Funny Story

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My pink cosmos are exploding, and it looks like I'm going to get at least another week and a half of beautiful flowers, if the ten-day forecast can be trusted. (Sometimes it can, every once in a while...)

I captured one photo a couple of weeks ago that made me yearn for a smiling flower face. I've done this before with sunflowers, but never with cosmos. I immediately set out shooting cosmos so I would have a wide variety of color

I literally was on my hands and knees and even on my back trying to get just the right angle. I was all over the ground. Four straight days. Every chance I got. I was addicted. I kept going out for more.

I looked for my little open arm spiders, too, because they are so cute.

What I didn't look for or even think to beware of was slithering residents. Last week, while watering my lavender, I discovered a miniature snake.

I carefreely ambled back in the house for my phone, then sauntered back out to snap a photo I could use to try to identify the species. It was just a baby, maybe nine inches long. It hadn't moved at all. I walked back inside to photo search my young guest/tenant. Was not expecting a danger noodle at all. It's been years since we've had nope ropes in our yard!

Just as I discovered I had trouble brewing in the backyard, I noticed my neighbors huddled over my driveway on the opposite side of my house. I stepped out the front door to greet them and noticed a coiled visitor also occupying valuable territory in front of my house. And drawing quite the crowd. Just about all the kids in the neighborhood had to try to get a closer look. (My neighbor carefully guarded the button-tailed visitor to keep young 'uns from getting too close.)

My neighbor was able to gently shovel both reptiles into an orange construction bucket before relocating the twins to a non-disclosed area where humans will not be on the menu. Upon his return, he warned me because, he said, rattler mamas don't typically have just two babies. He told me to be very careful in my backyard. Lots of places for creepy crawlies to hide. YIKES!

Needless to say, I haven't been in the backyard much since then. But that's okay because I have plenty of cosmos photos with which I can play.

One of the flowers had the most beautiful coloring. I couldn't resist creating a greeting card.

That gave me an idea for more Spoonflower fabric.

Which meant I had to create a new cheater panel, too.

I'm going to try to save the seeds from the bi-color flower. It's just so darned beautiful!

Eventually, I'll probably get back outside and shoot some more cosmos. But I'm not so sure I'll be rolling around on the ground anymore!

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Wordless Wednesday

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Wordless Wednesday

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Pinktober

(affiliate links to my designs)

One of my little neighbors has a new baby sister. I knew she was coming; I saw mama walking in the neighborhood a couple of months ago, and it was pretty obvious. But I didn't know it would be this soon. Time to get quilting yet again. Late, as usual, these days!

Big sister got a quilt from one of my digital Spoonflower panels, and her mother absolutely loved it. She always compliments my garden when she walks by. I thought it would be fitting for baby sister to receive a quilt from one of my own floral cheater panel designs.

Except I didn't have any pink or floral cheater panels left in my Spoonflower stash!!! How could that possibly be?!? Especially in October!

I did find some butterfly fabric of my own design, but I'm planning to make a dress for me from that.

I know, I know, last thing I need is yet one more new quilt project. But I couldn't resist. I created a new panel, and I'm hoping to have it in hand one day next week so I can begin sewing. I think this one will be SO much fun!

On my phone, I had created a really fun cosmos collage with flowers in my garden the second (I think) year of the pandemic. I thought I'd created a cheater quilt panel from that image, but I guess not. The original image was too small, and I had not played with the idea to create a proper-size image. I certainly meant to. I guess this is just another case of proving how tangled life got during the last few years.

All it took was the motivation of finding out the new little one has arrived. I have so many other things I need to do, including mending a coat for a very elderly neighbor who will need the coat before the weather cools off, assuming it might one day...

Yes, I made a card, too. How could I not???

I probably could have finished the coat in the time it took me to design a new Spoonflower cheater panel for the new baby quilt, but one more day on the coat won't matter, right?!? I promise, that's my next project!!!

In the meantime, I created a few more pink floral Spoonflower panels, and I ordered a few of them, too. Now I'll be ready next time I need to quilt pink!

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Not Gone with the Wind

I should have taken a photo the day I rescued the huge branch of cosmos that was leveled by 60 mph winds a couple of weeks ago. All buds. I didn't know if they'd ever bloom. But I put them in a vase anyway and have kept it on my porch just in case there are garden helpers hiding in the skimpy leaves.

I also rescued a branch of eryngium or sea holly. That particular plant had been chopped down to make room for the tree cutters when we had to take down the gigantic poplar/cottonwood hybrid that was munching on the plumbing beneath our house. The branches I cut off back then lasted a long time in the vase in my kitchen, but the "flowers" never turned blue. (I hosed down those branches to relocate any garden helper residents because the power wash wouldn't destroy sea holly the way it decimates flowers.) I didn't know the plant would persist and produce a few more branches before next year.

I thought I saw a hint of blue in the sea holly over the weekend, so I closely inspected but found no trace of blue. Yet. I will give it more time.

The cosmos, though, have exploded with blossoms! And they seem to last a very long time! Every day I check the vase on the porch and am so pleased to see twice as many blossoms as the day before! What a wonderful way to close out summer!

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