Earl Grey Progress

Hey everyone...I hope you're all enjoying this half sunny, half rainy Saturday evening!

I haven't been stitching as much as I'd like to, like most of you out there can relate to, I'm sure. I have to work 6 days/week from now until August with the exception of 2 weekends that I've booked off, and it seems to be taking a toll on me. I also volunteer at the Canadian Canoe Museum, so between that, work, running, doing errand-y things, school work, and trying to see my friends and family, I have almost no time left for stitching :-( Although, when I'm stuck running the museum gift shop, I usually get to stitch for a straight 4 hours because it's pretty slow, and that's how I've accomplished this much of my beloved Earl Grey.....

I decided to stitch all of the sunflowers first because I knew once I stitched the donkey I wouldn't want to do anymore. This way I have motivation to keep going through these flowers...I'm so excited to be able to stitch Earl one day (hopefully soon!) I can't decide whether to do a little bit of orange on the inside of the flower, and black (or maybe brown?) in the middle, or just skip the orange all together and just do the black (or brown). Any thoughts?

How are all of your gardens doing? I just spend my whole afternoon outside getting a new bed ready. I live in the basement of an older couple's house. They're sort of like having grandparents, they treat me like family. This year they asked me if it would be okay for them to get a backhoe in to dig some new beds in the front and back, and if I would be willing to take care of them. I already take care of all of the garden-y things here so I figured a few new ones wouldn't be a big deal...and I love gardening, so I'm kind of excited too! I went over to Holly's last night and dug up a bunch of perennials, got my bed ready and planted them today. It's still very empty and needs to be filled in, but it's still SO early for planting here, there will still be frost so I'm holding off a little. The edging was killer, but it turned out pretty well! The only thing I left for another day was that big clump of grass as this end. By the time I relized it was there (I was in a zone-not paying attention), I was too tired and had a major "screw this" moment. I'll dig it out tomorrow. Here it is so far:

This is the first one of 4- there are 3 more in the back yard that are roughly the same size. I haven't even touched them yet. There are lots of perennials at my parents house for me to go dig up, and I have a little bit of flower money saved up. I worked in the garden center that's attached to the store I work at for 2 summers, and Holly is working out there now- it's my favourite place to hang out...I get us coffee and we just sit. Well....I sit, and she works near me LOL. So I've been scoping things out this week and have several ideas....exciting! One thing I'm going to do for sure is grow Morning Glories up the fence...I LOVE them.

Anyways, I guess that's all for now!! I'm trying to get caught up on all of your blogs, but I seem to be about a week and a half behind....I'm slowly working my way through...everyone is making such cool things, good inspiration!

Until next time.........