Oh, a little of this & a little of that

I hope everyone has had/is having a great long weekend. I've been off since Thursday, puttering about. Friday was beautiful day, just right for laundry - Alex kept me company while I was hanging out the clothes...

When it got too hot, she moved to the shade - smart girl. Skippy spent most of the day under the kitchen table - no pics of my little boy.
I did a bit of sewing on my PR Weekend Cocktail Dress (Burda 02-2009-124). Before the weekend, I had the pattern adjusted, the lining basted for fit and the pieces all cut out. Since then all I had done were the darts.

Over the past few days, I sewed the bodice & lining each at the shoulders, sewed the bodice to the lining at the neckline and the armholes and turned it all right side out.
It turned out ok but my understitching leaves much to be desired.
I quite like the V-neck in the back

Since I took the pics, I've also attached the rest of the skirt and skirt lining pieces. It's ready for the invisible zip.

The last of the weekend projects was gardening. I've never been satisfied with the bed outside my front window - there were originally 2 cedars in that bed, one like 8ft tall that tipped over so we took it out to find the roots never grew down - the whole thing had been anchored with a root system no more than about 8" deep ! The other one was a globe cedar right under the living room window. Every year it collapsed under the snow and eventually was growing sideways instead of in an upright manner. It now looks like this.

The bed is partially reworked - the cedar was taking up about a 5' x 5' space. I added a couple bags of much needed new earth and manure to that space, moved (and divided) some of the plants that were on the outside perimeter of the bed and added a couple of new plants just picked up yesterday. You know, I never mind a bed that looks brand new with small plants, next year it will all fill in some more and look just fine.

The outside perimeter now contains 5 hostas that need more space (You can see on the far right where the hostas are smooshed. That what the cedar practically laying on top of them.) and a couple of groundcover plants that are taking over and need to be thinned out. Once that is done the bed will be done and hopefully I'll like it better.