Monday, May 31, 2021

A MEMORIAL DAY SALUTE TO OUR MILITARY

 Thank you United States Military:



THANK YOU!

Saturday, May 29, 2021

BLOGGER HAS MESSED UP OUR HEADERS

 The best advice I heard is don't change your header right now because blogger has fooled around with it and messed it up.  If you
change it - it will become really little
and if you follow the same instructions
I did after going to the help desk here - it will become blurry like mine above.

If you google this problem there are MANY
articles telling you how to fix your problem.
I was able to follow instructions and get
my header bigger (instead of really tiny and only to the
 left side of the page)
 but I could not understand the instructions
well enough about it being blurry 
and fix that.

Note from 11-2021  Suddenly
this problem was fixed by blogger!

Friday, May 28, 2021

ADORABLE VIDEOS

 Since we had to stay home so much
last year, I have become addicted to
so many wonderful garden videos.

I will share 3 but first a couple of photo
collages from flowers in the garden
today.  By the way, my husband mowed
our lawn with a coat on - it was cold!




You know I love Jeri Landers videos so
here is a new one of her gardens:


and

and lastly my friend Karen sent
me this link today as she buys
Irises from these people:

click here: Schreiner's
which is an Iris seller

and last but not least for
those who love FRENCH
STYLE AND FRANCE:

Monday, May 24, 2021

CELEBRATING QUEEN VICTORIA'S 202nd BIRTHDAY

 Monday, May 24 was Queen Victoria's birthday. (1819) 

I decided to invite some special ladies for an Afternoon Tea to celebrate.  I did some special sewing for the occasion and this
is the back of my large tea cozy:


 
I also made some napkins.   I will be posting some of these cozies to sell on my Etsy site this week. My tablecloth topper was a print copied from a tablecloth with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebration motif.



 I was being tight with my fabric so
I made a couple toppers as I really
wanted us to sit outside on the deck.
We have had cool weather but the
projected day was expected to be hot
so I wasn't so sure about being outside.



  I love the 
history of Queen Victoria. I am also
very interested in the character
and integrity of Prince Albert.
I am sure you probably watched the
PBS television series "Victoria".  I
purchased the CD music on ebay
to play for the
 ladies during
 our tea.
You may recognize these ladies who
I knew before I moved to Missouri as
I "met them" through blogging!


I love the little finger foods for
Afternoon Tea.  As you probably know
this is often mistakenly called "High 
Tea" but that is not the correct term.
I am sorry I didn't get a picture of my
food items.  We started with a salad of
mixed greens, peas, crunchy onion rings,
cheeses, mushrooms and nuts.

Then 3 savories were:  Ham biscuits with hot pepper peach preserves, little asparagus, mushroom, onion and parmesan quiches and cucumber sandwiches with cream cheese and dill.  My scones were lemon with cream.  For dessert we had a Queen Victoria Sponge Cake.


I have shared my 1851 Great Exhibition
souvenir pieces already on this site.
Karen has these pieces and after seeing
her's, I got interested in finding some myself.
Most of mine came from a gal in the 
Netherlands.





First we enjoyed iced tea and then 
with dessert we had hot tea.  The tea
was a gift from Donna Hardin at
Iowa and it was a black tea with orange.
It was delicious!

When these friends come to my house or I go to their's, we always bring a little hostess gift which is so fun.  It just wanted you to see the bag Janice (Curtains In My Tree blog) made  with her gift:




Do you like learning about
Queen Victoria?



Friday, May 21, 2021

TIME MOVES ON IN MAY WITH FOXGLOVES

 


I have been enjoying the replacement
birdbath we ordered from a garden
center in St. Louis.  We moved the old 
one and I am going to see if I can repair
it with some cement.  It never hurts to try.


My husband moved this birdhouse
 decoration (below left) to the top of 
a post for me yesterday.  Wood rots
in Missouri so the wood decoration
our son had give us had to be removed.
It was getting old.  We were able to
save some of it.

 


So we shall see how long the
foxgloves last.  Many are from
plants that I pulled off the Mommy
plant last year and replanted with
good dirt so I am so happy to see
them mature this year.  I am learning
to do that.  I did buy a few new ones
too and plan to keep an eye on them
for little baby plants at the base.


On Monday I have invited 3 ladies
for Afternoon Tea to celebrate 
Queen Victoria's birthday. 
 I shall be sharing
that with you next week.

Monday, May 17, 2021

TEA COZIE DELIGHTS

A while back I began thinking of
a different way to make my
tea cozies that I sell on Etsy.


So, I redesigned my 4 patterns and created 
a new type of cozy
 with a flat round
bottom.

I call them "Drop In Snuggies"
 and in the  absence of the elastic,
 they sit nice and flat on the
bottom.

I hope you will come check them
out on my site:

on Etsy 



They have a nice thickness of
polyfill batting inside to keep
the tea hot.

Saturday, May 15, 2021

CHATTER ABOUT ENGLISH GARDEN STYLE


Do you have any new garden
additions this year?  I have found
some of my bulbs multiplied so much
that I moved them on a rainy day.


This week we have had cooler weather
and now today rain.  Yesterday, we spent the whole day getting ready for a garage sale
but today it rained so we are waiting
another week.

We have a new
resident bunny
in the back yard.







I love to look at YouTube videos about
English Garden style.  Have you noticed
that some people love the style where
lots of plants grow together and it is rather
wild. Others like "cluster" gardening
where you just have one type of flower
in a group together.



 I think I prefer somewhere in between
 the two.  Last year toward the end 
of summer our garden grew together more
than I like so and in the fall I removed a lot
 of plants and just put them out on the drive.
  Over a period of a few days people
 just took them away which was nice.
I had too many irises in the same color 
so I decided to thin them out.  I frankly
think that everyone will be doing this once 
garden grows. 
 

We all have our favorite plants and I
seem to adore foxgloves.  I have been
learning to watch for and move the "babies" that come up at the base of the mother plant.
Usually by the end of summer there are 
some babies than can be planted in
good soil for spring.

I also love Sweet William and have grown 
it from seed and moved it around the yard.


 I have moved a lot of plants this spring
 while it is still cool. Some of them are ones that have come up right next to
and inside another plant at the base.
 I have already shared four small boxes
 of coneflowers this spring and removed
some irises.  They disappeared from the
drive in no time.  I just purchased two
more types of irises as I had too many
of the same 3 colors.


We all sure have
our passions and opinions about
gardening! What type of garden
do you have?