Hi Pete & Welcome to the Wild & Wacky Wonderful World of Plants! I too recommend Success w/ Houseplants. It's one of my few home references books & my favorite! It has a good combo of excellent pix & good, relevant very informative text. It's really copmprehensive, it covers ALL the basics really well. You may not want to read lots, but really, this is all really good stuff. You can only get IDs from the pix; once you know what they are you'll want to give them the best care you can; this book has GREAT coverage of both. The basics of soils, light, watering, fertilizers, all that stuff matters to the care of the plants. If you can get your hands on this one book, maybe a library or maybe even second hand (tho' when I bought mine in '95 it cost $26). Best plant investment I've ever made, this one book largely covers my roughly 180+ plants really well.

I copied the following information from the linked website for ya in case you were wanting more info on what dc hall mentioned John Dromgoole, owner of The Natural Gardener Nursery and Lady Bug Natural Brand, has been deeply involved in the advancement of organic gardening and environmental issues for over thirty years. His nursery has been voted "Best Nursery" eight times in The Austin Chronicle's Best of Austin Poll, and is known for supplying organic products, native and well adapted plants, and bulk compost, soils and mulches. The gardens at the store have been featured in Texas Highways, Herb Companion and Fine Gardening magazines. John's radio show, Gardening Naturally, has been on the air on KLBJ AM 590 for 25 years. Gardening Naturally is a bi-weekly (every Saturday and Sunday) question and answer program that focuses on the organic technique for homeowners and weekend gardeners. He is also the host of Backyard Basics on KLRU (PBS, Austin) TV's weekly show Central Texas Gardener and the Weekend Gardener on KXAN TV's Saturday First Cast. John was the originator of the City of Austin's "Chemical Clean-Up Day", which has become an annual event and has now established a permanent drop-off site. He was also a co-author on the Texas Department of Agriculture's original task force to establish standards for the organic certification of farms in Texas. In 2002, John was awarded the Dennis Hobbs Individual Achievement Award by Keep Austin Beautiful for his contribution to many different Austin and surrounding area non-profit groups, schools and the general public. John has written articles for Texas Gardener Magazine and Organic Gardening Magazine since 1983 and has been the recipient of numerous environmental conservation and gardening industry awards over the years. Watch John's gardening segment on KXAN's FirstCast Saturdays, at 7:20 am, Channel 36. Watch John's "Backyard Basics" segment of Central Texas Gardener on Austin's public television stations: KLRU Channel 42: Noon on Saturdays 12:30 p.m. Thursdays On KLRU2 (cable): 10 a.m. Wednesdays 9 p.m. Saturdays Here is a link that might be useful: his website

OA, pretty cool, the only thing to change is the size of the cells. If you go to the top, and put your curser on one of the lines at the edge of the cell, and drag the curser, it will enlarge the cell so the words don't overflow into the next cell, plus if you have a more wordy description it will now fit. I am glad you knew how to do an attachment of the excel like this, I could not figure out how to "show" it to you all. thanks! PS, the excel in the example that I use is just a guide line for me, you can adjust it to your own personal needs.

Hi Yvonne, I'm not sure I follow exactly, but you can carry the thread over to where you want to be, just take it down behind the piece and then bring it up on the other wing and start sewing at the beginning of the line, coming out right next to where the wing meets the butterfly's body. The sewing doesn't have to be one continous line throughout the piece. You will probably need to carry over to stitch on the antenae. This is where the layer of batting really helps, as it will hide your carryover threads. If you are doing a larger piece, rather than carrying over, you can just finish the thread and knot/tuck under and start sewing in a different place. Let me know how you do! --Amy