Another Trashy Quilt

Our weather never really turned yesterday, and it was overcast well into the evening. Smitty and I got out for a walk around anyway. He's been so good about coming in that we walked without a leash. He stays right beside me, and we took about half an hour walking all the way around the house. Of course, his first love is the grass, which needs mowing badly. Smitty hopes we'll leave a patch for him to graze.

Along our way, we noticed some more of the tulips are opening. These were only just barely showing their colors on Tuesday.

There's a volunteer pansy. These might be the only annuals we'll see this year if things don't open up soon.

The bleeding heart is barely above ground, but already sporting flower buds.

The lilac is heading up. I love it when this blooms.

The dogwood tree has plenty of buds. Last year it produced no flowers at all, although it has bloomed in previous years. After reading a book about trees, I wondered if it were some sort of self-protective mechanism. Whatever the case, I really hope it blooms this year or it might find itself on the burn pile.

The plum tree has lots of flowers, but still in tight buds.

Same goes for our sad little apple tree.

These are the purple poppies planted from seed last year. I don't expect we'll see flowers from this one until next year, but knowing the plant survived the winter is a good start.

The peonies planted last fall are looking great. The ones on either end have been the slowest to grow.

This next image shows the second one from the left. It has flower buds!! So exciting!

The bing cherry tree is in full bloom now, and looking so pretty.

And the black tartarian is blooming now too.

Smitty discovered the volunteer catnip growing just outside his catio, and he had a little nibble.

When he'd had his fill, we headed back inside. My friend Pat posted a little quilt yesterday that inspired me to try out this arrangement for some more of the trashy triangles. My friend Sharon tells me this layout is called "Round the Square." For now, I'm calling it "Half Square Affair."

With the exception of the pinwheels, these trashy triangles were all generated when I made the Tuxedo Tales quilt, still awaiting its turn to be quilted.

I'm not sure where the brighter green and white triangles came from, but they were in the 1-3/4 inch bag with the rest, and so I figured out a way to include them. Then I started sewing it together by quadrants, starting in the southeast.

Smitty helped by checking the orientation and letting me know when I'd gone wrong.

Continuing on, I added the southwest quadrant.

Then the northwest...

And then...

Purrdon me...are you furgetting something? My treat bowl is in sad shape.

Oh wait...what's this, purray tell?

Testing it out for size...

Smitty, does this little quilt make my butt look fat?

Having reassured her of the size of her posterior, she moved out of the way so I could show it to you.

All sewn together, it ended up at 18 inches square. I'll add a couple of borders to it, probably today, and it'll make a nice little table topper.

So that makes three trashy quilts from the original gallon zip-lock bag of bonus triangles. I have at least one more on my mind that will probably end up as a Quilts for Kids quilt. After that I'll have just random triangles left, and I'll probably sew them into something randomly scrappy. I've had fun deciding how to use them.

The only other sewing I did yesterday was to make my way about halfway around the pansy quilt. I've turned two corners, and I hope to finish it off today.

This morning I'm heading off to the grocery store, although my list is fairly short. Mainly, I need fresh produce. I'm hoping to get outside and work in the garden a little bit. It's supposed to be a nice day with fairly warm temperatures, and so we might get out for a drive too. I think we're all feeling a little cabin feverish. Mike is feeling pretty much back to normal now, and so a drive in the countryside might be nice.