Season of Changes

March and April are always a time for change. As the new season comes in, I'm wanting to get on and make changes to the garden, the house, the decor, to whatever I'm doing. So it's been a frustrating week for me as I finally succumbed to the many germs that have been around for the last few months, and so spent much of my time stuck indoors snuggled under blankets on the sofa or curled up in the chair, dozing and reading. 

No energy or will to plan or put into action any of the improvements on my list.

And I missed the Country Living Spring Fair sadly, and had really been looking forward to that.

The only upside to that was being able to progress my cross stitch sampler, after a few days of not wanting to do anything other than sleep, and to finish off one or two projects that had been hanging around.

I added a spring bunny amongst some grass........

..........and another bunny with some tulips

I stitched away at filling in half of the house.........

and finished the first stylised tree (house and tree both inspired by 19th century samplers)

I also crocheted the second little flower for the pink crochet baby slippers I made a few weeks back.

Despite a gardening free week, the garden carries on quite happily without me. The camellia is in full bloom now, but the odd morning frost has caused many blooms to go brown.

The rosemary is flowering, sweet little blue flowers.

This time last year I bought a few new spring plants and summer perennials including a tray of lupins. The muscari and daffodils are all doing well but sadly I lost most of the lupins to the rabbits before they could get established, despite my rigging up a twiggy defence.

Also this time last year we still had black paintwork which I was glad to see go...it is now white and makes the house look much lighter and more contemporary.

We also had a new picket fence put in along the front between the driveways this time of year, a couple of years ago now.

And last year it was this corner of the back garden that got revamped with my new raised vegetable beds.

This years spring improvements include more fencing to the side of the property and hopefully the removal of an old concrete bin shelter at the back, and in its place a new terrace to join up with the existing terrace. 

Also I have a new border to plant up where we had new fencing erected to the side of the front garden in the autumn last year. Apart from a couple of established azaleas, a small hawthorn tree, and a couple of newish roses, the rest is a blank canvas. I need to get my gardening books out, make a plan and visit the nursery!

So lots of plans in the garden. All I need now is the energy to get things moving!

Do you have changes planned for your garden or home this year? 

Do you find it a time when you want to make lots of changes too?

Thanks for your comments on my last post, and for taking the time to visit me here, I do appreciate it and love to read your comments!

Marches Past

It's a glorious, if somewhat chilly, early Spring day today and as usual at this time of year all I can think about is the garden. Working and tidying in the garden, planning the garden, tidying the greenhouse, sowing seeds, putting in plants and looking forward to the odd hour relaxing in the sun once the weather warms up properly.

I managed the first grass cut of the year on Sunday, so at last the lawn is looking neater and shows off the few border edges that I tidied recently. Still lots to do though and once I've posted this I'll be out in the chilly sunshine cutting back, weeding and generally tidying.

My daughter will be 21 in April this year, and I'm not even going to think about where the time has gone, but instead I've designed a cross stitch sampler to celebrate her Birthday. I never got round to stitching a birth sampler when she was a baby, so this is a more grown up version! Inspired initially by a beautiful 19th century sampler, and in keeping with other cross stitch designs that I have done along American folk art /British traditional lines which I love, I have started to stitch. And plenty of time with each stitch to think back over the last 22 years, which have been the best and happiest of my life, and to be hugely grateful and thankful for my beautiful daughter.

I'm finding that I'm changing things as I go as fresh ideas come to me, but I'm trying hard to stick to my original design. 

Just a few tweaks in the first row that I've stitched....I added Logan our Toy Poodle as one of the dogs, and for good measure threw in a couple of ginger and white cats to remember our lovely Bessie.

This was typical of Bessie and Logan, Bessie exploring and Logan following and watching! I suspect there was a frog or a mouse behind the barrels!

I have also finished and framed the simple blue and white lighthouses I was stitching over the last few weeks and am quite pleased how its turned out.

Sewing and embroidering outside is one of the simple pleasures I love on a sunny day, so am hoping for lots of warm and calm days soon - too much wind is bad news when sewing al fresco!

Whilst looking for photos for this post I came across projects I'd worked on in March last year and the year before, and it seems I was on a crochet roll. 

A couple of years ago I finished my first crochet blanket, a baby blanket for a friends granddaughter, made up of pink popcorn flower squares.

I'd also been making lots of cotton crochet wash cloths.

And I came across this photo of a beautiful vintage dresden plate quilt that I bought at this time of year a couple of years ago.

Coincidentally it's actually on my bed at the moment as it's such a fresh and pretty spring-like quilt!

Thanks for all your comments on my last post and for visiting me here, I hope you all had a good weekend.

I'm off up to London this week to the Country Living Spring Fair with my lovely and BFF Jane from flowerhouse blog, as I was the lucky recipient of a pair of complimentary tickets! We usually go to either the Spring or Christmas Fairs most years but didn't manage either last year, so we're both really looking forward to our visit to see ( and buy!) the wonderful and inspiring goodies! I already have  a modest shopping list Jane..... ;)

Here's wishing you a happy early Spring week full of sunshine!

Spring Gardening

Despite the frosty starts and sharp winds during the past week, I have spent every moment I can in the garden. Once the frost has cleared there has been real warmth in the sun drawing me outside once again.

These miniature daffodils that were only in bud last week are now fully out with all the early spring sunshine we've had.

It's so satisfying clearing away the winter mess and getting things looking neat and ship shape again, and although I still have much to do I feel I've made a good start. 

Thank you for all your comments on my last couple of posts, its good to be back! But I am sad to find that many of the original blogs I followed from when I first started blogging, over 5 years ago, have now come to an end. At the same time though there are many of my favourite bloggers still going strong and it is great to catch up with them!

The crocuses are finally coming out fully now that I've cleared away some of the dead oak leaves.

This week I tidied more borders and got the rest of the rhubarb in the raised bed, cut back more dead stuff and cleared away yet more dead leaves..... shaped straggly evergreen perennials and pulled out weeds.........pruned and tied in a climbing rose over the new arch put in last year....and made inroads into clearing the patio. It doesn't sound much but the difference it has made visually, together with  my aching back, proves testament to my labours.

tidier patio!

muscari in full bloom

A quick trip to the garden centre at the weekend with husband in a rare, and unnaturally generous mood ( he's usually dead mean at the garden centre!) meant that I came away with some beautiful hollyhock plants in scarlet, pink and primrose yellow, a snakeshead fritillary, a pretty creamy white hellebore with purple markings, some snowdrops, and more vegetable seeds.

New hellebore 'Conny'

I do have a few lone snakeshead fritillaries that come up each spring, but there seem to be less each year and so I'm hoping that planting a good clump like this will give a better display.

snakeshead fritillary

 raised beds ready for direct sowing

Apart from gardening. I repainted this wooden standard lamp in Annie Sloan 'Original' - it was painted in 'Provence' before, which looked gorgeous but when I moved the lamp from family room into sitting room it didn't look right. 

I've also got a prettily shaped table to paint this week if we have a wet day, bought at a local charity shop and just waiting to be transformed, and a vintage wooden fire screen with a beautiful floral tapestry.

I haven't picked up a hook all week but am hoping to move this crochet project forward as its not too far off being finished. It'll be a cushion as the squares are too tiny for me to have the patience to grow it into a blanket!

It won't be long 'til the blue bells are out! This photo is from last year, taken in a nearby wood. It is always full of them and the sight and scent is amazing.

Hope all is well out there in Blogland, have a good week my friends and thanks for visiting!

in the woods last summer