Welcome June (and Other Stuff....)

Happy, Happy, June!

It's finally lilac season here....one of my absolute, all-time, favorite flowering shrubs.

At this rate, we might have hollyhocks and foxglove by October.  No...wait....By then there will be snow on the ground again.  😬

I considered boycotting planting annuals this year, but made the mistake of stopping by a greenhouse.  EEEK.  They are one of my major weaknesses.

Now I have bunches boxes (and boxes) of plants to plant.

That was my plan for today...except it rained buckets last night and all my planting receptacles are once again waterlogged.

So you get a blog post from me instead.

 Lucky, lucky, you. 😆

There isn't much new here, other than it is, indeed, GREEN here instead of white.  I did go on a little shopping excursion a few weeks ago with my friend/neighbor, Cathy (of Red Barn Rugs fame).  One of our stops was at a favorite store of mine, The 13th Colony & Elizabeth's Woolery, as Cathy sells some of her patterns and gorgeous hand-dyed wool there and they were in need of more wool. (Aren't we all??)

Among other things, I picked up this little applique pattern.

I haven't appliqued for a while, so it was fun getting back to it.

 (The mat is backed in the sweet Moda bee fabric in the background.)

Hopefully it will get me back in practice enough to tackle some of the more "ambitious" applique projects I have been hoarding neglecting saving.

I have also picked up my hook again.

And not just any hook, but this fun one by Hudson Valley Rugs.  (Thanks, Lauren, for the enticement....)

And, yes, I have started a project.  As you all know, my hooking mojo has been MIA for a while.  I left off in the middle of several projects...a Christmas stocking, a Valentine heart, and the largest project, "Welcome Cats" (an antique adaptation).  Although I dislike having too many WIP's of any one genre going at a time, I was finding it difficult to pick up any of the hooking projects mentioned.  The Christmas stocking is very close to being finished, but the finishing is a challenge (to me). I somehow "misplaced" the wool for the heart...and the "Welcome Cats" had some bizarre horizontal hooking going on that I found less than amusing.

So, I decided to start a completely new project.  It's the Guilford Runner by Edyth O'Neill.  

(If you're a hooker and wondering about the long tails of wool on the front side, it is simply to thwart two mischievous kitties who otherwise come up under my hooking frame and unhook things.... This way, I simply fold the fabric over when I need to leave it unattended.) 

I'm not very far, but I have never been, and never will be, a speed hooker. And, hey, I'm ok with that. 

On a sad note:  A little bird made her nest in my fern inside our cornzebo.  She must have thought herself quite clever:  It was protected from the major elements as it was undercover, but was near the birdbath, and she could come and go between the wires of the structure. 

 But, the little bird must have forgotten she lived in Nod. The storms last night that brought the rain unfortunately also brought strong winds (no surprise there).  And the fern, with the little bird's nest, went down.

And broke the eggs that were in the little bird's nest.

It breaks my heart to see the little bird flitting and walking around looking for her eggs.  😢

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That's it for now.  Stay safe and kind...and be careful of where you build your nests.