Pin It Weekly #60

I'm going to have to rename this weekly post!  
Wednesday is crazy.  

No.  Really.  Every. Wednesday.  

But by Thursday I'm exhausted.  What will I do?







I will figure it out later.  Maybe next week.



Or the next.  For now here is my weekly.  With apologies.












Happy Weekly,
Mary

Life is Peachy

LOVE peaches!  I don't mean that I like them.  Don't mean peaches are my favorite fruit (they are!).  No, I mean something much more.  

Given the opportunity, I will pick peaches over just about any other food.  Well, almost any other thing.

(Thank you, Google, for the yummy pictures.)

Imagine my joy at seeing my pretty little peach tree loaded with baby peaches.  Oh, happiness!   The following pictures are from my wonderful little tree.  

I should explain that this tree is one that I "planted" by tossing a stone after eating a peach.  It happens that said stone landed under the pine trees and azalea bushes in the back yard.  That means the lawn mower never had an opportunity to eat it, so it grew and grew and grew.  

Three years into adulthood, and it's still producing peaches.  

 Even better, the number of peaches increases with every branch I checked.  Yay, maybe this year there will be enough to share.

Spring beauty?

Over the weekend we got a hard, pounding rain.  It's unreal how hard the rain came down. I figured that it beat everything to shreds, but when we walked out to look around, I was surprised at how pretty and clean my yard looks.  

The azaleas are just beginning to open. 

The bridal wreaths are sparkling in the shade of some old overgrown trees near the road.

 Even my roses look pretty good for this early in the year.  These are some we planted last year and almost lost to the heat. Badly weakened, somehow they survived, so I'm happy to see that they are looking better.  Maybe they will pick up and look like Knock Out Roses.  

 There's not a lot left of the wisteria except clusters of flowers in a few spots, but they are pretty and smell wonderful.  

This pot in the backyard has white verbena and dusty miller from last year.  The deep, blackish petunia didn't survive the winter. I haven't decided whether to remove some of the dusty miller and add a bit of color.  I guess it's time to make a decision.

Look how pretty the pot was last year.  I cheated, though, by buying a pot all put together and looking really good.  All I really had to do was add the Miracle Gro.  The problem?  It's not cheap!

I've had some of this for years now because it reminds me of my grandmother who always had some in the shady area on the side of her porch.  I now know that it's called bungle weed.  I keep a bit in a bed near the studio.  It's looking really good and green.  The little purple flowers are full.  I cleaned up around it so it can spread since it's a ground cover and needs space.

And that's the yard for now.  Let's see how it looks in a couple of months when the summer sun starts pounding down.  For Louisianans, the summer heat is as damaging as the occasional winter freezes.  Since we got hit with extremes of both in the last year, we'll have to work extra hard to keep things going this year.

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Disney

This is the spring of Disney for our little grands.  They are all going to visit the princesses at some point before school gets out.  Of course that means lots of princess parties and enough pink and purple to create a headache.  So before my brain gets overloaded on Disney, I thought I'd find some inspiration in the pink and purple and sweetness of princess graces.

I can't even name all these princesses.  I'm betting there are a few little girls and maybe even some big girls in this family who can.

Need a princess?  Go to Pinterest.  Really, go.  Be warned, however, some of the pictures are not kid-friendly.  You can find each princess individually, though, and pictures of princes as well.  I can't say if they are copy-written, but I assume so.

And now, the quilts....

Like villians?  Here's a different kind of quilt just for you.

If you like paper piecing, type in Disney quilt and you'll find a pp pattern for each of the princesses.  Here's Belle as an example.

Have a great week!

Mary

Tiny Visitor

We have a visitor for a few days.  Her name is Darla.  She's awfully cute and loves to play.  She also brings in leaves and dirt from outside.  Oh, and she leaks.  Often.  

We've been trying to teach her a few commands, but either we are speaking the wrong language, or she's deaf.  Maybe the problem is selective hearing, because she knows a few words of English: go, treat.  She thinks no means hey, and I'm certain that because she's raised as an only puppy, she forgot how to share. I say this because when I tell her no, she looks directly at me for two seconds then goes back to whatever I said stop doing.  No means something in this house, but it's not a word in her house.  Spoiled puppy.  

There is a red-headed Marley in her house who is spoiled, also and between them the place is a wreck.  They drag in dirt, leaves and toys. They make forts in every corner.  They leave princess parts in the oddest places.  Oh, and let's not forget the jumping--on the bed, on the sofa, on the rocking chair.  

Guess what happens when a visitor who knows all these great things comes?  In the case of either Marley or Darla, it's a wild ride.  Did I mention that Darla is here for a few days.  

Did I mention that the other puppies recognize her?  Yes indeed, they remember her as a baby.  She is able to defend herself against the red-head, so she's pretty tough.  That translates to dog-fight.

First there's thunder and Candy barks at the invisible monsters. Then Little barks because Candy barked.  Darla gets upset because she thinks there's a fight happening and snarls at Little because, well, why snarl at the bigger one?  Little snarls back and Candy has to get between them and explain the whole "no time to argue, there's a monster outside" argument.  Everyone races to the crack in the curtain and there's a fuss about who gets to look out. About this time, the thunder splits the rafters again, and we're down to about three more days of fun.

Pin It Wednesday #59

Know what a cloche is?  A pretty little bell-shaped cover.  

A cake cover is one example.  So is a wired cover for a gorgeous Christmas (any holiday) vignette.

Funny, I was actually searching for a cloche hat because I was pinning hats.  When I typed in cloche It didn't occur to me that I'd get so many glass examples.  But I found a few.  This is my favorite~~pretty little leather books under glass.  How perfect is that?

Found a few hats, also.  What pretty little bells these are!

Look at the embellishment on this beautiful mustard cloche.  

Oh my!

Like the look of fancy?  It's all in the little details!

So once I decided that I love the look, I started thinking there has t be a way to get one of these without having to put out tons of money.  I don't have tons of anything, so I have to spend sweat equity to get what I want.

Ta-da!  It's so doable.  Just type in cloche diy~~BOOM!

These are cheap glasses turned upside down with glass marbles as handles.  I'd use round marbles or even a glass knob, but you get the idea.  I'm thinking that if I want a larger cloche, I could use glass bowls, but remember to look on the bottom to make sure there's no tell-tale signs like wording.  Wouldn't they make some pretty, inexpensive gifts?  I talking dollar store for starters.

As for the cloche hat, I had to figure out how milliners get that bell shape.  Here you go....it's a  rounded wedge times six that forms the skull shape.  I've made some infant hats with this rounded wedge (although I wasn't trying for such a tight fit) and found that it's not so difficult to sew together.  I imagine that it would be easy enough to change, or eliminate, the brim of my pattern and adjust the size of the wedge.    And then I found this pattern.  Of course, I don't know one thing beyond this drawing, but I'm betting we could figure it out.  What do you think?

Let me know if you've made a version of the cloche glass cover or the hat.  I'm curious how that turned out.  

Mary