Hail and Foiling the Cat's Destructive Efforts

So, we went to the movies today and came back to discover there had been a hail storm. The hail was long gone, but the evidence was still around.

 

So - I've been working on repairing my drawers (The cat has clawed up my cool cloth drawers that I bought for my closet) - so I decided to decoupage/make a collage on the outside surface and hope that the glue will make the surface less enticing to claws.




 It was a great chance to use up some extra yarn tails and scraps of stuff as well as preserve pieces of a wrapping paper I am particularly fond of - not to mention, I knew there was a reason I was saving all those foil wrappers from those dark chocolate candy bars!!

How Many Do You See?

So here's another garden shot - how many do you see?

Okay, so here is one:

Doily Update

This will probably be the last picture of this doily for a really long time.  Every time I transfer it to other needles I drop stitches and I just don't have enough circulars the right size. Alas I have only done half the rows (which means 1/3 of the knitting - if you use your πrsquared  formula!!) Anyway here is the dandelion and you can see the little hanging flowers on either side (sort of.)  I'm putting a lotus above the dandelion and Glöckchen above hanging flowers, so this will be a veritable garden of Niebling motives!

Flowers inside and out

 Look at these beautiful flowers that my family sent me!!  But I think there may be a problem - see those really cool frondy things on the right?

 

Someone else did too!

These are from the garden. The storm broke the stems of several of the iris in the garden, so I cut them and brought them in.

Here they are in their natural habitat.

And someone else's natural habitat too!

How many do you see?

One more sort of amusing Garden item.

Various Garden Issues

Here is a better shot of one of those large moths that is flitting around my shrubs.



Project for the day to weed 1/8th of this flower bed. I think it is an overly ambitious project since it is FULL of weeds.

 

Here is what I mean - If you look at this next shot you will see that the bed is "wall-to-wall" weeds!

So I set to work, but it has gotten muggy and hot, so I did not get my full 1/8 done today. Anyway, it is starting to look a bit better, but is quite a bit of work. I still need to get some mulch on. I got exactly 3 petunias and the Icelandic poppies transplanted before I wore out. At this rate, I might get all of my annuals planted by December 12th!

 

Here is an interesting contraption that my sister gave me.  It is a seed pot maker. Of course I read the instructions and did it all wrong - came up with a lot of crumbled strips of newspaper. It too k my sister on the phone and step by step instructions to figure out how to work it, but here is my first pot!!  Now I've got to find some seeds!

 

Finally this is the obligatory driveway update! 

All is Well - In the Garden

So today I engaged in an orgy of plant buying. I went to three different nurseries and ended up with all of these plants

 

Actually that isn't all of them. I also bought a shrub rose and three trees:

On the left is a weeping Spruce. The middle is an Evans Bali Cherry and on the left is THE LARCH (also a weeping variety). It's very exciting!  I planted the rose bush and one other set of plants that I haven't mentioned yet. I also got three elephant ears from my Mom and Sister.  Unfortunately I managed to pull the leaves off of most of them before I even got them planted, but each got its own pot after it passed dog inspection.

Just so you can admire the beauty of these specimens, I am enlarging them. Aimeé says the pass! I'm not so sure, but I suspect that they'll pull through okay if I quite torturing them.

The garden is starting to look great. The iris are beginning to bloom and I have been working on weeding out the grass. We've been getting lots of rain, so the plants are pretty happy.

We had this visitor in the garden yesterday. He's about the size of a hummingbird and just about as active.

He moved so fast that I couldn't get a real good picture.

Anyway, tomorrow we will begin digging holes for the trees and it should be a good day for the iris after the strong rains. I hoping to get some really nice pictures! (So stay tuned.)

Quick Update

The iris along the driveway are beginning to bloom. Spring is finally here.

As far as incidental projects, well I've been spinning cat hair again. I had to knit something with it to see what I thought and here is the beginning of a doily called Glockenblume.

 

It's about 7 inches in diameter right now and of course I am now out of "yarn" on row 20. I wonder how much more I can harvest before I have a bald kitty!

Sunny Day

Well, there are no raindrops on my roses, it is a beautiful bright sunny day, but my kitten has whiskers, so it seems like a wonderful day (except I have to go attend a graduation ceremony and spend this gorgeous afternoon indoors listening to long repetitive speeches - sigh)



Well at least Arbogast will have a nice afternoon.

Doily Update

The bind off is complete - Next I'll pick up stitches and continue on with a new pattern. It looks weird!

State of the Lace

So, I'm just about through with the first design. (The other one will go on a few more rows. I'm not sure what I am going to do now, but I thought looking at what I have might help. I'm binding off the  Fuchsia part of the pattern and will then pick up stitches to continue with the next pattern motif (haven't chosen one yet.)
 

I pinned part of it out on a cushion. I'm working on a dandelion flower  (Left side of image about 9:30) - It's just about to branch out into the blossom - or maybe the ball part.  Here is a close up of the Fuchsia part (which is done.)

Lunacolia

I just watched the new Lars von Trier film Melancholia. The style is very mice, but it is so Von Trier. The music is from Tristan and Isolde and it is appropriate for the film and over the top. I can't really say that I enjoyed the film, but I am glad that I saw it.

I had taken this picture of the moon since it is closer right now than it has been in years and somehow it is fitting for a blog about Von Trier's film.

I also continued work on my drawing. I think it may be done. I have to look at it a bit now and think.

Half Way Home

So here is the updated version. I accidentally posted this on the wrong blog, but I want to have this version near the others so I will post it again.ght I'm more than half way finished at last. It may seem like the hard part is done - but the likenesses aren't the hardest part for me. The hardest part is getting the light and dark right so that the composition becomes interesting.

Final Project Draft

Here's the beginning of the final version (Art Final Project) which I have begun on the "expensive" paper.