Picasso Petunias

It's that time of year again ... time for flowers!  While I'm not much of a gardener ...

don't judge me for not liking dirt under my fingernails, please 

... I do love to have lots of flowers around all summer long.  There are many wonderful nurseries where we live, but I tend to shop at two specific ones:  P&M Gardens in Eagle River and Perennial Gardens, right in my neighborhood!  I like to hang a healthy looking (ie - ready made) basket by the front door.  This year, these Picasso Petunias really caught my eye.

The challenge will be for me to keep this planter looking this good for the next 3 months!

Some New Flowers

Every spring, I plant 7 hanging baskets for the front (actually the side, but it faces the street).  It took me several years to figure out which flowers work best in this mostly shady/partly sunny spot.  The best results for me have been begonias.  This year, we visited the nursery a week earlier than usual (because of the awesome weather) and I was able to get begonias in 7 different colors -- a color for each basket.  Pictures of these will have to wait until they bloom a little more.

I also planted some pots of flowers that I had never done before, just because they looked so pretty.  Here are some multi-colored portulacas.

And a beautiful selection of multi-colored celosia.  The fuzzy part in the middle reminds me of a caterpillar.

And, I tried a new type of geranium this year, which I found at a new-to-me greenhouse in Anchorage, Suttons.  What a fun and funky place!

Let's hope I don't kill these 3 beauties.  They all require full sun.  This is something that our property, with all of its birch trees, doesn't often get.  I'll be moving them around to the sunniest spots all summer long.

Color Match :: Three Items, One Color

I started knitting a new top-down sweater a few weeks ago. It's a v-neck pattern that I've done before. The yarn I chose is a beautiful periwinkle color. It's made by Cascade and it is 80% pima cotton, 20% wool. It's a delight to knit with and I think the sweater will be wearable -- much more so than the last one I made.

I've just reached the point where I will divide for the sleeves and continue to work on the body of the sweater. This next photo gives you an idea of how much more I have to knit. These balls of yarn are two deep in the bag!


Knitting this sweater made me think of the wild geraniums that grow along the road and throughout the woods near my house. Their color is similar. This is my kind of flower -- it grows all by itself, with no human intervention. The rain is the only water it gets, yet it blooms for several weeks. Note to self: dig a few of these up and plant them in my perennial garden.


The third item in this color journey is from my etsy shop. This necklace starts with a briolette of gray/blue quartz. Looking up the chain, you can see that I've included some small beads of mystic topaz, which are the exact color of the yarn in my sweater and the flowers that adorn my street.


It feels like a circle has been completed.

Flowers

Yesterday I planted flowers in 7 hanging baskets that hang on the side of our house that faces the street. It's quite a shady spot and it took me a couple of years of experimenting to discover that begonias and geraniums work well in those baskets. I'll take some pictures of the baskets when the flowers get a little bigger. They're a little pathetic right now.

In addition to the hanging baskets, I planted 1 large planter of mixed flowers in shades of purple. I included pansies, petunias, and some other stuff I forgot the names of:

And now for something completely different ... again!

I had a little more luck with the design I blogged about here. When I started this piece, I actually planned ahead a bit (not my strong suit) and thought to texture the silver disc before doing anything else to it.

Using my rolling mill and my Secret Material, I achieved a very nice leaf texture. I also used my rolling mill to deboss the stems. Brass wire is just the right hardness to leave a nice impression in the silver.

I used some different silver beads as the flowers for a little variety. Hence the name of the piece: One Daisy . Two Poppies.

There are some more pieces in progress with this same theme. I also plan on getting better at melting the back end of the silver wire. Practice, practice, practice.