It has been cloudy for several days, with more coming, so it is nice to be able to share something with some nice bright flowers while I am waiting for the spring bulbs to appear and get ready to flower in a couple of months time.
My favourite for today is the second one.
read more It is a bit early here in Buffalo, NY to see outdoor flowers, but I had some Snow irises, crocus and the beginning of the Hellebores start to open.
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| Yellow Hellebores |
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| Pink buds starting on Hellebores |
It has been a rainy, cold spring here. Lots of dark clouds. One thing that has resulted is that the tulips and spring flowers last a lot longer. There are still good looking daffodils among the tulips. In December, we had to take down an oversized oak tree and we were able to plant two columnar trees- a sweetgum and a Pacific Fire maple (great looking color branches). Still, the garden is behind in cleanup and planting due to the weather. Today, the sun came out and it is actually getting close to 60 degrees!
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| Yellow hellebore |
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| Bleeding Hearts |
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| Dirt ... |
It's way late to do a end of the year wrap up post so if this isn't your thing, please feel free to move along. It's mostly for my own records anyway, since quilts tend to get lost in the shuffle if I don't keep track. Last year ended with a respectable 15 quilts totally finished up. Not my best number, but definitely nothing to sneeze at. If I wouldn't have gotten so sick, there would possibly have been another to add to the list. Apparently it wasn't meant to be!
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| 2022 Finishes (1 ... |
It was lovely to have company for a nice long weekend. The nieces are growing up way too fast! Can't believe one of them is already driving.*sigh We are getting too old! Most of the time when we have guests, I can get out the quilting and do a little stitching. This time I just mostly curled up in the corner of the couch and settled in for the good visiting.
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| A Tisket, A Tasket basket blocks are done |
There's been a lot going on at the home front lately. Nothing new and earth shattering, just the normal things that burn up the time. I put the last of the hand quilting stitching in Spring Flowers and found a little moment to machine sew the binding on. Maybe I can hand stitch the binding down later this week when my company gets here.
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| Spring Flowers moving along |
As per usual, the lure of the applique trips me up. No matter which projects are supposed to be 'next' in line, you can guarantee there'll always be time found for applique prep. Gotta make sure the hand work bag stays full!
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| The start of Orphan Annie |
After a surprise late snow, it warmed like crazy and the daffodils burst forth. Their sunny faces are immensely cheering after dark days and times.
I like a variety of daffodils, like scrappy fabrics in quilts, so that is what I plant. I have a small yard, but the flowers do their job well.
Welcome to the weekend quilters! Friday is my teaching day at the nursing school, it's a great day to end the week. This week I'm teaching a bunch of 19-year-olds how to given hypodermic injections to hot dogs and oranges so that in just a couple years they can be grown up nurses! I'm crossing my fingers no one cuts themselves this semester ;) Hey, at least I'm not teaching it over Zoom anymore!
Louise has just shipped back a great big box of finished quilts she made from the UFOs and orphans I sent to her ...
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It was great to see Antique Crows finally come together for a true blue finish! The hand quilting wasn't always the most fun as I was stitching on the inside of each of the 'points'. That's what I wanted for the look and texture though, so just kept slogging along regardless of extra layers of fabric.
Here I go, once again. trying to gain some ground on all the applique that seems to have exploded around here. Coronacrazy is the most recent one to get some love. My plan of attack was to stitch the underside of every single arch, and then decide how to move forward from there. The stitching does gets fairly tedious, but I've found it's an excellent project for working on while visiting.
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| Coronacrazy Quilt |
Spring took a long time to get to Buffalo, NY. There was snow in May. Finally, the tulips arrived and because it was cooler, they hung around a long time. The rain and heat later did the tree peonies in too quickly.
If it takes two months for new habits to form, I might be in trouble. Lots of new starts, especially with applique, but little to no interest in follow-through. Out of curiosity, I decided to post an applique update, or current status? on the ongoing. Lots of hand work taking place at the start of our Stay At Home order, but lately it's been much more fun to chain piece or just sort and stack fabric. So moody.
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| 4-block Tulip Medallion quilt blocks |
