Winter Into Spring Finished

Winter Into Spring is all finished now. I am not a fan of the term "happy dance," so I am opting not to use it here. The beading took all of about fifteen minutes this afternoon :-) I am glad I didn't do it last night, though, as I was really feeling tired while I was doing the darning stitch near the bottom of the sampler. Some have asked how I got this done yesterday on limited stitching time. To be honest, it is simply a quick stitch. The band are only about 2" wide :-) So, finally a finish for me! Yay! (I gave it a press, but it looks like it needs a better press before I can frame it). Now... on to the LTD SAL tonight :-)

Well, well, well... it appears that I actually do have some yellow daffodils in my garden! Mike planted some various spring bulbs last fall in an area of the garden that had to be dug up last year to fix a little crack in our foundation of the house. I see today that he put in some yellow daffodils! Cool!!

And, these are finally blooming... the only yellow daffodils that I actually knew I had, other than the tete a tetes.. this is a double yellow daffodil variety that I planted years ago. It blooms quite late for a yellow variety. Well, here it is today.

And, a real classic around this part of the country, as it truly, truly thrives from a good cold winter... Ice Follies. I have them naturalized along the tree line, thus explaining why there are still so many dead oak leaves there :-)

And, my precious little almost-white Thalia daffodils are finally blooming. These little sweeties do not like to hold their faces up. I sure wish they would!!! I can never, never get a good photo of them because of this...

And, to round out my little lengthy list of spring blooms today - here is part of my huge bleeding heart bush for you... love this, even though it blocks the inground sprinkler head in the backyard every single year... I don't really have the heart to move this plant... I am sure Mike will be bugging me to do so any day now... sigh...

And... here is this week's part of Emerald Jeweled Garden. I wonder if Karen finds Sapphire Jeweled Garden to be as difficult to put down as I am finding this one to be? I love this little colorful piece! I was a bit distracted tonight, though, swapping between 24 and the Red Sox dramatic victory over the Yankees at Fenway Park tonight (Yes, Johnny Damon was righteously booed by the Boston fans - and I don't think he got a hit at all tonight... and welcome back Doug Mirabelli!! Great night for the Red Sox...but I digress....)... Now I am pretty much at the bottom of the garden, so this is about half the piece's size now.

Review of goals time!
April Goals:
1. Finish Part 7 of Medieval Town Mandala - yes
2. Finish Part 4 of Mystery IX - yes
3. Finish Part 3 of Papillon Creations Mystery Sampler - yes
4. Continue Mermaids of the Deep Blue SAL - yes
5. Continue Garden Spots Sampler SAL with Jo - yes
6. Start Emerald Jeweled Garden in the LTD SAL with Karen V. and Judi - yes
7. Start Su's Neighborhood RR square - yes
8. Continue Bordeaux Mystery Sampler at work - yes, but only a tiny bit... waiting for Anne to catch up now
9. Continue Houses of Hawk Run Hollow SAL - yes
****My biggest goal for April, though, is to get myself back into some kind of rotation - I disliked being out of my rotation last month :-( - kind of, sort of, I guess so.... I did add in Quaker Garden and Winter Into Spring this month...and Mermaid Heaven and A Christmas Spirit got some time too...

May Goals:
1. Finish Part 8 of Medieval Town Mandala
2. Finish Part 5 of Mystery IX - actually finished that on 4/29/06
3. Finish Part 4 of Papillon Creations Mystery Sampler
4. Continue Mermaids of the Deep Blue SAL
5. Finish Emerald Jeweled Garden in LTD SAL
6. Finish Su's Neighborhood RR and post it off to Annemarie
7. Continue Houses of Hawk Run Hollow SAL
8. Continue Quaker Garden at work
9. Put some time in on Mermaid Heaven
10. Enjoy Celebration of Needlework!!
11. Continue Garden Spot Sampler SAL

Thanks to WalMart's $4.88 DVD Dump Bin, some classics are now in my collection - Pretty in Pink, Donovan's Reef (one my parents loved), The Scent of a Woman and Wayne's World 2 (already had the first one...so, what the heck)...

Stitched on today: Quaker Garden, Winter Into Spring - Finished!! -, and Emerald Jeweled Garden