Happy May 1st – Red Peony Bloom Buds

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Looks like my red peony will have some healthy blooms soon. The ants are working the blooms pretty good.
Supposedly, peonies need a lot of sunshine and don’t need ants on them to bloom. However, I’ve learned over my many decades of trying to grow them, that the varieites like this one would have a lot of bloom buds shrivel away if they didn’t get much attention from ants or other insects and bugs.
My old white peony bushes out in the yard has only one viable bloom bud between 7 of them and they get plenty of sun. Early on each bush had several bloom buds but no ants insects nor lady bugs. Sure enough, all the bloom buds shriveled away but 1.
Happily, this red peony is giving a great promise of several blooms.
(If the wind doesn’t flatten them to the ground first.)

Wishing you all a month of sunshine and smiles.

 

Wacky Wrap Saga

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For those not too familiar with corner-2-corner (c2c) crochet, it starts off with a triangle and then when you reach the width you want, you can decide to either make it square or rectangle. The above photo is a picture of one of my more favorite c2c creations, a scarf I made in 2021 using a block stitch. I used ‘Lion Brand Yarn Ice Cream Big Scoop Yarn, Lemon Meringue’. It’s so soft. I made this scarf in honor of my Mom, she loved yellow and lemon in everything. ❤️

Now back to my Wacky Wrap Saga…
I had planned for my shawl to be a rectangle wrap done with a c2c v-stitch. It took a while for me to work the pattern out to get it to look promising.
It took me a few unravels, but finally it was working out to be a pretty good rectangle. I was so happy.
Yes, it went along pretty well, that is, until I reached the finishing point and needed to square-off the end.
And then, no matter what stitch-pattern I tried, it would not square off. I unraveled it four times and finally decided to let nature take its course. I decided to stop at the end of the 5th skein of yarn. I ended up with a finished wacky wrap.
72 inches long – 1st side.
60 inches long – 2nd side.
24 inches wide.
It’s not too awful looking.
My sister just pointed out that that my wacky wrap looks a bit like a pants pattern.😂
I like it. It’s quirky and has character.
It’s so soft.
I’ve already been using it.

Wishing you all a successful week and happy crafting!

 

 

Crochet – diamond painting – garden – pc issues

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I wasn’t happy with my crochet shawl project. I unraveled it and started again with a c2c v-stitch pattern. It’s taken me some time to work it out, but so far, it’s going well.

I finished my diamond painting. I’ve decided not to frame/hang it up. I’ve added it to our portfolio folder-notebook. I used to just roll up the finished diamond paintings (dps) and keep them on a shelf. Whenever we’d want to look at them, I’d have to unroll them all, then roll them back up. It was okay, but not really enjoyable.
Fortunately, my blogging buddy Claire mentioned on her blog how she keeps her dps in a portfolio. It’s such a great idea. I leapt on that idea and ordered us one. The portfolio can hold 60 or more depending on size. That works our great for us.
“Thank you so much, Claire. You’ve helped make our diamond painting more enjoyable. ❤ ”

My husband is really in the gardening mood this year. He tilled up a small garden spot. I might add that since he tilled the garden spot, we’ve had several rainstorms and the temperatures have been running as low as in the mid 20°F. So, for now, we wait… Come on warm weather and some dry days to plant!

I wish all of you oodles of nice Spring weather.
Have a super rest of the week!

P.S. I’ve ran into some pc issues the past few weeks. I’ve pretty much got them worked out. A new battery and a factory reset did the trick. Hopefully, it’ll be smoother sailing for a while. Now it’s time to play catch-up on my visiting and blogging. 🙂