Spring?

OK, this has been a winter to complain about, so I thought I would show the beginning of spring here in the South.

These two are very tiny flowering weeds in our front yard.

Here we see the new growth leaves on one of the rose bushes: right under the old rose that I didn’t trim off last Fall. I am now waiting until we stop having below freezing nights to prune back these bushes.

Also, note that the Hydrangeas are even leafing.

All of the trees have buds on them, still tightly closed, but ready for it to be just a little warmer.

This is the oak tree that is closest to the house. Look at what I found on it today. That is quite a bloom, isn’t it?

Yesterday I went to get the beads I made in class last Saturday.

OK, these are not professional quality by any means but I don’t think they are bad at all considering this was my first time staring at hot glass through open flame. ;-)

Tomorrow I am going to be taking a class on digitizing embroidery designs. I have noticed that my computer skills are not as good as they used to be: I do not assimilate new techniques as fast or as well as I used to. I attribute this to the fact that I no longer work with the computer as much as I did and am not forced to use new software like I did when I was working. However, DH has some ideas for designs he would like that I have not found online so he is paying for half of the class just so I can work for him. We’ll see how that works out later.

Just Under the Finish Line

Yesterday I felt like a marathon runner who is really slow but finally makes it to the finish line. I have been doing OPAM since it started 14 months ago and yesterday morning decided that for the first time I wasn’t going to have anything finished for February. Then in the afternoon I remembered that I had a 2 yd piece of faux fur that I wanted to make a throw out of. I also remembered that last Tuesday I bought some black minki-like fabric for the back. Well, I got them both out, trimmed them to the same size and sewed them together and, viola, a beautiful throw that I will be using in the studio and at least one February finish. I felt so much better.

I know this picture looks a lot like the one from Wednesday but there is difference, I have sewn together some of the drunkard’s path blocks. I am concentrating on sewing the circles first so I can take everything down and use the wall for other projects. I have cut the base fabric for the appliqué border but that is as far as I have gotten. Next I will need to look for appropriate flower and leaf appliqué templates and I need to find just the right green for the stem. So this week I plan to cut the strata for the piano key border and figure out what fabric to use for the inner border. Then this will be an “ongoing” project to work on while I start new quilts.

Oh, and I did have one partial finish. I finished the quilting on my baby quilt. But I couldn’t get it done for Feb. since I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to use for binding. Usually I have that all ready when I put a quilt on the frame but not this time. So I am starting a UFO pile for quilts that need binding. Lets hope that pile only has one UFO at any one time.

My SIL and BIL stayed a couple of extra days due to the snow they would have had to travel through to get back to NH. One of the inducements I used to help them make the decision was to sign Cera and me up for a lamp work glass beading class. We went Saturday and for three hours played with fire and molten glass. We had a great time, even when I burned my fingers trying to pick up a piece of still very hot glass. Cera was already scheduled to take a bead making class later this month so this just gave her a jump start. I don’t know if I will do any more but I really love playing with hot glass. I didn’t get any pictures because both hands were busy. I am supposed to pick up the beads sometime this week (too hot to take home Sat) so I will take pictures then. Believe me, I quilt better than I bead….so far.