Tulipomania

I've embarked on several restarts lately; this is the latest one. It is by The Scarlet Letter, and is called "The Product of my Needle Sampler." I particularly like the top row of tulips, the fact that it's completely filled in with black (not stitched on black fabric) and that the animals are stitched in French knots. I started it a while back, but on a color and type of fabric that I didn't enjoy. I also couldn't find enough of the dark gold thread (it's AVAS), so I wanted to switch numbers, which brought me to a different shade of the dark gold. It was an easy restart, and now I'm humming along. Here's the picture:

and a photo of how far I got in one evening:

Here's another tulip I'd like to stitch. It's a Carriage House Samplings design called "One Tulip." I figured it would be a fairly quick stitch, but it's not quick to kit up, as it calls for Kreinik silks, something I'll have to travel to buy, or go online for or substitute out. I like the colors, although the jury's out on those dragonfly things. Too many bugs! Still, I love the tulip, which is one of my favorite flowers.

Here's Luke and Laura Lobster. (My generation had Luke and Laura instead of Twilight.)
Luke: "My dear, you're blushing."
Laura: "I'm feeling a bit shy and out of my element."
Luke: "You just need to come out of your shell."
I used L&L in an Easter dinner recipe: Macaroni and cheese with lobster. It called for several different steps, including sauteeing the empty shells with empty shrimp shells and various ingredients including brandy, straining out the solids, then making a roux and adding the broth and cream and fontina cheese and cut-up shrimp and lobster and adding the whole thing to pasta shells (what else?). It was over-the-top rich. And fishy. Ugh--so terribly, terribly fishy. We also had a Honey-Baked ham. Thank goodness for HB--I have a boatload of homework, and at least the ham "turned out" well without a ton of effort. We did have to go get it. Do you have an HBH store? Don't you just love that little flourish when they fold back the foil to show it to you? It's the same feeling I have when the waiter pours a splash of wine in the glass for you to taste. Who says "No! Unacceptable! Take it back!"?

Edited to add: by the way, go to this link to see the winners of the Washington Post's Peeps contest. Each year for the last three years, there has been a contest for the best diorama using Peeps. It's called "Peeps Show."
Here's Pink, checking out this guy who claims to be the Easter Bunny.
Pink: "Ah-ha, no doots! IMPOSTER!"

Happy Easter from Luke, Laura, Pink, Elvis, Peaches and me!