Pinkness (or magenta-ness?)

The bridal wreath spirea is in bloom and so at this time of year, every year, the inside of my house looks like a funeral parlor. The big vases are out and you will find them full of cascading white spirea on just about every flat surface in the house. The spirea is bright white but everything has a feeling of warm pink because of the light bouncing off the walls.

In the dining room, I started a sewing/crocheting project and of course, I can't do any craft project without some assistance from Violet.

Now this might seem odd to you, but I do value that. Why? Because when you're working on something, anything, I swear all the little tools involved get up on their little hind legs and if you don't keep an eye on them, they run off as soon as they can. 

I remember one time trying to put a large birdcage together and I just knew as soon as I looked away, the screwdrivers, the screws, the hammer...absolutely everything would take off to some other room or level of the house....and I would not find them for days, if ever. Those things like to play hide and seek. I don't. I got so fed up with things taking off while putting that birdcage together, I got out a roll of masking tape and as soon as I was finished with a screwdriver or a hammer or whatever, I would tape it to the floor so it could not run off. Oh yeah, laugh at me. If you had a pen in your hand five minutes ago, where do you think it is now? Not where you think.

So I very much appreciate Violet keeping everything where it should be. And I hadn't realized it but there is a definite pink feel to the fabric I was working with too.

Outdoors the columbine was starting to bloom.

This is a hybridized columbine from two varieties I started from seed years and years ago. One of the parents was a Magpie columbine. The Magpie flowers were white and a very dark chocolate. The leaves were lily pad-like and had a blue cast to them. Really, really pretty. In the same area as the Magpies, were the Biedermeier columbine. They were a murky red violet, a murky light pink and white. They were compact and only grew about a foot tall but they had a crazy amount of flowers.

Columbine hybridize rather freely so years after growing these two varieties, the hybrids started to appear. What resulted for many years was a columbine with a flower that looked like the Biedermeiers but the new plant was two feet tall, not one foot and the leaves were the bluish lily pad shapes of the Magpies. I'm not a real fan of the murky red violet colored columbine but this particular plant was very strong and grew easily in a difficult place for years.

However, I'm not too impressed with the hybrid columbine of this year. The burgundy is mottled and although the plants look robust, they just do not have the presence of the columbine from the past. 

Indoors I was disappointed with the rug I was making. The colors were bugging me. I liked the yellow center, I liked the grey, I was getting used to the red...spent a long time getting used to the red, but for some reason any other color I added was just not working for me. I kept ripping out colors and putting new ones in, especially that mottled red.

Then I figured it out. It really wasn't the color combination that was bothering me. It was the not quite recognizing that the colors I was working with were very close to the colors of the new columbine. The color on the flower, I didn't like...the same color on my walls and the new rug, I loved...well, until that columbine got into my head. Good grief. The perception and thoughts of a color can be so mystifying.

Okay, time to move on and finish up the rug now that I know what's going on in my head. And Violet's got other colors secured under her just in case I want to put off figuring out my real opinion about the color known as red....murky mottled burgundy if I find it on a flower outdoors.