Our First Tulip

I believe this is an Apricot Foxx tulip from Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm. The plants next to it are Epimedium x warleyense that we picked up from Loen's Nursery during their summer clearance sale.

The hyacinths have also bloomed. To be honest, I'm surprised to see them this year. I honestly thought our backyard squirrel had eaten them because we kept finding holes dug in the planting bed after we'd planted all the bulbs.

Gipsy Queen Hyacinths

The hyacinths have been out for more than a week in the front yard parking strip.

These are called 'Purple Sensation' hyacinths. I bought them last year from
Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm but they don't appear to be available this year.

This Time For Sure

Now that our moving plan is uncertain, I decided I want to go ahead and recover the living room furniture. I was looking back at my original posts and realized it's been almost exactly three years since I bought the replacement fabric. It's time to get this project done.

The original upholstery fabric I bought at Fabric Depot has not held up at all and it has only gotten worse. The new fabric is heavy-duty (exceeds 35,000 Double Rubs) and should wear better.

I spent two hours this morning planning the cutting layout to make sure the twelve yards I bought would be enough to cut out all the pieces with the fabric design running the same direction across all the pieces. I think I've got it figured out, so I'm going to start cutting the fabric tomorrow. I think I can make myself do it.

My hope is to start sewing everything together on Friday for this month's Friday Night Sew-In.

Using Up Pavers

Almost a month ago we discovered a bunch of really thick pavers that ran along the edge of the old driveway. Jeff dug them out and removed them and they sat only a few feet away until yesterday.

I asked Jeff if he would please make a little path of them from the stairs to the backyard shed. I was expecting him to just carry them over and plop them down and call it good. That's not how Jeff rolls.

He would have preferred to buy some gravel to level them, but I told him not to bother. I'm hoping to be able to plant groundcover around the stones. If necessary, we'll bring in some gravel later and re-lay them.

This concludes the path between the back door and shed. We can now, in theory, get from the house to the shed without stepping in mud.

I would still like to make a new step to get into the shed. I have a plan, but we haven't had the motivation to make it.

Oh, and this happened on Saturday. Our plants appear to have survived, but the daffodils all got flattened by the weight of the snow.

I 💜 Our Public Library

I moan about the City of Portland quite a lot. The city has many problems, the primary one being way too many homeless people. There are too frequent thefts of anything we leave outside. A few weeks ago one of them stole the cushion off the wicker loveseat on our front porch. I guess (s)he decided it would be more comfortable to sleep on a cushion than on the ground. We had a cement elephant statue on our front porch that used to belong to my grandmother, that was stolen too.

But despite the problems, I will happily admit they have a stellar library system. My reading list right now:

My attempt to start seeds has been less than successful. I haven't had a problem getting the seeds to sprout, my problem is getting them to grow beyond that point. I am clearly missing something. So I hit the library website and ordered some books. I was able to go pick them up yesterday.

Pre-internet, I was a voracious reader but since wireless computers and streaming TV, I just never got around to reading anything, despite owning thousands of books.

Last fall, Jeff and I decided to try an experiment. We turned off all the streaming TV channels; no more Hulu, no more Netflix. If we needed a movie fix, we could watch one of our DVDs. It was the first time in a few years we were able to focus on reading and writing without feeling the pull of TV.  And even though we turned on Disney+ in November and immediately watched through the Star Wars and Avengers saga, we have already turned it off. It's been satisfying for us to focus on something else.

Combining our extensive task lists in Habitica and the ability to download audiobooks directly on to our iPhones, Jeff and I have been listening to a TON of audiobooks. We listen to them when we're cleaning, exercising, gardening, sewing, whenever we don't have something too complicated to focus on.

Since the beginning of January, I have finished reading or listening to 49 books! 49 books. I am really enjoying this amazing service the library provides and it has cost us nothing additional beyond what we're already paying in taxes. I would encourage all of you to explore your library's audiobook offerings.

More Plant Additions

We have a bed in the backyard next to the patio where we just put in plants without any color scheme or plan. It's looking quite nice this time of year.

I'm really enjoying spring.

Flowers!

The beautiful spring weather keeps drawing me outside. I am really enjoying the yard this year.

Ribes sanguineum/Flowering red currant has exploded into flowers.
This is a native shrub we planted back in 2011 when we installed the rain garden.

Iris Lazica in the parking strip

Purple Sensation Hyacinth in the parking strip

Purple Crocus planted back in 2017. I'm pretty sure these were from Brecks.

We have several clumps of yellow trumpet daffodils. I believe we planted these more than 5 years ago.
I'm hoping to mark where the clumps are and dig them this fall and spread out the bulbs.

And I almost forgot the Camilla bush next to the driveway. Jeff pruned it way back last year because it was so dense it was shading most of the sun above the rain garden which was killing the bleeding hearts. He was worried he pruned it too much, but it looks happy.

Sadly, the Camilla bush we planted in the backyard looks like it died. I think one of the dogs had a close encounter with it. I'm planning to try rooting some cuttings from this bush to get an inexpensive replacement.

February's Finishes

I made some progress on my WOOFA list this month. I blogged about most of them individually, but these are the other projects I haven't mentioned yet.

I made a set of napkins from a remnant of cotton brocade. I had originally planned to do a rolled edge on the serger, but I decided a hemmed edge would look more formal.

I finished another rag quilt. On one of our visits to Prineville, we dropped by their thrift store and I found this lovely printed flannel. It seemed like a good excuse to make another rag quilt. All the rest of these fabrics were pulled out of my rapidly depleting scrap bin.

It has already been snipped, but not washed because I'd prefer to take it to a laundromat. I don't want to risk our plumbing.

I assembled the denim circles and loaded them up with a bright novelty fabric and coordinating bright fabrics from my fabric wall.

At this point, I'm about halfway finished sewing down all the flaps. I'll likely get it done this week if we have the forecasted week of rain.

I found someone local to do the machine quilting on my batik quilts, but I've learned I need to make the border larger on the backing quilt so there's more excess fabric. It guess it's easier for them to install it on the frame.