rose hip : midsummer pause...

...I meant to write this post a good two weeks ago, but, well, glorious summer sunshine has been keeping me outdoors, away from my computer which has been sitting on my desk at the lake collecting dust!... I also meant to take photos of a bunch of new pillowcases (the ones above) so I could list them in my Etsy shop, but they're all just sitting untouched in the same wooden box where I left them... Midsummer has been all about enjoying the sunshine and the lake with family and friends with only very brief powering-ups of any devices and very cursory glances at the internet...

Now, while it's true that a lot of my recent time at the lake has been all play, I have also been doing a fair bit of work in my garden... As mentioned a couple of posts ago, I've been planning a new veggie and berry garden which I finally really got going on when a truckload of soil was delivered last week; with my trusty wheelbarrow, I've been hauling soil over a dozen meters uphill from the pile (photo above) to the location of my future garden which you can see below... It's all been a bit of a workout given the hot weather, but definitely very exciting as I can see the beginnings of my new garden starting to emerge. I'll try to keep you updated with my progress in my next posts...

While I haven't done much with the mess of pillowcases in my wooden box, I have gone through the batch of photos I took of the turquoise and red pillowcases so that I can show you more of these two new pillowcases, as promised in my last post...

The cotton fabric of these pillowcases really makes me smile; while its flowery pattern is quite traditional, its wild and fun mix of colours brings it up a few notches on my "charm-o-meter"!... It makes me think of a "Sunday best" dress a brassy grandma full of personality would wear, very much à la Mrs. Doubtfire , don't you think?!...

Given my "grandma" associations with this fabric, I immediately thought of trimming the pillowcases with yarn in dusty colours which, in my mind, can also have a bit of a "grandma" connotation to them; I also figured that such colours would act as a perfect foil to the brightness of the fabric, as well as a lovely complement to the greyish sage colour of some of the roses and leaves in the pattern which can you see rather well in the photo below... Luckily, I had just the thing at hand: 100% linen yarn from Lithuania in pretty shades of dusty lavender and rose...

Do you remember this upstairs bedroom at our lake house? Well, I decided to try the finished pillowcases on the same bed but with a different cover, the vintage thrifted quilt I first mentioned here, but flipped onto its backing side which is made of a very sweet floral fabric...

I then thought of switching out the back-eyed Suzies for my favourite purchase this summer from a nearby town, a sweet gem of a little "forestscape" which is such a perfect portrayal of our coastal woods...

Looking for another spot to photograph the pillowcases, I moved the pillows and quilts to the other bedroom upstairs which is where my girls usually sleep; it sleeps four with a wooden bunk bed as well as two vintage metal beds which I painted a while back in a lovely shade of duck egg (I just can't get away from that colour!). The sweet little rosy needlepoint is another little treasure I picked up at a local thrift shop which I think has found its perfect home, hung atop the vintage bed...

I know I said I would stock my Etsy shop with the turquoise pillowcase soon after my last post and then I didn't, but this time, I promise, a few will be in my shop within the next few days, sunshine or not!... I will also have more of them in my shop once I get back to Vancouver in September. While the red one will eventually make its way into my shop, I have to first make sure I have a good supply of the dusty rose linen yarn I used to trim it with; I should have a batch of these in my shop in September...

I leave you until my next post (hopefully soon!) with a photo of a beautiful flower from one of the many butterfly bushes growing in my garden; I love these shrubs which permeate my garden with such a heady fragrance all day long! Thank you so much for popping by and I hope this post also finds you enjoying some lovely weather, wherever you may be...

Comments

It's all lovely! What better way than to rewarding yourself after a hard day moving dirt than to take a relaxing swim in the lake.I look forward to the garden update. Enjoy the sun!

Posted by: Angela-Southern USA | August 06, 2015 at 09:07 AM

Gardens are hard work but so rewarding, I'm, looking forward to seeing your's take shape. We are finally getting sunshine here too so you aren't the only one not crafting much. Hx

Posted by: Helen | August 07, 2015 at 03:32 PM