Busy, busy with the sewing, this is the best part!

Just to make it more interesting, and also to make it say “Springtime” I added the tulips. The wonderful hand dyes for the tulips and some of the leaves was purchased in Houston this year at Festival from Friestyle Handdyed. Just perfect!

Spring flowers are everywhere! I missed getting out to take photos of the early stuff, fruit trees, redbud trees and the spring bulb flowers but here is what’s blooming in my shade garden right now!

Hydrangea with Iris and Vinca.

These sweet bells start out pink, then turn blue, their proper name escapes me.

I LOVE the leaves on this Brunnera; the tiny flowers are a brilliant blue though you can’t tell it by this photo. I guess my camera doesn’t like blue as the previous photo is washed out too.

I didn’t plant this wild phlox, but if it wants to be here, I’m totally happy with that!

Bleeding Hearts- what a neat flower!

The wild violets are blooming,

The redbuds are out,

There should be mushrooms in the woods, but we haven’t found them yet!

Spring is good, but I think I like Fall better. Fall doesn’t have Spring Cleaning. We had the perfect day for washing windows, overcast, cool but warm enough to have windows open and even to be outside cleaning, so I did the four windows in the studio. Of course it is not just the glass……you have to take down and wash the curtains as well, and the venetian blinds too, which may be even worse than the windows! But it is done and that feels good. The whole room seems brighter! Now I need to do the rest of the house!

i did try to take some flower pictures today on my walk, but it is so windy they are all blurry. It looks like it has snowed under the crab apple trees there are so may petals on the ground.

I have about half of the bluebird quilted and it is looking good.

I want to get back to it, but I really need to get the books caught up and get the sales tax sent in as the deadline is fast approaching. The business side of things takes so much time away from the fun side of things…..

It’s really starting to feel like Spring! The first batch of morels have been picked and there are some of the biggest ones we’ve ever gotten! Those big ones are about 6-7″. Yum!

This is a sure sign of spring along with the asparagus and the blooming redbuds. It’s a beautiful time. I’ve been doing some rock work, making a space for the hammock in the shade garden. And planting and transplanting things as the weather, being cool with rain predicted, is perfect for that. And pulling weeds. Always, there are WEEDS!

On the quilting scene, I’m doing some drawing and planning for my donation to the SAQA One Foot Square thing. More on that later if I come up with anything.

Yesterday I posted the two newest works to the Gallery pages on the website – Burlingame Fire and Nasturtiums. You’ve seen the teaser shots here in the blog, but they have been accepted, Burlingame Fire to IQA’s Tactile Architecture and Nasturtiums to In Full Bloom, so now you can see the full shots by clicking on Gallery on the left.

In the meantime I need to go out and put down some mulch before the rain comes today.

Perhaps you thought that I had disappeared from the face of the earth, but, no. I have just been away on a lovely trip to the Amish country of PA. I wish that I had brought my camera because it was like a picture postcard around every corner! The fields turning brilliantly green, daffodils everywhere and all of the lovely spring flowering trees bursting forth.

I taught three different workshops there and in the morning on my way to class, we passed groups of Amish children carrying their lunch pails all dressed alike, walking to their little one room school houses. Horses and buggies clippity clopping along at a very businesslike trot makes one think they may have landed in another century! Too cool! Unfortunately the visit was clouded by less than perfect health as apparently I was allergic to some of those gorgeous spring trees or something.

This didn’t stop me from enjoying the Lancaster Quilt Show and seeing the sights with an old friend and meeting many new ones. A great big thank you to everyone who made my visit so special!

And now, it is back to the routine of life as I left it. No magic fairies came in the night to tie up all the loose ends that still await my attention.