A productive day

Today was so beautiful in NC I decided to make a trellis for my climbing hydrangea.  I gathered dead limbs and built this.  It was finished in 2 hours.  If you can ignore the empty pots, ladder and the black garden trailer behind the trellis, please?  (sheepish grin)  I chose a climbing hydrangea because it's a flowering vine that can take some shade.  It will have lace cap flowers eventually.  I used 12' steel rebar for the bones of the trellis and then attached dead limbs.

What are you adding to your landscape this Spring?  I tend to add or change something around every year.  I had a rose garden in the back for 5 years, but this year I moved all the roses to the front yard, and placed a crepe myrtle in their place.




This is what it will look like in about 10 years.  Climbing hydrangea is a slow growing vine. (click the photo to see a larger view)  By the time it gets this big, I'll have built a larger, stronger trellis.

Hazards of backyard hens

It's a farm thing city kids won't understand.

New things

I thought I'd update the photos of my rain garden.  The last photo I shared with you was taken 2 years ago.  Here's the photo I took today:


New plantings include Loropetalum, Verbena, butterfly bushes-both petite and normal sizes, irises, lilies, gladiolas, red hot poker, 'Secret's out' & 'Gold Medal' roses, yellow Knock-out roses, azaleas, several hostas, ajuga and acuba.

Steamy hot weather will be here next week.  I love NC!

Here are some closeup photos of the Japanese iris in my rain garden:

 

You must be a Master Gardener if...

What the finished quilt will look like.

My finished blocks.

I started piecing a new quilt today.  It's a Patchwork Party quilt.  This one is for my mom.  I've been using the Singer 201 sewing machine to piece this week.  What a wonderful machine!

Singer 15-91 affectionately called "the tank".  I use this to sew leather, heavy canvas, etc.
In this photo you see leather I used to reupholster my chiropractor's table.
It was 1/4" thick and this machine went through it like it was butter.

 (The blue bin you see in the above photo are my worms.  .... What?  You don't keep worms in your dining room?)

What to look for in a sewing machine

A friend of mine has been looking for a sewing machine for several weeks. She's researching brands, trying the new ones and also looking at used machines.  I found a blog that has WONDERFUL advice for anyone looking for a sewing machine.
What to look for in a sewing machine

I've had several brands of sewing machines through the years, including a Featherweight 221 and 222. Currently I use a 1951 Singer 15-61 Centennial, a Bernina 640, a Tin Lizzie 26" longarm quilting machine and a 1501 SWF embroidery machine with 15 needles.

I thought I'd share a photo of my Singer. I restored the top recently.  It looks beautiful, I keep it by the front door. I call it "the tank". I'm using it this weekend to reupholster our doctor's chiropractic table. The leather he chose came from a huge, huge cow! It's gigantic! It's also very thick but the tank will handle it nicely.

You can see the leather in a pile on the floor and the pieces from his table can be seen in my dining room.  The blue bin you see on the floor are my worms. I keep the attachments for the tank in the suitcase.  I found the machine on craigslist for free!

Then there are the Singer Featherweights, wonderful little machines.  A few years ago I bought a 222k as a doorstop.  It lived outside in someone's back yard for 2 decades, and was not a pretty sight.  I bought it for $40 and restored it.  An automotive shop repainted it for me, and then I replaced or repaired everything else on the machine, including the decals.  I used it for a year or so, and made a few quilts.  I sold it for $1,200 on ebay (it had every attachment known to man, which is why it went for so much).  The new owner absolutely loved it. 

I need to get off the computer and sew! ... until another day my friends, may you have no thread nests.

( .....What?.... you don't keep worms in your dining room??? ) 

Good ol' NC blizzard

We had ANOTHER tree fall on the house. 6 days before high school graduation too! We had super help to clean it up though and by dusk all that remained was a stump, saw dust and the ever so lovely scent of gas/oil in the air.

Our front yard used to look like this every spring, a good ol' North Carolina blizzard (flowers falling off our flowering pear trees):

Today, our front yard looked like this:

Master Gardener

I'm happy to announce I am now a Master Gardner, and in honor of this auspicious occassion....