Summer Starts Next Week!

Yes, June 2oth is the first day of summer!
The weather here has been warm & humid, just like summer but frost rears its ugly cold head every now & then just to remind us that it's not summer yet!
Bill & I plan to get the plants planted this weekend & let the growing begin!

My girlfriend Lynn gifted us many vegetable plants to be hardened off & that's just what we have been doing each morning.

 The seeds that Bill planted for our herb garden have been going outside too!

 The backyard patio table does the job nicely for holding the plants.

 It is the gusty winds that we have to watch for though. lol

 Thank you, Lynn, for all these plants, you are so generous to us!

 The Anniversary Garden is so fragrant with all the blooms out!

 This is the view over the side of the back deck, I wish you could smell this!

 The view on the side back deck overlooking the Anniversary Garden.

 The geraniums are getting ready for their summer days ahead too!
The big one goes on the front porch & the trio will be planted int the potting shed's window box.

 I've been rooting some more to place in Bill's garage's window box.

 The Morning Glories will be planted on the laneway side of the potting shed, I love Morning Glories! They use to cover the whole arbour at our London home & yes it did take my breath away with the beauty of the colour of those flowers in the morning.

Painting Projects

 I'm using this as a cupboard upside down & I'm painting it with chalk paint from my favourite primitive shop called Candle In The Window in Bosetown NB.

 This cupboard was used in a car garage on Eel River many years back.

 I used flat leftover paint from the exercise room here.

 What a difference a coat of paint makes! I wanted it light & bright on the inside.

 The outside is in a mid-dark grey & I love it!

 The drawer is left upside down as I'm going to put the grey slate tiles on it & the top shelf for durability with the plants.

I asked Bill to raise it up from the floor & he found brass coloured legs that he then spray painted a soft grey. I think this cupboard is going to look great when it is all together! Reveal is the next post!

Let us go into the potting shed!

The floor now has its first coat of paint & tomorrow the second coat will be added to finish the basecoat on the chipboard.

 The grey covering looks great with the white contrasting walls.

 What a different potting shed with paint colour!

 The upper rafters are left natural & below with the fresh, clean painted areas.

 The view looking out. Notice how light & bright it looks with the new door installed?
 It's the side door from the cottage on Eel River & provides light inside the potting shed as there's no electricity.
Bill plans on installing solar panels maybe next year.

I am going to stencil this pattern onto the potting shed floor in black acrylic paint, then a couple coats of varnish & then everything will be ready to move in!
Bill's going to install the corner countertop after the second coat of paint & from there I will see where I want the stencilling to go.
I know it is a lot of work but it has to be done now whilst it is empty. We are enjoying the process & the results!

Sewing Projects

 Nick's Mustang car quilt is back & I just love the anchor quilting that Rose did on it!

 I want to show you a trick with Sharpie markers that Rita Budd taught me years back.

 The logo on the left has my stitching & the longarm anchor stitching on it.
The one on the right, the threads have been coloured over with the sharpie marker, see the difference?
This works really well & the colour is with a permanent marker & should stay in place.

 There has been a quilt from Laura's - Sew Very Easy on Youtube called Strawberry Delight, that I wanted to do two summers back. This was the summer to do it & here it is!

 I used the four fat 1/4's of strawberries & scrap stash fabrics for the rest.

 I had enough scrap strawberry print for the sides & leftover scraps of bicycles from Stephanines Christmas sock lining. Voila, I love how it looks like summer!

 I added the black/white check sashing around the strawberries to frame them in, which was not in the free pattern download from Youtube.

 I also used the four solid colours from the strawberries to make a four patch rather than the solid coloured cornerstone from the pattern.

 The whole quilt will have a bias binding with the black & white check to finish it off.
It's now ready to be longarm quilted in the poise pattern that looks to me like the strawberry flowers!

The Christmas Carol Quilt is falling behind with me as I'm on block ten & block eleven is waiting in the queue now! With just one more block to be released then it will all come together!

I still need to embellish block 8 with some sequin stars.

Block nine needs some sequins added to give it some glimmer too.

This is what I have done to date & Bill laughs as he walks past my sewing room on the way to the kitchen with Christmas songs playing on my BOSE & me singing along. lol He says he can hear me from his office as he works from home. In six months we will have Christmas again...

 This quilt now has the binding on it, that took a while to do! Bill loves the fresh look of the colours of purple & green, I told him it looked just like our lupins in bloom!

I never added the sashing or the border to this quilt just the fine binding to finish it off. It will be put in the guest room at the foot of the bed to be used if needed.
We will not be having guests for a while with the COVID restrictions like life goes 'This too will pass'.

 How beautiful is this piece of dried flower from nature?!!

 This is what is used to look like before it had dried out!

 I was always amazed that it looked like a plastic flower when flowering.

 Here it is in the great room mezzanine, there are two flowers left around the mirror.

 My mom gave me this plant many years back & it has only flowered for me in the past couple of years, I still don't know what it is called, do you?

 Baxter looks so cute wrapped up in the evening when we are relaxing watching TV, he sleeps in the leather wingback with Nick's borg blanket.

And he's relaxing  & sound asleep. 

 The garden doors are now open through the day & on warm nights. I love how the sunlight just fills the rooms & the backyard waterfront can be viewed once more.

Summer is such a fast season here & each day presents a gift for each of our senses, enjoy the moment as you experience it!

Thank you for taking the time to visit, come back again & see what is going on in our part of northeast Atlantic Canada!

Stay safe, stay healthy, until next time.
Cynthia