Welcome Spring!

Good morning, my friends, and welcome Spring! Go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back for surviving another winter. Soon, we'll be able to complain about how hot it is, so chin up!

Yesterday's sewing certainly put me in the mood for some wildflowers and color. Of course, nothing can get done without the help of my excellent quilting cats.

When he saw the block I'd worked on the day before, he decided Sadie should take over.

Sadie is the better birding cat.

I still needed to do the fusing for one more block.

And then, I top-stitched both.

Here are the eight blocks I have for this quilt so far. I like where this is going.

Okay, and so that brings me to the end of the WIPs section of my white board. 

Next up is the "Quilter's Choice" section. Originally, I was going to do another donation quilt for Quilts for Kids. But then one of my son's friends announced he and his wife were expecting their third baby next month. Well. Dontcha know I had to jump on the baby quilt bandwagon immediately. It seems this baby will be born around Easter, and so this "Bunny Patch" quilt seemed like a perfect choice. The pattern was published in Quiltmaker magazine in March of 2012.

There's no word on the baby's gender yet, but I believe this quilt is fairly gender neutral. I'm not going to do the pieced border, but so there's both pink and blue in the bunny section of the quilt. Also, the orange carrot and green carrot top. With different fabrics for the two borders, this could work for either a boy or a girl.

So I went searching through my stash to see what fabrics I had and what I would need. As it turns out, I don't need to buy anything. I selected and labeled the fabrics below for different sections. The green on the right will be the stop border and, if there's enough, the binding. The vegetable fabric on the far right will be for the outer border and the back. I used that fabric as a quilt back once before, and it has carrots. I figure that's close enough. Besides, who can forget Peter Rabbit's thievery in Mr. McGregor's garden?

The blue background will all come from scraps...and I have a LOT of blue scraps. Who doesn't? I have so much blue and green in my scrap bins that I fear being smothered one day when it all bursts forth from its bins.

Okay, so I haven't looked at today's calendar. There's probably a housekeeping chore. I'm excited to get started on the bunny quilt, but there's also another Tiny House to contend with. I might work on both at the same time. If I don't keep up with the Tiny Houses, I'm afraid they will overwhelm me. A new one comes out each week, and so it would be easy to fall far behind fairly quickly. Remembering that makes me want to keep up week by week. For now, I'll just wait to see what my hands pick up first when I get to my sewing this afternoon.

Right now, though...slow-stitching. Our first day of spring will be a rainy one, but we're expecting better weather tomorrow. I've learned of a new trail near our house, and I'm itching to get out and walk it. I might even take Mike with me. That will have to wait for some sunshine, but I'm hoping it won't be long. I hope your spring is getting off to a good start. Better days are coming, my friends.