Before and after......

 I've finished the quilt top for the barn quilt wallhanging. It's now set aside until Jordan's opens so I can take it in for long arm quilting. I imagine they will be backlogged very quickly once open, lots of quilts being made while sheltering at home. I like the way this turned out but it was a challenge - my points are not perfect and there are many places they're even cut off. It won't be entered in any competition, just hung on the wall opposite the dining room and I'll love it whether it's perfect or not.

 We had The Grounds Guys come do a huge landscaping job for us - they were great. I couldn't find a before picture from when we bought this place a little less than 2 years ago but all the mulch area was ugly gravel. 

 Now look at it with five 800 pound boulders, over 50 new bushes/plants plus some trees we planted last year.

 They ran completely a completely new drip system connected to our automatic sprinkers.

 It's going to take a while for these plants to start growing but it's going to look nice. I'll be planting tulip and daffodil bulbs this fall - can't wait.

We switched up our shelter in place location last weekend for the one on the coast, we hadn't been over in 5 weeks and the grass was a foot tall. Misty knows now to relax over there...….

Landscaping

So go back and check this little corner of the front yard in my post of June 11th to see the difference. It's an example of how the entire yard looks around the house. I'm very happy with how the landscaping turned out. There is still one spot I'm concerned with looking too empty once plants die back in the winter but they put one of the grass plants that stays nice looking all year in that spot so hopefully that will fill in with color in winter months. If not, we'll just go buy something else to add to it next spring. Now my job is to keep it up! (Landscaping update - not happy with one area and don't think the owner of the company cares....and we've already paid him....wrote a letter, hubby calling, we'll see if they stand behind their work, it's a small town)

On the fiber front - today was spinning and I wore my tiara.......until my head got too hot! Lots of loud chit-chat today while everyone was spinning or knitting away - very fun time.

What's up here today.........

So, this is what I've been doing today - making kumihimo samples in preparation for a guild program I'll be giving next month to a guild over on the coast. I already have tons of samples that are in all different kinds of fibers, many more complicated but I didn't have samples of all the braids I'd like the participants to try making.

Now below was what else has been going on here although I'm not breaking sweat over it - the guys from Applegate Landscape are here getting my beds/plantings back in shape. Last year I let it go, supposedly I was going for the country cottage look - hmm, looks like wheat growing in with those weeds and a few flowers.

Above is the only corner of the beds still untouched - they've been working here for two days already so some areas are done, others in the works - this will be worked on Monday. Anyhow, it looks pretty bad - really embarrassing to be putting it out here for the world to see but I was busy weaving and dyeing last year and just let it go.

Here's the part of the yard that's been cleaned up. There are some new plants in there (lots of old ugly looking plants removed) and a new bush. This past winter we lost 3 bushes and 1 tree from the harsh freeze in December. It's already making me feel good............of course, this means I need to keep it up in the future, can't afford to have a landscaper come out to fix it every year!