Wild Things

Good morning, my friends. It was such a beautiful day yesterday, how could I resist getting outside for a walk? Truth is...I couldn't. First, though, I needed to stitch Tiny Treasure #41:

This one has French knots, stem stitch, fly stitch, backstitch, and lazy daisy.

With that finished, I walked around the house to see what was blooming. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the cherry trees are starting to bloom. It's a good time for them, with plenty of sunshine in the forecast for the coming week. We're hoping for plenty of cherries this year.

The bleeding heart is starting to show its colors.

The Andromeda has developed sprays of white flowers all over the whole bush. It'll add in some red foliage soon enough.

Heading on down the driveway and up to the main road, my phone was kind enough to identify all the wildflowers I saw along the way. These are stream violets.

These are cutleaf geraniums.

This is the bloomed out head of Queen Anne's lace.

This is yellow rocket.

Lowly dandelions. There were lots of these.

This is Oregon grape...Oregon's state flower. Eventually, it will get purple berries. I'm told they're edible, but then, people say lima beans are edible too. Let's just say I'm skeptical.

This is a plum tree in full bloom.

This is Maule's quince.

Forsythia.

I saw lots of daffodils in all colors growing everywhere. Is there any flower that says spring more than daffodils?

This is annual honesty, aka lunaria.

I bought seeds for these a few years ago, hoping I could get them started along our fence line or else at the edges of our woods. I started them in pots, and then transplanted them. By the next morning, the critters had eaten every single one. (Shakes fist...CRITTERS!) I gave my extra seeds to Mae, and she was able to get hers going. I'm hoping she'll share some of her seeds with me.

Next up, stork's bill. These are tiny little flowers...about the size of a dime.

This is a large-leaf maple.

Here's a little closer shot of the flower.

And this is California blackberry.

Looking north, there was a pretty view of Mt. St. Helens at the top of the hill.

Looking south, I could see an expansive view of the Willamette Valley.

Here, I was looking a little more toward the west.

Nosey person that I am, I had to zoom in on this barn a little bit.

There was some new livestock in one of the pastures. These horses are new neighbors.

There were two more to the right.

And then there were these alpacas. They're so funny. Sometimes they're shy, but these guys ran up to the fence, as if they were excited someone stopped by to chat. We admired one another's hairdos.

This one seems to have had his hair frosted.

Okay, and then I headed for home and got back to my sewing. I quilted the fifth and final row of blocks for the Amish Sampler. There were three more pieced blocks. This one is identified in Quilters Cache simply as "Star."

This one is a pinwheel.

And this one is the Oregon Trail block.

There were two more panel blocks, both of which already appeared in other parts of the quilt.

And that brings me to the borders around the panel blocks. Although I avoided straight lines in the rest of the quilting, I'm afraid getting to fancy in these borders will be too busy. I decided to quilt a straight line on each side of the border. I can align the groove of my Line Tamer ruler right next to the seam line and then quilt straight lines around both sides of the border strip. I sewed just a few inches there to see how it would look, and then I left it needle down in that position.

I'm not sure how long this will take. There are ten panel blocks, and my goal is to do five today and five tomorrow. We'll see if that's doable.

From there, I headed into the sewing room to work on the Inverted Stars for March and April. The first step was to make and trim 48 half square triangles.

Check. And then I made the corner units for each block and laid them out thus:

I just needed to fill in the missing pieces there, and then I could sew them together. But then, when I laid them out, I realized I'd sewn some of the pieces together wrong, and that I'd misunderstood the color placement when I read the instructions. I still need two more of these in each color.

So I spent some time taking apart the ones I'd sewn together wrong, and cut more of the white pieces. If I can make my way into the sewing room today, I should be able to finish these off.

And "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that last sentence. I have one housekeeping chore to do, and I've decided to tackle Mt. Laundry today. Also, I want to head into town. It seems like a good day to buy some annuals for my flower pots. I didn't plant annuals last year because were were in Alaska, and there was no one around to water them. So, I'm looking forward to planting some this year. 

Also, I'm on the hunt for some catnip and some tomato starts. There are some vegetable seeds to get started too, but I'll hold off on those. It's never really safe to plant in our area until the latter part of May. In previous years, I've started things too early, and then they get tall and gangly before I'm ready to transplant them outside. For those, I'll wait until the end of April.

With all that going on, I'm going to have to work fast if I'm to get everything done that I want to get done. The life of a quilting retired social worker is never boring. What about you? How is your garden growing?

Recharging

Good morning, my friends, and a fine morning it is! The sun is shining, and it's still warm from yesterday's nice weather. It's going to cool off a little bit by tomorrow, but then we're looking at warmer weather for the remainder of the week. Is it possible that spring has sprung? I sure hope so.

There was no negotiating about getting in some exercise yesterday. I forced myself onto the treadmill, and I felt better for it. There's no way to know for sure if it gave me more energy for the remainder of the day, but it seemed like it. Mind over matter, you know. 

Before I could do anything else, though, I stitched Tiny Treasure #40. This one has backstitch, satin stitch, lazy daisy, stem stitch, straight stitch and stem fill.

It has occurred to me that this ongoing shoulder pain is probably interrupting my sleep more than I realize. And I can't recall if I mentioned this already, but my health insurance won't authorize the MRI my doctor has ordered until after I submit to six weeks of physical therapy. Rats. Oh well. I'll play their game, and it starts next week. Still, it means I have at least 7 weeks more of chronic pain in my shoulder, and then even more delay getting the MRI and whatever else needs done. I've resigned myself to at least another six months of this, and probably longer.

After my treadmill walk, I spent some time icing my knees, and then I got busy with the next row of quilting. There were three panel blocks in this row, each one has already been quilted somewhere else on the quilt.

There were just two pieced blocks in this row. This first one is a Sawtooth

And this one is called "Hole in the Barn Door."

I left it needle down at this Pinwheel block, and that's where I'll start today. There is just one row left to quilt.

After today, I'll quilt the black borders around the panel blocks. Depending on how much time it takes to do each one, I'll spend one or two more days on it before it's ready for binding.

From there, I filled the bird feeders and took a walk around outside. Finally, I was able to get a better picture of these little mini daffodils. They're only about four inches tall, and very cute.

Also, another new one has bloomed. This one is known as Kiwi Sunset.

Checking around the back, I was amazed at this over-achiever. I think this is the peony known as Coral Sunset, although I haven't checked the tag. (I'm relying on my memory, and that's never a good idea.)

But look how it compares to its brethren. It has at least a foot of growth over the next tallest one. I checked it for buds, but didn't see any.

Also, I'm happy to see flowers forming on the blueberries. We're hoping for a big harvest from them this year.

While we were in Alaska last year, they had their best year ever. Our neighbor enjoyed these in our absence.

Also, I noticed our cherry trees are starting to bloom. There are just a few flowers so far, mainly on the left side of the image below. I expect they'll be covered in flowers within the week. They're blooming at a good time because there's almost no rain in the forecast. Our plum tree is usually right behind the cherry trees, but I haven't seen anything from it yet.

Back inside, there was enough time left in the day to do the cutting for the March and April Inverted Stars. With the cutting done, I should be able to sew them together pretty quickly.

Back upstairs, I found Smitty trying to outdo Sadie for having the worst life in the world.

And we got our wish to eat outside last night for the first time this year. Mike was able to get the mowing done yesterday. One of our neighbors was firing a gun. (It happens in rural areas.) We hoped he'd stop, and he did. It was a peaceful way to end the day.

As I've been writing, Smitty has joined me to enjoy the morning sunshine from his window sill. 

Poor kitty. The misery never ends for him. 

Today will look a lot like yesterday. I'll finish quilting the blocks on the Amish Sampler, and I'm hoping to get the two Inverted Stars finished. If I can get those done, I'll start working on the second Gumballs quilt. Right now, I'm heading off to do the day's Tiny Treasure. Have a good day, Everyone! I hope you're enjoying some nice spring weather too.