What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Nope, look again, they're not cotton bolls; it's snow. Winter has arrived with a vengeance in the south. The weekend before last it was all ice, this past weekend it was all snow. Eight inches plus at Chez Goodneedle. That will teach me to make statements like "it's been so long since we've seen snow"! This snow was light and fluffy, due to the temperature being brutally cold, it is very pretty.&

Nope, look again, they're not cotton bolls; it's snow. Winter has arrived with a vengeance in the south. The weekend before last it was all ice, this past weekend it was all snow. Eight inches plus at Chez Goodneedle. That will teach me to make statements like "it's been so long since we've seen snow"! This snow was light and fluffy, due to the temperature being brutally cold, it is very pretty.&

As the weather warms, more green is coming out on all the trees. It is lovely around our place, as well as on the drives we’ve been taking. The redbud has finished its flower show. Several mornings this past week have been foggy like this in the early morning.

The purple petunias in the hanging baskets are apparently very happy.

With all the spring green outside, I decided to bring that color inside for a nice tablescape. Spring green chargers and napkins provide the color, with a centerpiece of green, white and pink.

The settings have white china plates ...

I have been too busy lately with cleaning things out, appointments and meetings, and I have not had a lot of sewing time. Yesterday I went around the property and took some pictures so I would have something to talk about today. I noticed the mountain laurel has a lot of buds, and is just coming into bloom. Some of the flowers are open, most are still closed. These are such pretty things, with clusters of pristine white flowers with little red lines emanating from the center.

The shrub has a lot more to come, as it is heavy with ...

It has rained most of the week, which has been wonderful for tamping down the wildfires. It has made the grass and weeds grow, and brought the azaleas in full bloom. I’ve been taking more photos of them. We have this deep pink, along with the pastel pink and white ones. A few days from now, there should be blooms all the way down the driveway.

My Merlin app says we have a blue-grey gnatcatcher in the local avian choir, but I have not seen it yet. They look a lot like a titmouse without the tufted head. There ...

The azaleas came into bloom this week with about half of the shrubs well into their spring show, just lovely! We have a lot of bushes inside the driveway island and down the edge of the meadow along the driveway. My favorite ones are the white ones. Luckily, the cold nights do not seem to have damaged the blooms significantly.

There are a few brown edges here and there, but mostly they are pristine.

I love the soft pink of this one, and it was full of big bumblebees busily collecting pollen.

On another white azalea, there is always one ...

It has been an up and down week. The beginning of the week we still had wildfires out of control, with the air full of smoke for a couple of days. Rain brought some relief, thank goodness. The clear blue sky with a few clouds was a welcome sight after a night of rain. At this point, the fires are under control, 79-100% contained, the evacuation zones have been canceled, and the burn ban is lifted.

The redbud is blooming in full now. Usually I spend some time out on the veranda with my good camera to once again try ...

Chester made a couple of appearances over the past couple of weeks. He doesn’t always stay around to get his picture taken, but this day he must have been really hungry as he was on the veranda trying to beg a treat.

I’m delighted when he stops by, and wish he’d come more often.

In the meadow, a couple of dozen robins came by and stayed a couple of days. We saw them many times, and then they moved on.

The photos had to be taken with the long lens on the camera from inside the house ...

I don't know where this month has gone. It's been filled with activity, not the least of which is keeping up with breadmaking from two different sourdough starters! What have I gotten myself into? Loaves are being gifted continually. I've branched out into English muffins, cinnamon buns and multi-grain breads too.Without a lot of words or explanation I'm going to catch up with a post 

I don't know where this month has gone. It's been filled with activity, not the least of which is keeping up with breadmaking from two different sourdough starters! What have I gotten myself into? Loaves are being gifted continually. I've branched out into English muffins, cinnamon buns and multi-grain breads too.Without a lot of words or explanation I'm going to catch up with a post 

It has been a warmer than usual winter so far, with a few cold days here and there. We usually have two snows in a winter, but there hasn’t been a single day of snow this year so far. It makes me concerned that we will get a late freeze that will damage the local apple crop. Anyway, the warming afternoons have woken up some bulbs. I first noticed these coming up around the dormant lemon tree that is in a pot. The pot was in the Carolina room to protect it from freezing. I actually don’t remember ...

I am thinking about my garden again, and my plants in the Carolina room are doing well. I cut off the amaryllis leaves a few weeks ago and put it out in the cold. I brought it inside last week, hoping for another bloom this year. It didn’t bloom last year, and if it doesn’t grow this year, it may be done. It bloomed for seven years in a row, so I do think I got good value from it.

The orchid is teasing me again. It has put out several air roots, and recently looks like it ...

This one, a block-of-the-month from 2015 that was known as "Creative Options", became a top last year when the blocks were released from their storage bin where they'd been languishing for six+ years. I used creative liberties in setting it together, mine looks nothing like the finished shop sample from almost seven years ago! I loaded it up on Snowbird and quilted it over the weekend. This is,

This one, a block-of-the-month from 2015 that was known as "Creative Options", became a top last year when the blocks were released from their storage bin where they'd been languishing for six+ years. I used creative liberties in setting it together, mine looks nothing like the finished shop sample from almost seven years ago! I loaded it up on Snowbird and quilted it over the weekend. This is,

 I received this as a Christmas gift from Greg and Julie.

It has been cold most of the week, rainy for the past couple of days, with just one warm day to go for a walk outside last Tuesday. We took more boxes of books to the sale site, then did a walk around the outside loop at Flat Rock Park. It was hard to find a spot to park that day, the warm day brought out a lot of folks to enjoy the trail. The loop is a one and a half mile walk, a good bit of exercise on flat ground. Back home, Oliver showed up on Friday after ...

This past week has been a lot of piddling around, and not finishing much. I’ve done a few embroidery motifs using the new cards purchased for my 20+ year old Brother Pacesetter machine. I showed this one last week, as it was stitching, here it is completed. I’ll add two more to this one for a three-panel wall hanging.

Several asked about the darling pattern that I have for this hand stitchery when I showed it before. It is a Stitcher’s Revolution iron on transfer. It is available on Amazon – Stitcher’s Revolution Ktichen Sayings. There are ...

Cold weather and snow days mean there is not much to do outside, but the garden still has growing going on. I have two garden spots to keep plants over the winter. One is in my kitchen, where I have the Thanksgiving cactus, the orchid, and my eight-year-old amaryllis. That is indeed a flower spike you see!

So exciting to have it bloom for the eighth year. It has five leaves, and is about 18 inches tall now.

My plants in the Carolina room on the back of the house are doing well, protected from the most extreme cold and ...

Two fun things in one weekend, we got a couple of inches of snow on Friday, just in time to hunker down for Wild Card Weekend. Before the snow came, a new visitor came to sample the handouts. Apparently, Oliver has a buddy. The second little guy has been here before, but not as consistently as Oliver. I can only tell them apart by where they choose to eat their treats. I know it isn’t Jack, as he always goes to the other side of the house to munch down his tidbit.

The new, yet unnamed, furry friend took ...