outside, inside (and upside down?)

along with the painting projects inside the house there is some work going on in the yard

there on the far right you can see the edge of the giant blue spruce that takes up much of the side of the front yard

which also means no grass will grow under it

in the last couple of weeks the DH has installed all of that lovely red scallop topped concrete edging

yesterday we measured and cut and put down three strips of the weed block cloth and moved the octagon stepping stones out onto that area

we still need a bag of gravel to be able to level those stones before we can put down the rest of the weed block, then we'll be adding some more white rock and a lot of redwood mulch

this will look so much nicer than that bare dirt with the assorted weeds

after the outdoor work was finished, I just didn't feel like I had the energy to go upstairs and paint walls

I settled on painting the rest of the details on the wood snowmen

these make me smile

and there on the right side of the picture you can see the first of the finished hats -- that one is for the snowman that has the yellow ear muffs

the wood is ready for the coats of sealer now

and there are five scarves and four more hats to be knit


and I'm loving this

 the blue work is just flowing along

I'm starting to think about going and hunting up some dark blue leather for the back -- I'll need that before long

I'm also thinking about how to create the clasp on it -- I'm thinking about a toggle, but I want to do a little different style than I've done before

one of the quilt groups that I belong to is working on a "group" quilt -- we were inspired by a group project done by a group of Missouri quilters that focused on a river, which you can read more about   here --- we're sworn to secrecy until the big reveal later this year, but I'm happy to say that I finally have a design that I'm happy with and I'll be working on fabric selection some this week --- Yippee!!

time to get busy!