Little blooms.............

The tiny Jonquils are blooming now.  I didn't see any buds until a few days ago and I thought maybe the nights with freeze warnings had stunned them.  There are about a dozen in bloom and more buds that will probably open today.

I dug some more Hostas and potted 8 more.  A couple are really small so I'll probably leave them in pots until next year.  It's surprising how many varieties haven't broken ground yet.  The latest to come up is also the latest to flower, all the way to the first of September.

The Begonia from last summer is still blooming.  The other 3 pots of these are outside by my garage door now.  They wintered over well in a semi-dormant state in my heated garage (55 degrees).

I added some more variety of fabrics with the half rectangle blocks and changed it from matching diagonal pieces to all random.  I'm still not very excited about this but I have a couple more ideas for fabric additions.

Last night I finished knitting a dishcloth with all of the leftover ends of yarn.  I didn't have any more to add so I just made the last corner white.

Prince Charles was born on my 8th birthday and I thought that was pretty special.  Now King Charles III, no longer a prince.  I wonder if he will live as long as his mother did.

Digging and potting..........

Since I finished mowing the yard on Thursday, yesterday was digging day.  My granddaughter called and asked if I had any Hostas to share.  There were several areas that needed digging so I got started.  The only question in my mind was do I take the Advil before or after the digging.  Even though it was my first time digging this year it went well.  There are 4 pots here.

This is 4 more pots.  One area was so crowded with all of the volunteer Lungwort plants so that was my first attack.  I threw away about 10 good size Lungwort plants.  I felt guilty doing that but I'm tired of trying to find people to give them to.  I still have many more that can be dug up if anyone volunteers that they want some of them.  I will dig 2 more varieties of Hostas today if all goes well.

My Bleeding Heart plant is big this year (see more Lungwort here?  It is everywhere).

It took 4 tries to get an in focus shot of the blooms.  There was a nice breeze yesterday, sunny and 75 degrees.

I cut some more half rectangle triangles and sewed some combinations last night.  This isn't very exciting so far.  I have more fabrics to add so I won't make any decisions yet.  The big blocks here aren't sewn together yet so things could change, like not matching the 2 diagonally across from each other.

 

Searching for backings............

This is one (link: first photo) of the quilts I matched with batting pieces.  These are the 2 choices for backing.  Either one will work, I just need to make a choice and get it to the finish line.

The pink twisted Ribbon was the next one paired with a batting piece.  This is choice number one for the back.

Choice number 2 is my new Tula Pink elephant fabric.  I bought enough to use for borders cut lengthwise for a future quilt.  I have second thoughts whether it will work for that with the placement of the elephants.  The background is lavender but there is a lot of pink in the print too.

My sister-in-law gave me a gift certificate to one of our local nurseries.  Yesterday was the day to go in search of some new perennials.  I love Columbines and they had a great variety.  This one was my first choice.

This is the second Columbine that I got.  It is a little different purple color than the photo shows because purple is hard to photograph.  I hope to get them planted sometime this week.

On the way home I did one of my most hated tasks: pumping gas.  I drive very little so I only get 4 or 5 tanks of gas a year.  It seems like every time I go the pumps have something new on the screen that I have to figure out.

I could see the "golden hour" appoaching last night (see previous posts for more).  The Redbud on the left is a golden pink, and the one on the right is in the shadow of the other tree and wasn't affected; 2 totally different color trees.

Here is the tree on the left a few minutes later.

This is a close up of the tree on the right which was shaded from the sunlight.  They are both Redbud trees and look identical in normal light.

Then I looked at the tree across the street but the sun is slowly moving to new positions every day as we go toward summer and the sun doesn't hit it directly now.  I am so glad I got the wonderful photo a few days ago.

Here is the same tree as the sun was setting, totally green like the other trees in the neighborhood.

My 3 compact Burning Bushes are doing well as they enter their 3rd year along the south side of my  house.  This is the largest one.  I could trim some of the branches for a better shaped bush but I think I will wait until fall.

Spring weather..........

It seems like the Redbud blooms have lasted longer this year.  I think that is mostly because after buds starting to open we got cool weather and the rest of the blooms didn't open until at least a week later.  I think the petals will start falling now and the tree will start leafing.

It got up to 63 yesterday so I mowed the front yard.

One of the Coral Bells in the front garden has lots of buds.  This plant was in a pot most of last summer and I finally planted it in the fall.

This is the variety shown above.  I have 2 of these and the other one is just starting to send up buds.  I'm hoping to find the old fashioned plain green leaf variety that has bright red/orange blooms.

I went through all of my small batting pieces and matched 3 of them to quilt tops.  I will be piecing some more strips together today for some larger quilt tops.  Every 30 yard roll of Hobbs 80/20 is a little different than the previous one so I'm trying to match the pieces so the batting will be the same thickness and softness.

Today is Star Wars Day....May the 4th be with you.  Would you believe I have never seen a Star Wars movie?  Somehow it never interested me.

 

Playing with stash...........

I had cut a lot of pink half rectangles and one group of them just didn't go with the ones I used for the twisted ribbon baby quilt.  They are on the left in this photo.  I decided I would add some other pastels with them so I was on the hunt yesterday looking for the ones I thought would work.

The rest of the day was spent putting things away, once again trying to clean off table tops.

Liz left a comment yesterday about the "golden hour".  Look for the comment near the bottom from Anonymous and signed by Liz.  She provides a link that explains it.  Now I know that the photo I posted earlier of the Redbud trees by the driveway was also in the golden hour.  (Photo yesterday of the Maple tree)

 

Free day..........

The first day of the month is a free day after meeting my quota of finishes the night before.  I just wander around and look through things, dream of new projects, explore pieces and parts in storage boxes.

While the daylight was bright I got a good photo of the pink elephant fabric by Tula Pink.  It is such a happy fabric.

I found a stack of chisel pieces sewn into pairs so I tried a few of them up on the design wall to see what they want to become.  I think after sewing this together it will go into the batik orphan block box.

I also found a bunch of Kaffe scraps that are sewn into strips, all different lengths and widths. They went right back into the box.

Late in the afternoon the sun was out and there was a shaft of sunlight hitting all of the trees east of me.  It is spring leaves and it looks like fall.

I could see the tops of trees about a block away that were also this color.  I know there are theories of how we see color and why we see the colors we do.  I thought this was an amazing phenomenon, something I had never seen before, fall color in spring all caused by a shaft of sunlight just before sunset.

April 2023 monthly recap ............

This is the 4th month in a row that I have had 2 finishes.  I hope I can keep up that pace.  

Red Hot on the left is 62.5" x 81".  My Fantasy Garden is 53.5" x 64".  It is much brighter and prettier than this photo.

Another month of more new quilt tops than finishes...which means I'm having fun.

Bars: Australian fabric is 51.5" x 75".  The muted color blend top is 20" x 33".  Pink ribbons is 36" x 48".  Australian Zig Zag is 36" x 45".  Colorwash made with rectangles is 32" x 51".

For my own documentation, Red Hot  (which was finished yesterday) is 62.5" x 81", quilted with red Superior So Fine 30 wt. thread on top and charcoal Superior Bottom Line bobbin thread.  All of the fabrics are Kaffe Fassett Collective except one Martha Negley.

On the back is the black background Kaffe Fassett Banana Tree fabric.

I used a different kind of batting in this quilt, a bamboo blend.  It says it doesn't beard out through the fabric but I did see some little dots of white on the back.  It could be that my needle has a slight hook on the end so I won't blame the batting.  I need to change the needle before I quilt the next one.