March Marvels

 Something I marvelled at...First I heard the ravens squawking and looked out the window. There were so many of them gathered in the trees at the back of the house, I was surprised.  All of them screeching. I ran to the door and went around the corner of the house in time to watch a barred owl flying by with all those ravens chasing it! An amazing sight. And no camera. 😞 But as corny as it is to say, I have the picture in my mind still.

Ravens mate for life and have the intelligence of a 6 year old child. I'm kind of fascinated by them. Here they scrounge around under the bird feeders early every morning. I used to worry because it made the small birds scatter, but then I saw they don't stay long. 

With temperatures warming, gardening is on my mind and I've decided to add this new plant to the garden.  It popped up on my facebook feed several times and I do love Coleus. This is Proven Winner Coleus Torchlight.

 Decades ago I had a huge one I kept hanging from the shower rod in the bathroom. For some reason it thrived in the bathroom and when I left there to go to the far north, I had to give it away.  Anyway, to do this week is to order the seeds. I have many areas here that could provide the sun and shade they require. 

Someone asked in the comments what was the white flowering plant in this picture.It is one of the white Kalanchoes. They come in a variety of colours and are easy to keep healthy during winter months. This one flowered off and on with little bunches of flowers often it seemed. 

Here it was in January.

And this month.

To do this week in the sewing room and it is also my March OMG so I must get at it... finish bordering the Wildflowers blocks; I have two sides done, now for the top and bottom. 

My book this week that I am listening to while early morning stitching is by Beth Powning. I read The Sea Captains Wife years ago and enjoyed it very much. Here is a description of the plot. 

And I won a prize!!  Marie at QuiltBee had a little commentator giveaway in February. I was thrilled to get this quilt pattern which is a pattern for foundation piecing a pineapple block. I've so admired many of your photos of pineapple block quilts. I'm thinking of  Marie's Pineapple Tidbits and also you Rosemary and you Karen with your pineapple quilt versions. 

And the Quilter's Design Book has a bounty of information for quilt making besides the diary section for recording quilts. Marie's post there shows photos of the different sections. A package of needles rounded out the gift.  Thank you, Marie.

On that happy note, I'll end this post. Also happy to link this post with Texas Quilt Gal, Love Laugh Quilt, Life in the Scrapatch, My Quilt Infatuation, Floral Passions and Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Irish Fame, Shopping, Cakes, Cross Stitch, Special Moments

Of note this week...

A little bit of Irish- I spent a lot of time with William's wonderful words in younger days and also off and on throughout my life. A key 20th century poet and Nobel Prize winner and Irish as well.  I especially love his phrasing. 

You may have seen this popular quote below sometime. I remember writing it in my diary when I was not old and gray, both of which I now am. 

When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.

William Butler Yeats

Now for the mundane...

Researched and ordered...a new bread machine. Fixed a couple of times by hubby,  the old one finally gave up the ghost. The new one is a larger Cuisinart with over six thousand good reviews so must be okay. Looking forward to getting it. 

Ordered also this Cobble Hill jigsaw puzzle...Dog Quotes; a fun puzzle to greet spring.

There is a matching amusing Cat Quotes one too...A link is here

Sandra at MMM Quilts just listed the most gorgeous quilted bag in her Etsy Shop. Made with some vintage fabrics, it is simply stunning. 

Meanwhile my own stitchy flower garden continues to grow...

Mornings are definitely my favourite time to lay a few cross stitches and think how lucky to be retired! 

Daughter tried her hand at another flan this month.  This one is served with a blueberry compote. It is light and delicious. Here is the link to Blueberry Sour Cream Flan at Rock Recipes.  No flour in this one.

I watched this beautiful video from Sandra at Cherry Heart blog; it is part of her restful Moments series. This one features pretty crochet and also very pretty quilting. Partway through this video you can see her latest EPP project which I love very much ( I must have mentioned this before).  

It is a BOM called Flower Garden from Alice Caroline. What a lovely site with many things to admire there. However, Liberty Fabrics are SO expensive especially to get them delivered to here. I am sure there are many suitable substitutes that are available and would be just as pretty though.

I'm in the process of clearing items from this computer. I had a cache of over a hundred quilting/stitching/arts blogs/sites in my onenote and am reviewing each.  I've been surprised and saddened by how many are no longer maintained. Some with a final farewell but many just stopped without a word. That makes me wonder what happened. Life I guess, the fabric of which are inescapable ups and downs.

Sunshine and warm temperatures yesterday; the snow is taking quite a cutting, as we used to say at home. I had to forgo the heavy coat and mitts for my walks. The air, while cool, felt wonderful. 

 I hope you are all feeling wonderful too!

Also lovely things to see at Not Afraid of Color.  And joining the slow stitching group at Kathy's Quilts.

Wildflower Embroideries, Scrappy Confetti Quilt, Indoor Gardening, Neddy News

Mother Nature is wearing winter white still here in our corner of the globe.  But with a promise of plus side temperatures later this week, the snow won't take too long to melt. (Says she hopefully)

But the inside Garden is growing well and surviving the long winter.  I use the little water spritzer bottle and keep them well misted which I think helps with the dry indoors climate. Note the little white Polka Dot plant is doing well with the pinching back...so far.

The Hazel's Summer Wildflowers quilt is at this stage.  It's been easy and enjoyable machine stitching to put together a few rows of flying geese for the borders. I don't want this to get much bigger.  TO Do this week will be to get those flying geese all made. 

I subscribe to Rachel Hauser's Stitched in Color site.  I had bookmarked a project of hers, a new way to stitch scraps into quilts involving foundation piecing patterns. She called the result a Confetti Quilt. Last year Rachel ran a sew along stitching this quilt. 

 I purchased the digital patterns because any way to manage/use up scraps is a good thing. I'm experimenting and will let you know soon how that goes.  So far I've been sorting fabrics and cutting small piles. I've figured out that this is a good little project for when I've finished my stitching in the evening but still have tv viewing time on my hands. Basically, my eyes have had it but the hands are still up for it. This week I'll keep these steps going any time I have a few spare moments. 

We made a semi emergency visit to our vet with Neddy on Monday.  Inflamed eyes and a belly rash. The office is about an hour's drive from us; there are loads of vets closer but Dr. Sue Martin has been Hubby's vet for almost 30 years. She is so kind and has one of those very soft, gentle voices that sounds like she's whispering. Hubby, being deaf even with hearing aids, doesn't hear half of what she says. We now have drops for his eyes and must bathe his belly. She figured he had gotten the marks from all the running through the brush he does. But we got to pick up his flea/tick and heartworm medicine so that was a great thing to cross off our spring to do list.

He is quite well thankfully and we received lots of praise for his manners and sweet personality.

Hubby on the phone and Ned thinking he should be talking to him. :) He's getting a tad too big to be a lap dog. 

I hope you are having a productive week as well and taking good care of you and yours.  

Happily linking with Linda's TO DO party at Texas Quilt Gal. Also linking with Quilt Fabrication,  My Quilt Infatuation, For the Love of Geese, Alycia Quilts, Patchwork Quilting Applique, Quilting is More Fun Than Housework and Brian's Home Blog.

Spring Springing, Slugging, Sashiko Stitching, Self-Soothing Slow Stitching

Hearing birds sing for the first time on a walk March 5 was an amazing moment. The cardinal was singing his tiny heart out then and every morning since.  Here are the pair that have been visiting my feeders all winter. I think they are the same as the female is notably small. Taken through my kitchen window. 

Neddy relaxing with his Star Wars blanket below. One year old last week. On the face book group, SIL asked all the owners of his 8 litter mates to share a birthday photo and all 9 of us chimed in with wonderful shots. It gave SIL and daughter much happiness to see how well loved the puppies all are in their new homes.

Have you heard of slugging?  I'll give you a link and see what you make of it for yourself. Slugging For Essential Skincare I was interested as I'd read decades ago that Marilyn Munroe used only petroleum jelly as a face cream. (That's a perfect example of the kind of useless information this brain of mine holds onto.)

So happy to be making headway with the borders for my Fans quilt. I settled on a sashiko style embroidered butterflies pattern using the same variegated thread I've used throughout this quilt. I drew a couple of butterfly patterns and used little dots of chalk as a guide.  That worked well on the dark navy fabric. Enjoyable slow stitching,

Here is an excellent video detailing how that can work for other Sashiko stitching which is a Japanese style of embroidery.

I think if these strips don't work out as a border, I'll join them to make a runner.  

It was a treat to visit a library last week- like old times. I had reserved both these books and picked them up. Simple Shapes Stunning Quilts by Stuart Hillard and Free Spirit Block Party by 20 modern designers. These books are both great-there are 100 designs in Stuart's book and 40 in the other. I would like to own a copy of both. 

Not finished yet...but I am still diligently adding to the sides of my Tumbling Blocks quilt pieces when the spirit moves me. I so love this process of cutting diamond shapes out of thin cardboard, choosing bits of fabrics to size, gluing them on, then sewing together to make the blocks. Then sewing those together. A process with many steps and I love each and every one of them. (A photo for Joanne (no blog) who asked to see it again and is thinking of making this pattern.)

Someone asked me why I torture myself with so much hand work on each project. Why does everything I make have to be so labour intensive, they wanted to know. After all you have a machine that could do the work in a tenth of the time was said to me.  Well now. What to say...how the thinking about it, researching the patterns, searching your blogs, choosing the bits and bobs is so enjoyable, is my balm really, that the hand work/knitting/crocheting,etc. soothes me like nothing else I do. And while I can be quiet, attentive and contemplative sometimes, I need something in my hands always. (A new thought... Is that OCD-ish?!)

 From my needlepointing days starting when very young in university, living and teaching in isolated communities, up to and including now, stitching has been an enjoyable constant in my life. Just as it has for so many of you too. You guys get it, right?

I'm linking up with Not Afraid of Color; LeeAnna always puts a lot of effort into her Thursday things to like posts so if you have the time, check it out. Also there, you will find the other bloggers who have shared their thankful, happy Thursday things too. 

Also linking with Brian's Home Blog, Love Laugh Quilt, Small Quilts and Doll Quilts and Kathy's Quilts. 

Strategies, Sunflowers, Monkey Brain, Irish Soda Bread

Several of you have shown your pretty Sunflower projects while our thoughts are with the incredibly sad plight of the Ukrainians. Hubby has upped his donation to Doctors Without Borders who have medical teams there assisting. Holding our breath as this all unfolds.  I got out the well used Sunflowers tabletopper I'd made  many years ago.  Its' blue and yellow sunniness will take on a whole new meaning for me now.

I made Irish Soda Bread last week.  Hubby loves bread and while I love it too, I try not to eat too much of it.  I found the recipe in the Costco Connections March magazine. The link will take you to the online version.

 Soda Breads are generally coarser and because it has a little brown sugar in it, this one had a very slight sweet taste. It made a very large tasty loaf.

One of my face book quilting friends issued this challenge to us ... get your pin cushions and find the embedded needles in them. She had found an incredible 32 in one of her larger ones! I got my two that I use a lot and was surprised as well. I actually thought there would be none.  14 in one and 8 in the other! Including several of my "good" cross stitching needles which I was so happy to have.

From Quilter Karen comes this awesome video, Make More Quilts... 8 Strategies to Finish More Quilts. Karen puts a lot into her videos and this one is wonderful. So many great ideas.  I really liked Eat The Frog First and Habit Stacking.

Karen mentions having Monkey Brain at night which I have a problem with from time to time as well. I've done a bunch of research on this issue and I did find one article that had good ideas about how to quell Monkey Brain. Perhaps you will find it helpful too. 8 Science Based Tricks for Quieting the Monkey Brain  by Alice G. Walton.

 I have to say that Lady Tulip, the latest pieced quilt and fabric line from Laundry Basket Quilts is quite beautiful. Those colours are really appealing to me.  Do they appeal to you too? Again speaking to me of summer and warmer days I think. Edyta's fabrics are excellent quality. 

A smile today in this very brief clip...14 month old Rory in Clarenville, Newfoundland went out to help his dad shovel snow. I love the way he falls down, gets up and keeps on going. Life lesson there. 

Here is the link in case that fails...14 Month Old Shovels Snow. I've mentioned my Acer is having glitches and that includes my uploads and photos too. Sigh  

Typical March heavy rain has flattened our snow piles here but a few flakes are falling as I write this. 

Happily linking with Quilt Fabrication, My Quilt Infatuation, Life in the Scrapatch, Quilting Patchwork Applique, So Scrappy and Wendy's Quilts and More.

Peace and Plenty Here at the Wooden House

We both talked about the sun today as sunny a sun as we have ever seen. It surged brightly behind the curtains before I opened them and blinded us on the morning walk with its clarity and brightness. I kept shielding my eyes wishing my sunglasses were not back at the house. The weather for days before had been gloomy with wind, freezing rain, and yet more snow. Maybe we were prejudiced because of this. Whatever. Sun illuminating all corners of the house is wonderful and spurring notions of spring- at least for this one day.

While the view outside remains decidedly winter.

We went to Costco on Monday and had a great look round; no trouble filling a cart. I was disappointed in the clothes- mostly swimming suits and the need for that is a ways off here for sure. Hubby was happy as we replenished his Moose Tracks Ice Cream supply. I was happy as I bought one of those supper kits; ours was the tacos one. Sure enough I found an article by Brian, a high school teacher who loves food, on how to prepare it HERE. Brian's photo too. It was tasty.

 I almost broke down and started another project just to soothe myself, the news in the world being what it is lately. But I've held strong. I received a little bundle of lovely fabric in the mail so I must content myself with petting this for now. I'm very slowly building a Tilda supply for a special project.  Mauves are a little new to me but so pretty.

The book, Country Quilts For Friends, was in the bargain bin at the local drug store. It caught my eye because of the name Anne Sutton on it. Anne is the designer behind Bunny Hill Designs, a wonderful site to explore and shop. I've purchased her fabric and patterns before. I like how she combines piecing, applique and also sometimes, embroidery, in her quilts. 

Anne's latest fabric line is called Prairie Days and is the prettiest blues with a bold red and whites. 

Meanwhile I've layered up the scrappy Fans quilt and used a little spray fabric glue to hold the layers in place which really helped a lot. I keep forgetting I have this stuff and it is very helpful. 

These fabrics are so pretty to me. I love seeing them up close. (And the sides are really straight; why they photograph with a curve is a mystery to me.)

I quilted around each to fix them in place. I began a little embroidery stitch, abbreviated turkey stitch, around each block. I'm using the same red, white and blue variegated thread as I used for the strings. 

I plan to set up the borders today. 

I've almost finished my Cobble Hill Winter puzzle, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady version. 

Each bird and plant is labelled which is fun and an aid to getting it together too. 

Frederique has updated the list of ongoing BOM's, etc. here on her blog, Quilting, Patchwork, Applique. I got distracted by one...the Grandmother's Flower Garden, EPP quilt, and think I may join that one by downloading the patterns for now. I've admired the hexie quilts so many of you have made and keep saying I want to make one. 

 I have this image of me sewing little hexagons sitting on my veranda next summer. Sigh 

Happy to be linking with Not Afraid of Color, Kathy's Quilts, Quilting is More Fun Than Housework, Quilting Patchwork Applique, My Sunday Snapshot, Small Quilts and Doll Quilts and Alycia Quilts. 

 

Completely Done Year, A Finish, Stitchy Purchase, Free Patterns

I declare every Sunday Pyjama Day here at the Wooden House. It is also my very slow stitching day (cross stitching) and also photo day, time to go through more of my bank of photographs and delete or save. I'm finding the older the photos, the greater my willingness to axe them. 

Speaking of cross stitching, my stitchy purchase last month was a pattern called The Jack Rabbit from Cottage Garden Samplings. That link will take you to their A Year in the Woods series, a group of 12 designs featuring mostly woodland creatures.  And if Rabbit goes well, I will definitely want to stitch the fox.  Since I encounter lots of rabbits (and foxes are around too) here on the trails... I thought it would be fun to be stitching a memento and a change from the sampler style I'm currently stitching as well. It's all about those ears with this one!

                    

 I'm happy to say that Courthouse Steps Quilt is a finish, at long last.   It is a little more square than I wanted but it is single bed size or a very ample lap quilt. This will be a gift next Christmas.  Machine foundation paper pieced and very enjoyably hand quilted. It was my OMG for February and my Acer has been acting up which is my reason for not posting in time. 

Down in the sewing room, when I've warmed it up enough to manage, I've good news. I've finally worked out how to stitch my Summer Wildflowers   embroideries into a sampler. I unstitched all the fabrics I had them in ( a night's work that) and chose a completely different palette. One with soft colours and tiny prints. Many of you recommended this approach so thank you very much!

 

This way the embroidered bits can really shine.  I can see that now; why I didn't see it before is a mystery. So I've been measuring and cutting- keeping it all very simple. I like how it's working out so far. I'm putting each one into its own pretty "frame".  I'm going to set this as my Elm Street Quilts OMG for March and hopefully that will keep me on track. TO DO this week will be getting these blocks all framed. Then I will enter into discussions with myself on how to quilt it. 

 You can download all the free patterns for this stitchalong and others here at Shelley's blog, The Life of Hazel Ilene. Thank you Shelley!

I do enjoy being up close with the fabrics. Perhaps it is really all about the fabrics for me. I love looking at the motifs and the feel of the material in my hands.  It is enjoyable then to ply a needle stitching through it. You too?

I also love getting another UFO to the finish line! 2022 is a completely done year for me, in more ways than one. 

Thank you all for sharing your memories of Woolworth's Shopping and the Lunch Counter in response to my last post.  For the record, I remember having Coke Floats and fries at the Corner Brook, Newfoundland Woolworth's as a very special treat, usually on Report Card day. 

Hope you are finding enjoyment in the stitching journey this week too!

Linking with The Texas Quilt Gal, Quilt Fabrication, My Quilt Infatuation, Life in the Scrapatch, Powered By Quilting and The Inquiring Quilter.