A Lovely Rain and other oddities...

We have been blessed to have had three good doses of rain this month, which is quite unusual for Hawkes Bay.  We spend most of our spring/summer/autumn praying for rain, as we are traditionally a very dry area with hot summers - well, our definition of hot anyway!  At the moment our lawns are green and still need mowing, much to DH's disgust.  However, the garden does look so fresh after good rains, and we don' t have to stand out there and water.

This day lily is so gorgeous.  It is actually a more rusty red than this shows, and has given us a magnificent display for many days now.  The one my friend gave me flowered for the first time this year and I forgot to take a photo.  It is a lovely clear orange.

This lovely little chocolate coloured Cosmos is making a lovely wee splash of colour in amongst lots of purples and pinks.  Have had to do lots of deadheading this week to encourage more flowers,

 Our snapdragons were all from very small self seeded plants from DH's sister,  They have done very well, much to our surprise.  This one is a new seedling from ours and the originals all flowered again in their second year and have now been discarded.  I love the way they are biannual, so you get great value from them.

Our Swan plants have self seeded everywhere, so this year we have an excellent supply for the Monarch butterflies.  At the moment we are trying to fight off the wasps that eat the eggs and small caterpillars.  It's quite a war to keep the beautiful creatures at viable numbers.  Next thing we will be desperate for food.!

At the end of last year our Tuesday Chat girls decided we would make Pies and Tarts something we could all join in and do.  This is the beginning of my efforts - half a pie is stitched together, one tart is ready for stitching.  This will be a bit of a long term project I feel already, but it is nice to have one or two hand work things on hand to do.  It's supposed to help use up some of my scraps, but I only totally used up one small piece of fabric when I cut some more on Thursday!!  Drats

My good friend Lorraine has taken the plunge and bought herself an Innova long arm machine.  Lucky girl.  I have been to have a play and it's beautiful.  As she is in dire need of some practice pieces, I am making the most of this opportunity to move out some of those tops on my " Waiting for Quilting"  list I made two years ago and has been reduced by very few. This top goes back to early shop days.  Naturally, no fabric was kept for the border.  I was able to find this rather nice tile fabric that has all the colours in it at the LQS, and a small piece of dark teal that I will use as a frame in my stash.  Awesome, 5 tops will get finished.  Can you see me doing my happy dance?












So there you have it.  Some progress is being made - I think!! Talk to you again soon, and thanks for dropping in for a visit.  How is your quilting going?

Forgot to sign off - goodness me and say that I'm linking up with Cynthia  of Oh Scrap , her link is also on my side bar. Also with Lynette at  Confessions of a Fabric Addict .  Do go visit them, you will enjoy it. 
Bye for now,
Hugs and blessings
Clare