What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

It's Tulip Time

here in Western Oregon

Winter is behind us ...

 I get sad sometimes when I see how many folks have stopped blogging; several I had quite a nice email friendship with so I miss them. I guess Instagram is gradually getting more popular, but to me, it doesn't offer quite the same level of communication or connection. I'm going to carry on blogging for as long as I enjoy it. You, my blogging friends, have become an important part of my life!  And it is good for my brain too keeping up with all the little bits and pieces of writing a blog...the linking up, searching ...

39 calves on the ground...

It's definitely Spring here in the

Pacific Northwest

View my Instagram feed HERE

LuAnn Kessi

 It's true.  My friend, Christine and I have attended two quilting retreats in March, two weeks apart.  (We won't mention that we were away for a week at the end of February at QuiltCon in Raleigh, NC...).  This is the end of our quilting retreats for until November, when we have two more. We are both very productive on the retreats and manage to get lots of sewing done.  It's amazing what you can accomplish over the course of 2 1/2 or 3 days of concentrated time with no cooking, dishes and other distractions!  I spent ...

Three calves on the ground so far.

I was too busy to get a photo to share...

a hoop of embroidered flowers

Embroidered flowers on gingham

      Two things I just love, fabric and flowers, have made an appearance around here lately. Two friends sent me fabric to help with making comfort quilts. Julie sent me some large pieces to help with backing and a whole load of 2 1/2" strips- some colors and a lot of low volume (yum) ones. I am trying to determine what quilts to make with them, paging through my collection of printed out ideas. Of course, then I had to rearrange two massive folders of printed out/purchased patterns. I arranged the strips by color and style for the photo ...

 You must be tired of me talking about how much I admire Geraniums. Here, deep in winter, is mine giving out pretty blooms. 

Week 5 of 2024 means it's February.  Day one and two were very nice, but now we are back to a chilly rain.  That usually means more stitching time for me, but with the nice weather, walks and photography took over a couple of afternoons. Saturday morning was science fair, so my stitching time took a hit, but I still got in at least my 15 minutes each day. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 31/31 days
• 15 minute days/Feb = 3/3 days
• 15 minute days/2024 = 34/34 days
• Success rate ...

When we left off this project, I had the vase, the stems and leaves, and the newspaper done. Next was to sew the flowers for the amaryllis. Because I have shifted to a dimensional plan, I put some red mottled fabric right sides together and drew petal shapes. Roughly cutting them out, I sewed the edges together along the drawn lines.

I trimmed the seam allowance to a minimum.

Then, the curves and points were clipped, and the petal was turned right side out.

Folding the raw edges under, the edge is pinned with a nice point.

I made five ...

      Well, Oct. 31st, I saw snow. On Halloween. Fortunately, I took photos before of the remnants of my garden because it still had lovely flowers. I can't take apart the garden or boxes if there are still blooms on the plants, so I will be prying them out once the weather turns ugly probably. We just have too many months without flowers, so I hang on to them for all its worth.

 Yesterday was a middling day with no appointments and drizzling outside making it gloomy inside. My mind was all over the place and I felt like I accomplished only odd bits and pieces here and there all day. Like I played with things rather than getting down to working. Sometimes a blank day is a good thing to have and other times it becomes meandering, missing some drive, so that I get little done. But all that matters less as a retiree as no one is depending on my "work".

However I did have a little sort of work recently ...

Autumn Marigolds with a little dew, very early morning. Flirting with frost warnings this week.

 Cooler temperatures, 5C on my walk this morning but warming to 15 the weather forecast has promised, and just like that I'm thinking of heartier fare. But first I need to catch up on the cakes...recently Beth made the birthday folk here a beautiful New York style Cheesecake with Strawberry Compote.  The cake had 5 ! packages of cream cheese in it and was the most sumptuous cake I've ever eaten. It was silky and so delicious. And Tony finished off the compote over a little ice cream. 

I loved the colours here below...the wild Goldenrod which ...

 I mentioned a few years ago I wanted to grow Coleus and finally set a packet of seeds this spring. When I put out the tiny plants, some critter ate most of them and these few here below somehow survived. I'm happy to have these and hope they will fare well now when brought into the house later on.