Feel that chill in the air? We're having a li'l blackberry winter here in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. I don't mind it a bit, though; it sure makes a nice cup of coffee seem extra good. Here's a look at my purple clematis.
Goodman and I went to Virginia to see Youngest and her DH over the weekend. We had a good visit with them and a very nice time taking in several of their area nurseries. We stopped at the first two and just enjoyed looking, but at the last one this beautiful hanging basket of petite petunias called Superbells caught my eye almost immediately. Youngest noticed how much I liked them and snapped it up for me for Mother's Day. (It looks even better in person. :)
Truly, I'd planned to just look at all the nurseries' offerings, but this burgundy petunia was too pretty to resist. I do love burgundy flowers and petunias especially.
On the way back home we decided to take a back road near the mountains, and what do you think we passed right by? Uh huh, the Lodge Factory Outlet Store in Sevierville. It's one of my favorite places to browse. I could spend a lot of time in there. It takes a while to look at all their cast iron pots and pans and fireplace accessories, etc., but this skillet stood out right away. Yep, those bears followed me all the way home.
Remember the
circular shawl I started a few weeks ago? Well, I've run into two problems with it. First, a disheartening mistake further back than the ones I'd already redone, and then..the book that the pattern is in has vanished. I'm at a loss as to what's happened to it and, frankly, I don't want to think about it right now. See, we took four or five boxes of books to the Habitat Thrift Store recently...oh, yeah. Sigh. So, pressing ever onward, I started crocheting this completely enthrawlin' little shawl. The yarn is CotLin from Knitpicks in their Linen colorway. I'm about one-third finished with the body of the shawl and will start the border very soon, hopefully.
Hope your week is a good 'un. :)
The pear tree has bloomed, been pollinated and set-on tiny pears.
The bluebirds are still considering which nestbox to use.
This robin made up its mind to nest in the third sugar maple of our row of four...
She went right to work gathering grasses...can you see her for the load of grass in her beak, lol?
The nest was constructed and now she's a-settin'...
Meantime I've had a trial with my knitting and decided to make another dishcloth to match the kitchen. A Flower Buds Cloth in royal blue.
And look at this lil cutie pie flower pen. Yes, it's an ink pen topped with a happy duct tape flower! I used to hate duct tape because of the one yucky color available, but this is great duct tape. The free tutorial is over at the Seven Sisters blog.
No, I couldn't stop with one...sure will liven up paying the bills, lol.
This is my crochet shawl that I finished the border for, but the border isn't fitting like the pattern says it should so I'm shelving it for now.
Spring is here and with it comes work in the vegetable gardens and the everlasting battle to get the house on the market to sell. Matter-0-fact, it's lookin' good enough we'd almost like to stay...almost. :) Hope you're having a wonderful spring, Y'all!
