It was cold and rainy, a good week to stay inside, though my husband ventured out and found some of the best morel mushrooms ever. Big and plentiful, we enjoyed as many as we could handle and froze the rest for later. The asparagus as well. To further mark the arrival of spring the hummingbirds and orioles have begun to arrive. Alas, I have seen no bluebirds yet. Still planting new stuff that loves this kind of weather in which to get established.

I finished the dogs quilt and named it “Fur Family Portrait”.  No photos til after the entry as requested by the venue, sorry. It is bound and only needs to be taken outside in the bright light to be scrutinized for stray threads. I plan to do that tomorrow when the temps return to the sunny 70’s. It’s time to get the deck furniture out!

Yesterday I took my sewing machine in for a past due cleaning and tuneup since I thought I had a small window of time when I could part with it. Sadly it is going to be three weeks before they can get to it. I have a spare if I get desperate.

Today is First Friday at the Topeka Art Guild Gallery and I will be there from 2-8. “Jesse At The Lake” is still there on display. The members were challenged to do a small artwork to fit in 4×6 mats to donate as a fundraiser for the gallery. They are to be sold for $7.50 each to benefit the gallery.

Mine of course are quilted. I showed these plus one more last night at my small quilting group and one, a landscape was snapped up early!

What a week this has been! The computer guy had to come back and redo the set up, I told you there would be bumps in the road! Hopefully it is ok now, but I have not had time to check it out! I had lots of administrative stuff to attend to and entry deadlines to meet. Finished “In The Bleak Midwinter”.  32w x 34h”.

My husband had surgery (nothing serious), so I am cooking again, temporarily, I hope!

We drove to Lawrence Friday to deliver “Longhorn Splashdown”, Spring Encounter” and “Just Dandy” for display at the Kaw Valley Quilt Guild Show. I will have to go by and pick them up this afternoon. It’s always a nice show and I am looking forward to seeing it. Yesterday was the annual Kansas Art Quilter’s Conference – also in Lawrence- and what a wonderful day it was!  The theme was “Compositional Strategies and Personal Vocabularies” with presentations by Barbara Lee Smith and Carol Ann Carter. I think everyone came away with renewed enthusiasm!

Strange weather this spring for the morels, they have been hard to find. I think we’ve had 3 meals, with only a few at a time. This is probably the last of them along with asparagus from the garden. Isn’t that a weird curly one? The curl was very woody and had to be discarded.

I cooked them up in butter with some red onions and the asparagus. Quite good, but we decided they are better dredged in seasoned flour and fried!

The wild violets are blooming,

The redbuds are out,

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

We have found the last of the morels for this year, I’m sure. They are starting to look a little dried out and so we left some to hopefully encourage next year’s crop. Here’s how they look growing – hard to see sometimes!

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.