A Few New Beauties

I'm out there every morning before breakfast - even before coffee - checking to see who has arrived on the daylily scene overnight.

This morning's arrivals...

Cameo Cupcake.

Check out her 8 petals!!!  This is pretty rare.  I usually have 1 or 2 daylilies all summer with 8 petals, and here is one on the very first bloom of this variety!  I was excited.  

 

Brand New Lover...  

Sure to be more photos of her later.  She is very photogenic, especially with other perennials blooming around her.

Blonde is Beautiful.

Anna Blocher... just a nice old standby in the garden.  She makes lots of blooms so she is good "en masse".

Who will arrive tomorrow morning???

I'll be out there to see.

Early (but late) Daylilies

It is daylily time here in Kansas again.  But they are so LATE!!!!  

We had such a weird Spring; everything seems to be a bit behind.  

This is my last summer to be "Chief of Weed-Pulling Operations" in my garden.  We have sold our home, and by this time next year, the garden will be someone else's responsibility.  I still can't quite wrap my mind around that... 

Here are the lilies that have made an appearance so far... 

 Sweet little "Lullaby Baby" is always early and always lovely and always one of my favorites.

"Saucy Lulu" is also an early one and can be counted on for a very bold stroke of color.

"Pistachio Mint" has those delicious pastel pink ribs on her baby yellow petals.

My most favorite daylily of all is Classy Cast.  

She's early, and fortunately, very prolific.  She'll be around for quite awhile getting all her buds open!

 Here's Classy showing off her gorgeous green throat.

 A different Classy Cast bloom (on a taller scape) showing a bit different shape.

 

Early morning bugs on Classy Cast.  These bugs have great taste!

 

 This is "Celebrity Elite".  Brilliant color especially early in the day.

  Wow!!!

 I use Celebrity Elite to line one side of the screened-in porch.

 "Ming Toy" is another early red.  She has an almost spidery shape, but she's small.

 

Just started to rain out there...  no weeding today!

The Wedding Rug

I have a friend, a dear friend, who got married in May in beautiful Dana Point, CA.

It's a long story, the story of the road to this wedding, a story full of its own stories.

Let's just say the happy couple is a "match.com" made in heaven!

And now, they are livin' the dream in their beautiful beach house - three minutes from the beach!

So, the Wedding Rug... 

(In truth, this did not start out to be a Wedding Rug.) 

The idea for this rug got into my head and I pretty much dropped everything else and started it!  The initial inspiration came from an area rug I saw on the CB2 website.  If you haven't heard of CB2, you have probably heard of Crate & Barrel (that's where the C and B come from).  CB2 is clearly younger and hipper than Crate & Barrel.  I first heard of it when my younger and hipper son took us to their store in Chicago.

It measures a little over 25" by 40".  Each square is 5"x5".  

I would say the rug is a little less bold than it appears this photo, just a little bit softer-looking. 

I was about a quarter of the way through the rug when the following conversation took place:  

Mike:  "That doesn't look like the colors you usually use.  Why are you making that?"  

Me:  "I'm not really sure, but I feel strongly compelled to make this."                     

Later that evening I spread it out to see how it was looking.  There were about 9 or 10 squares finished out in the middle.  My immediate reaction was that the rug reminded me of the beach. The colors were sand and shell and sea glass and water and sunset.  I laughed out loud - there was my answer to Mike's question.  I finally knew why I was so compelled to make this.  This rug was going to beach.  At that moment it became a Wedding Rug.

The wedding was in mid-May.  I knew it was totally possible to get it finished in time so that was not an issue.  I planned to ship it out there in advance, but then got nervous about that.  So, I rolled it up and put it in my suitcase and off we flew to Dana Point.   

One square below the upper left corner you can see their monogram.  Luckily their initials were easy to work in the straight line design.

The wedding was a whole weekend event!  How many couples plan a beach hike for the morning of their wedding???  Here we are ready to hit the beach.  That's the bride in the blue t-shirt that says "Pray for..." on the front.  She happens to be standing right behind the groom, so it looks like... Pray for... Marc!

 

Here's what it looked like on the way down to the beach.

 And there were guys like this...

 The wedding was at their beach house.  Romantic, funny, emotional, beautiful, unforgettable.

 The Wedding Rug has found a home... at the beach. 

Now I may have to make one for myself.  I kind of miss it.