Another good holiday weekend

It was a busy weekend.  I was determined to get as much done as normal, plus the holiday.  On Saturday, I worked in the neighbor's flowerbeds and some other neighbors came by for some free plants.  I think we might have overwhelmed them a little.  But, we gave them some things to think about and some plants to start with. 

And, I started the ditch work on the star quilt.  Almost all the ditchwork is done, except where those pins are, and I need a different color thread there.  I used the leftover brown from last year's silk quilt to do the brown parts of the center.  Now, I need an off-white. 

After dishes were done yesterday I got back to it.  The quilt is really coming together around the quilting.  And, it's getting some heft and density to it.  I used two layers of batting.  I knew some of my lines weren't straight.  Well, lots of those lines in the middle where the pieces are tiny.  And, I knew that with two layers of batting, the batting would help me make those lines quilt in straight.  If I quilted the line straight, the hump of the batting took the extra fabric for me until I could quilt the next section down.  So, now the blank spaces are holding the extra fabric and I'll quilt that down with little background filler quilting. 

I hope it works. 

We had a very nice lunch yesterday.  It started with some pull apart bread for snacking in the morning.  And, then we went all out. 

I spent way too much time on this cake.  I made the cake from scratch, then the swiss meringue buttercream.  But mistakes were made.  Imagine my disappointment when we cut it yesterday afternoon and it was so dry, it was just awful.

Oh, well.  It's because I don't do that kind of baking very often and I'm not in practice.  But, who knows.  Maybe I'll get in practice. 

I could really use another hobby.

Ha!

This iris bloomed last week for the first time.  I brought it from my Mom's house about 4 years ago.  It makes a beautiful sword like statement in my flowerbed.  But it wouldn't bloom.  I asked my Mom what color it was and she didn't know.  It had never bloomed for her either. 

Well, it's yellow. 

And, beautiful.

It's such a good year in the garden.  The spring flowers are getting ready and I'm putting in summer annuals from seed to fill in later.  I hope. 

Everybody have a wonderful week.  It's still going to be busy for me.  But, I really got a foothold on my big project last week and made huge progress on Friday.  So, I'm looking forward to getting back to it today and moving that thing along.  My newest boss is in Spain and I'd really like to have this thing wrapped up when he gets back. 
 
Lane