make their appearance. Every year there are some baby pine trees coming up that I pull out.  They are coming up everywhere and I know that this planter is NOT a good place for them to start. A few years ago the birds planted a wild rose.  I chose not to pull it up.  Every year it grows bigger.  Due to the soil conditi...

The weather can change quickly here.  Thunderstorms on Thursday and a blizzard on Friday (continuing into Saturday). I woke up to discover the world covered snow. It was beautiful on the fences. But not so good on trees. Or the power lines. Luckily the plants that are adapted to this area can deal with snow.  Years ago I would have worried about all the plants that have started to sprout.  They always seem to bounce back.  The melting snow should guarantee some good wildflowers in a few months.

It was a beautiful day last Sunday and I got to spend a few hours cleaning out last years dead flowers from the garden and removing layers of pine needles.  It feels strange writing this as we got some surprise snow overnight (almost a foot and still coming down but more on that tomorrow - like the local weather forecaster I'm better the past then the future.) As I was re-familiarizing myself with the space I made an embarassing discovery.  The picture I posted last time of coneflowers, wasn't coneflowers.  I was looking through thumbnails of flowers and was fooled by the color.  The coneflowers aren't in that part of the garden.  Forgive me. Many of the flowers have started to sprout so I'm trying to guess what they are. Flower: Iris Certainty: 100%  Iris have very distictive leaves and I spent many hours last summer digging them up and replanting them along the driveway.  It was very dry afterwards and I was afraid they wouldn't come ba...