Finishing Something I Recently Started

I worked quite a bit at Stitch North on Jan Hicks' 'Love Birds' from her Birds of Color [sic] series. and got this far by the end of the weekend.

I used Markup R-XP with the black and white chart, which made distinguishing the different colour symbols very easy to isolate. Back home, I worked on it some more and today I finished all the stitching. This photo more accurately shows the colour of the fabric.

I used one strand of DMC Blanc Etoile to give the white stitches a bit of sparkle. My fabric wasn't as dark as the called-for fabric.

I've done a wee bit of yardwork this week, pulling dandelions, setting up and filling the birdbath, clearing away some vegetation from last fall. I bought a couple of packs of anemone corms yesterday. 8 come in a pack and the directions said to plant them in clusters of 10 - 15, hence the second pack. They, like everything else, will get planted at the beginning of June. I started some sunflowers under my grow lights in the kitchen. Three of the ones that will grow to 3m high (9-ish feet) are already 8" tall and are quite spindly in spite of the lights being on 16 hours a day. I also started some dwarf sunflowers, zinnias, and cilantro. They got too tall for the clear cover of the seed tray in the first few days. My challenge is to remember to keep watering them.

Several years ago Lorna gave me some of the very early-blooming, dark red peonies from her garden. They grow so fast you can really see the change from day to day.

There are lots of buds which should bloom in the next week or two. I ran out after it rained to get some shots.

They've gotten quite bushy so will split them in the fall.

I have a ton of weeding/hoeing to do. It's hard in some areas because in some cases I can't tell what is a weed and what is an emerging perennial. I also set up and filled my birdbath. I saw a white-crowned sparrow drinking from it this morning.

We had a lovely sunny day yesterday and I washed all my bedding: mattress pad, bottom sheet, duvet, duvet cover, and pillowcase and hung them out on the line to dry. Did it ever smell good crawling into bed last night.

And finally, Jen1 and I registered for music camp this evening when registrations opened. Most of the classes I selected don't have size limits but one does so I hope I get into it seeing as I registered as soon as registration opened (thanks to the reminder from Jen1). She's going to be attending as well and we hope to get adjoining rooms in the dorm where we'll share the bathroom between them.

I attended last year after a 15+year hiatus from playing my oboe at all and really enjoyed it.