Wine and Chocolate

Is your mouth watering? We had a sunny Saturday and some tasty treats yesterday, and a very fun day to boot. Before heading out on our wine gathering expedition, I took a little walk around the yard to see what was going on. For one thing, the clematis is putting on a show for us right now.

And the Andromeda is looking its very best of the season.

Also, I noticed the little cherry tomato has its first few flowers already.

About then, it was time to head out. We stopped off first at the Sokol-Blosser winery. It was a beautiful day, even if it was still a bit chilly.

Their iris were all headed up and beginning to bloom.

Then, we headed over to Domain Drouhn, where Mt. Hood could be seen easily.

And then we went to lunch at the Golden Valley Brewery. Great food, friendly service, and their wisteria was in full bloom over their outdoor seating area. I was shooting almost directly into the sun, and so I've had to do some creative editing to bring out the colors.

The Golden Valley Brewery has the advantage to being right at the edge of the main drag into McMinnville, and so we walked to the quilt shop at the other end and back. Along the way we passed Honest Chocolates...OPEN! Yahoo! And we'd just had lunch. This is my kinda dessert.

It's definitely the thing dreams are made of.

I chose an old-fashioned vanilla cream, a maple dream, and a raspberry dream. Yum.

And then, we walked on silently because we were both busy stuffing our faces with chocolate.

These signs gave me a chuckle, but I sincerely hope this never happens to me.

Soon, we arrived at the quilt shop. Since I'm in dire need of fabric (aren't we all?), I wandered through the whole store, picking up a yard of each of these. I think they'll make cute bindings, and I do loves me some cute bindings. To the store employee, I mentioned these were for bindings and that I'm a very optimistic quilter these days. Bindings only, don't you know.

What I really was interested in were their quilting templates. This is the store where I took the long-arm quilting class a couple of years ago, thinking (silly me) that I might be renting time on their machines. Now, they've sold all their machines except one, and so I'm assuming they no longer offer the classes, which is too bad. That meant that their selection of templates was limited, but I still found what I was looking for: this set of three ovals. I have a lot of ideas about how I can use these, but nothing specific yet.

And then we headed back home. I made another kitten...this is the fifth of five.

And then I traced out the appliques for the daffodil leaves. This morning, I cut them out.

Next, I'll be making the daffodil blossoms that go with these leaves. Each flower has four pieces. When those are finished, I think I can start fusing things to the background piece. There are still a few butterflies as well.

Also this morning, I finished stitching up the left side of the Gingerbread Square block. I'm a little more than half finished now.

Next, I'll start on the roof tops and then down the right side of the piece to the candy at the bottom. I'm saving the candy for last.

It's a pretty day today, if a little slow to warm up. I'm going to get out and do some more weeding and watering, and I'll fill the birdfeeders. Then I'll get back to the Wind in the Whiskers block.