Tulip Patch

 As you can probably tell by the title of today's post we are having a flowery theme this time.......

 .......... and mainly a tulip theme, as after the long cold winter and long cold spring at last the tulip cutting patch i planted last autumn is flowering...............I am soooo excited about this, you would think I had never planted a bulb before in my life ;)................

 ................i have allowed myself to cut a few of the gorgeous flowers now, as that is why i planted the tulip patch..........here are a few shots of them in the sunny potting shed, in  a big glass jar before i took them into the house..............

.............i planted a few rows of each kind (about eight different sorts)........i carefully wrote the name of each on a white seed marker and stuck it in the soil at the end of the row so i would know which was which when they flowered.......somehow all the markers have now disappeared........i've no idea where or how....strong gales? grandbabies taking them to play with?....who knows.......but i don't really need to be scientific about it..............i just love tulips and i love all these :)...............

 ..............and it must have been the influence of my tulip mania this last week or two that led me to pull out lots of sweet little prints from my stash and begin chopping rectangles of pinks, white and grey prints and sewing them together in long strips to begin a new quilt................

 .....with red dotty tulips appliqued onto it..........there are birds and hearts as well.......a real folk art style quilt which i am so enjoying sewing.............i'm  still loving crocheting the ripple blanket  too, and doing some sweet autumn designs for magazine projects.....in fact i'm loving them all and know i'm so lucky to have my job :)......

 ...........making big rectangles has used up a lot of my stash too.......always a good thing to do....

 .............here is my project for this month's crafts beautiful issue...............a sweet vintage rose cushion and little paper crafted tag to match............the cushion has a cross stitch rose on one of the patches........

 ................this is the project in the magazine.........I love how they styled it............you can download lots of charts and projects from the crafts beautiful website here..................

 ..............a week or two ago a beautiful package arrived here, decorated with sweet pink florals and silky pink ribbons...........it was a complete surprise and I was so delighted when I opened it to find....

...............these two sweeties, beautifully hand made by the lovely paula and sent all the way from across the pond specially for me....look at the sweet embroidery and the adorable little shoes ......many of you already know paula and her pretty blog sugar sweet and pink.......and if you do you will know just how kind she is ............i have already been in touch but just wanted to say thank you again, dear paula, they are sitting in my sewing room right now and i love them :).................

.............there is so much pleasure to be had from hand making and crafting and more and more people are discovering that which i think is a wonderful thing............i am off to do some hand quilting on the tulip patch quilt right now and hope to show you the finished project very soon....thank you for dropping into my little bit of blog land today..........it's always a delight to see you and to hear from you too :) ......wishing you a wonderful week with sunshine and flowers and lots of happy times.......back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxoooooooooooooooooxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx