Some Greenery

Good morning, my friends! How is everyone doing this fine Saturday? Well, I'm just going out there on a limb to say I'm in fine fettle this morning. I'm writing fast because Erik, Mae and I are going to opening day of the Beaverton Farmer's Market, and...miracle of miracles...the sun is going to shine!!! Right here...in the Pacific Northwest! Sunshine! In February! What a gift! 

Okay, now settle down. We have serious blogging business to take care of first, so let's get started.

When I left you yesterday, I was on my way to try again on the From-the-freezer Blueberry-Cinnamon muffins. I tried baking yesterday's duo in custard cups. I've been baking these in my toaster oven. Here's how they looked straight from the freezer.

And here they are hot from the oven.

Removing them from the custard cups, they look more like muffins this time around. And these are tasty, my friends. 

You can find the recipe right here, but if you can't open it, feel free to email me, and I'll be happy to send it to you.

After breakfast, I stitched up Day 2's Tiny Heart for the Crabapple Hill Studios stitch-along. This one is back stitch and star stitch. 

It was time to get in a Bow-flex workout, and so I donned my workout apparel. Heading downstairs, I found the kitties champing at the bit to get outside. So, we all three went out. While I was out, I took a walk around to see how things had fared in the recent frigid weather. Things can survive ice, but they sometimes can't survive an extended period of below-freezing temperatures. Happily, I could see signs of life on most everything. These are my beloved poppies.

And, oh my gosh, the poor daphne looks just terrible. It had green leaves, and they've all turned black and will fall off eventually. The poor thing is just a tangle of sticks.

But lookie there...green buds. IT LIVES!!!

To its left, the catnip is coming back. (Sorry for the blur.)

These are some peony buds. I don't see anything on the new peony yet. We might be traveling during its bloom, so I hope we don't miss it.

These are chives. I think I whacked back the sage plant enough last year, these guys will have a chance to thrive and bloom.

Here are some tulips.

And daffodils! I'm afraid we're going to miss the bloom on the new crop of unconventional colors planted last fall. Time will tell. My fingers are crossed.

So that's our winter garden. Back inside, I got in my workout, and I did a little housework. From there, I went to work on Week 4 of the Dot-to-Dot Quilting Challenge. Week 4 is mostly combining what we've already learned and working with odd shapes. Here, I used the "starburst" emanating from the two points toward the bottom.

Angela Walters calls this next one the "Pineapple motif" because it looks like the top of a pineapple. Yeah...I'll go along with that. It works well in this chevron area, and it can be stitched pointing in the other direction as well.

Here, I used the same starburst motif with the wedges emanating from the center point.

In this small square, I used a combination of shapes.

This is a new and interesting way to think about quilting, and it's giving me good practice working with rulers. I like the look of it, but I can't really say I'm enjoying doing it. When I'd done that much, I wanted to do something else. I haven't yet filled in all the sections for Week 4, but there's no hurry. I'll do a little more on it today and try to finish it off. There's still one more video to watch before I'll be able to finished the whole thing. Besides, Sadie wanted to sew.

She really loves these flannel fabrics.

Fortunately, she has her very own flannel quilt in the sewing room now. It's easy to distract her.

I didn't get as much done on this as I'd hoped. Only the first row was sewn together.

It's hard to get an idea how this will look with just one row, but here's how it looks from the back.

The second row of blocks is layered, stacked, and ready for sewing. I'll start there today when I get some sewing time.

And that's all I have for you today. I believe I have some time to get in some slow-stitching before I need to leave this morning, and so I'll be on my way. Have a good Saturday and a good weekend, everybody!