The Lilac Bush at the Corner

before (Feb/Mar 2010)

after (April 2010)

It had to go. It was sad but it was way overgrown and was planted right back in the foundation. The stump that Patrick wound up digging up looked like it came from a medium-sized tree. And this was a lilac bush. Now the corner looks naked but at least our foundation is no longer at risk.

I'd like to get some sort of evergreen (that doesn't look like a "Christmas tree" -- Patrick is adamant on this point and he isn't adamant on very many points) which could live in a container to cover up the meters and such on the corner. This is the approach to the house (although it is actually the back of the hosue) and I don't think that the meters make a very attractive welcome mat.

Another Mystery Plant Query

I had such success last time with my Mystery Plant that I thought I'd try again with another one. These plants are only on one corner of our house and they look quite strange so I'm tending to assume that they were, once upon a time, purposely planted there. It is fairly shady on that corner so, in order to have survived for all these years, assuming that Elsie planted them when she lived here, this would have to be a shade-loving plant.

A Few Links

I just found this via Fig & Plum today and then found this one in her comment section. I loved loved what was said on A Commonplace Life (that "this one" link up there). I think I am in no danger whatsoever of presenting one of these pictures of perfection but I think it is interesting to think about the "lying by omission" nonetheless. A cautionary tale. In many ways.

Knitted Chair Seats aka A Five-Year Project Completed!

I found these chairs next to the dumpster at one of my college apartments and immediately thought of the knitted chair seats in Weekend Knitting (one of my all-time favorite knitting books!) I have been out of school for 5 years now, if that gives you any indication of just how long this project has languished.

The chairs were originally painted orange and had strange, pointy, wooden spikes on the tops of the ladder backs so I wanted to strip the paint and take the saw to them, before I could even start on the seats. I restained them and speckled the finish a bit with some paint and then whipped up the seats in a couple of months. Unfortunately, this was back when I knit everything too large. So the seats wound up to saggy and the boiling-water trick mentioned in the book for shrinking the seats knit of nylon cord only works temporarily. So the project languished.

Until I saw the chair pillow project in Natalie Chanin's new book. I don't know why I didn't think of just putting a pillow on the seat before. It was just the motivation I needed to sew the second seat onto the chair and to start picking fabric from the Alabama Chanin website for the seat cushions! And now the chairs are finished enough that they could be used (with temporary pillows) for brunch with our visiting friends last Saturday (the blue chair at the close end was not one of the project chairs but one repainted by my grandmother when this table was hers in the 50's).

The Wicker Rocking Chair

Another finished project! I feel like I'm on a roll.

I purchased this rocking chair at an antique store a few months ago. At the time, it came with the cushion quite oddly upholstered, as you can see in the first photos (the fabric was simply semi-wrapped around the cushion and set in the chair).

The idea is to eventually have several pieces of furniture for our porch and to use the Nigella fabric or something contrasting for the whole set. The rocker is a very comfortable start (the last photo is the view from sitting in the rocker on our porch).

How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?

We're having guests up to our house for the first time this weekend. This is the view from their bedroom window. (In case you're wondering, that bizarre white thing in the foreground in the 2nd photo is a window-box. And yes, those are shipping pallets. I have a pattern for a seedling cold-frame built from a shipping pallet. Apparently they also make a good woodchuck-house.)

Hanging on the Wall

We finally put up something other than my 1 poster I'd hung in the whole house! The hold-up is that I have to finish patching and painting the walls before I can hang things on them. But, as the TV Room has been painted since January, there really is no excuse other than the fact that I am always distracted by other projects. But, all that aside, the Ribbon Board is finished and hung on the wall! (I'd still needed to tack the fabric and ribbon down on the back even though the ribbons had been attached since the beginning of February). I'm even thinking of going into production of these for sale. Is there any interest in such a thing or does anyone who wants one just buy it from Pottery Barn in whatever the color of the season happens to be?