Happy Summer Days

A beautiful summery welcome to all you lovely lovelies♥ AND.....it's the weekend...YAY!! Though in saying this, the last month has seemed like one long weekend to me.

Life down here has been filled with happy summery days. Days of sunshine, days of stitching......spilling over with happy, flowery kinda days.

This past week  another birthday appeared on my horizon. Now, I would not have mentioned this auspicious and propitious day (well.....at least it is on my calendar) had not my daughter sent this little gem of a book all the way from the USofA.

I might say at this juncture, that this is the daughter who continually tells me that I have far too many books!! Each time she visits and raises her eyebrows over my burgeoning bookshelves, she is always at pains to tell me that upon my untimely demise she will have "to get rid of them all.....that I have too many books"!!! Really??? Has not my daughter heard of the word "library". =) Besides, my books are beautiful props with beautiful bindings; not to mention all terribly good reads. All my loved bibliophile fancies make my home....well......home. Let's just say my darling daughter whom I love with all my being has an aberrant minimalist and modern gene. She is of the modernistic ethic that less is more. I suppose on the subject of bibliophilia, she and me will just have to agree to disagree.

I must say that I am a bit surprised this sweet little book arrived in my letter box,  considering my daughter's thoughts on my little problem of hoarding collecting books; but I am so happy she decided to gift her dear ol' mum one more book to brighten her dear ol' mum's day. My youngest daughter is a bit of a book collector so I can rest assured that when my last breath is exhaled she will see that my books go to good homes.

But I digress......it is indeed a little gem of a book. It is a little book overspilling with floral happiness. Each page features a "pop-up" flower alongside a description of its symbolic meaning. 

When the dust cover is slipped off, one turns the flowers up and before you know it  a bouquet of happy, zingy flowers has popped up, sitting in a pretty pot to bring a little beauty and joy to my day.

Isn't this the sweetest, happiest little book?? My beautiful daughter knows her mother very well♥ All that floral prettiness cannot help but make me smile........oh.....and I hope warm your day,  especially each one of you lovelies whom are seeing day after day of wintry grey, grey and then some, as far as the eye can see. This sweet little book looks perfectly at home with my real blooms from the garden.

Flowers have been growing on my garden quilt this last little while. Stitching has been happening in all manner of places; in my sewing room, by the pond, watching the Australian Open tennis on the box, on country drives........yep.....those magical seeds have been slowly blossoming into flowers.

The view outside my sewing room has slowly changed, as have the bunches of flowers that I have picked and placed in a vase to sit on the window sill. Aah yes......I have watched the procession of  blossoms flower outside the garden in succession whilst I have slowly stitched each each petal, each flower.

Stitching is slow going but with each tiny applique stitch, Daisies have 'growed', more Hydrangeas have bloomed......Tulips, more Foxgloves, and even some sweet, dainty, little blue flowers have popped up near the pond. Oh....and I forgot another Water Lily has greeted the sunshine from beneath the lily pads. 

I am still loving stitching this quilt, even though the stitching is at a snail's pace. As I stitch each flower it seems to be mirroring what is flowering out in the garden. With the stitching of this quilt I am finding I am observing all the tiny details of each flower more closely to get a sense of each particular petal, each leaf.....vein, each stamen etc etc. I am amazed at the intricate details in the minutiae within each flower; details that I have never really noticed before.

We have a few weeks of school holidays left down here so I am supposing more applique and slow hand stitching will be enjoyed. I would love to see some Irises and  perhaps some Gladdies, perhaps a Tiger Lily blossoming on the quilt. The bottom of the quilt is nearly finished so I will soon be able to join the sky fabric and begin to design and stitch more flowers towering in the background. I think too, I might also start another scrappy quilt......just to mix things up a bit. To be perfectly honest I am hankering after a little machine stitching not to mention that I just want to play with some pretty 1930's scrappy fabrics once again....but I will see how I go.

Thank you for visiting my summery place. I hope you all enjoy a lovely week. May you find many moments to enjoy the beautiful, to appreciate the simple things of each day. As it is Sunday, I am going to stitch a blossom or two, embroider french knots as stamens on the Hydrangeas; but right this very minute, I am off to re-read my little gem of a book and play with the pop up flowers. After all a book has to be read and loved over and over again.

Until the next time.................


Linking up this week to Kathy Quilts, Slow Sunday Stitching

Summer is fading

Each day tells me Summer is slowly fading. The sunlight bathing the countryside is softer, less vibrant. On my early morning walks Old Man Sun is showing his face a little later. As he is resting lower in the sky, throughout the day beams of sunshine ever so slowly creep across the rooms of my humble abode like tentacles, touching here and there, casting a warm glow everywhere. One thing I do love about Winter is the sunshine that fills each room. There is a crispness to the air......aah yes, Summer is fading.

I love early morning walks. Each morning I am a witness to nature slowly arising and greeting the new day. It is a beautiful time of the morning. It is a time where it is just me, Maisie and my Heavenly Father. It is a time when I pray to Him and silently chat about so, so many things. Each morning is different. Each day's sky is different. Some days are filled with lovely blue skies suffused with light casting a milky glow, some days filled with amazing cloud formations................LOVE clouds; or some mornings the landscape is veiled in the lightest of mists. Those misty mornings add a luminosity and ethereal quality to the countryside.  No morning is the same. Each morning is a perfect beginning to a new day.

The garden too, tells me that perhaps Summer is beginning to think about leaving my little corner of the world, to visit all you lovelies way up there and stay for a season. Yes indeedy, Summer is making way for Autumn. The flowers are showing signs that it is time to rest awhile. That is okay because each and every flower has performed the most lyrical of colourful dances for  me to enjoy. They warrant a long slumber. The leaves of trees will soon don their autumnal, crisp, taffeta-like frocks in the most glorious of shades and after a while, will slowly and delicately float to the ground. In a month or two the trees will be bare of their verdant canopy.

The Hydrangeas are changing into softer, autumnal hues, the roses are all but gone and other Summer flowers have finished. Though I must say, the Cosmos are still awash in an exuberant palette of pinks. They will continue to smile and sashay in rhythm until that cranky old fellow, Jack Frost arrives. Wish oh wish he wouldn't visit me; he is not welcome.

We haven't planted Cosmos seeds for years now. At the end of their flowering season the Cosmos drop seeds and gift us with gazillion of flowers the next season. They are truly like weeds, but oh-so-beautiful weeds. Though Hydrangeas are my favourite flowers, Cosmos are way up there on my list. I cannot but smile when I see their pretty faces and besides, they do not need any care or looking after, they just bloom where they fall and contribute to our rather disobedient garden. Though manicured gardens are beautiful, I rather love wild, disobedient gardens. I rather love  flowers invading the garden and popping up wherever they will.

The Dahlias are in their last flush and though they are still gifting me with beautiful flowers, it won't be long till the cooler weather will burn the leaves and flowers, precipitating them to scurry deep into the ground away from you know who's, icy fingers.

Isn't this wall hanging cool?? I acquired it from a friend who asked if I wanted it. It belonged to my friend's mother-in-law who had recently passed away. As my friend was clearing the house out in readiness for selling, she asked me if there was anything I would like. I said "you know the wall hanging on the hall wall........I wouldn't mind that.....it would make for an excellent prop for photo shoots". My friend looked at me quizzically and said, "what wall hanging??????" My friend had never noticed it!!!!! This wall hanging is about one and a half metres in length and one metre in height and was the only object on the rather drab, hall walls. It was rather like a beacon of colour and pictorial interest. My friend had never noticed it in all the time she had visited her mother-in-law. Incredible! My beady little eyes spotted it the very first time I entered the home. 'Tis funny, isn't it, what we do and do not see. When I enter a room my eyes ricochet from wall to floor taking in all that is to see. 'Tis a visual kinda gal, that I am.

It was probably fashioned in Italy and is a beautiful, tactile velvet. I have a few rugs of the same ilk.....they always come in handy when I need a prop to gussy up a photo or two.

Love the peacock strutting in all his glory. He's totally aware what a pretty fellow he is, posing proudly in front of the gorgeous backdrop of trees, the swans gliding on a pond, the flowers and an Indian building in the aesthetics of the Taj Mahal. It really is a most striking hanging. I won't labour the point.....but truly....how did my friend not notice this pretty!!

With the cooler days I have picked up my aqua, woolly pretty once again. It is my intention to finish this woolly this year, sooner rather than later.

With the back and sleeves finished, all I have to knit now is the front. If all goes well and my needles clickety clack faster than fast, perhaps I will be stepping out in this warm woolly this winter. Though, I have to confess, since picking this woolly up yet again I have had the most bothersome of times. The saga of knitting this woolly,  began way back in January 2016, which if you want to read my frustrations with the pattern, you can so do here. What can I say, I am not the world's fastest knitter. =) I think I have unravelled the bask of the front about ten times this week. Each time I have made a teeny tiny mistake, continued knitting without noticing the glitch and when an inch or two has been knitted the snafu (love that word) has hit me smack in the face!! I don't know why I have made so many boo boos with the bask as it isn't difficult. If I didn't love this jumper so much, I think I would throw the whole blasted thing out the window!! BUT.......I will persevere....and I know I have said it before.....I will not fall on my sword  knitting needle and end it all......well at least......not yet!!

Love all that cable loveliness. As you can see, I have finally completed the bask and am well on the way to knitting the aran pattern. Amazingly, I have fallen  into a groove and it is knitting up rather quickly. Not far to go now, only....I do hope I have not spoken a little too soon. I do hope I have not "put the mocker " on finishing my woolly, before Jack Frost arrives.

A little hand quilting has also been in progress as well. I have picked up my Spring Blossoms quilt top and am happily quilting away. I am loving quilting this quilt. The hexie flowers and all the bright and happy, scrappy fabrics make me smile. A lot of things in life make me smile, don't they. =)

I toed and froed about how to quilt. I deliberated long and hard over perhaps quilting in a rainbow of bright and happy colours but decided against this thought. I want the flowers to be the star of this quilt so I am only outlining around the flowers and leaves and then quilting around the border of each fabric.

One of these days I will throw caution to the wind and quilt in brightly coloured thread but that day is not today. Besides, if I quilted in bright colours my persnickety, beady li'l eyes would seek out each of those imperfect stitches and it would bother me endlessly. 'Tis funny how my eyes always go straight to the less than perfect stitches.

The backing I chose is an all over pattern of pink and blue chrysanthemums linen. Originally I was going to have a scrappy backing but I changed my mind. This fabric is a wider width, which meant I needed less fabric, therefore being less expensive. Besides I love the sumptuousness of the print; love the big blousy chrysanthemums.

Summer may soon depart this far rural outpost for those shores further north, but with Old Man Sun beaming his rays of warmth and sunniness into my home and indeed, casting a happy glow on my flower-filled, boudoir wall each day, the colour, brightness and ambience will always give a feeling of summery cheeriness.

This weekend, there may just be time for a little knitting, a little quilting and a cup of tea.....or two.

There's my gardener photo bombing my photo shoot.....again!

Until the next time..........