Rose block

 Not much going on here.  I work, I sew, I knit, I garden, I cook.  Same old stuff.  

I finished the rose block and I'm pretty happy with it.  

Here are the current 8.  They remind me very much of 30' and 40's cartoon flowers, with just enough detail to know what kind of flower it is, and no attempt to look 3 dimensional.  There were also a lot of framed flower prints that were similar.  I have one and will have to pull it out and show my inspiration for this quilt and how/why I picked the beige background.  

I tweaked the pattern on this one a little bit.  I laid it out to test the colors and make sure they were going to give me what I was after and discovered that I didn't care for the large rose.  Rob said it best...it looked like a muffin or a cupcake with a frosting rose on top.  

So, I started to move that around and found I liked it when it was more circular.  I trimmed some off and re-drew it on the template and I was ready to go.  

The next block up is the lilac.  I'm going to cut those little flowers as squares and use cutaway appliqué to sew them down.  That way, I'm not sitting and trying to cut 40 flowers.  I'll still have to trace the shape on the squares, tho.  I'm planning to cut a few of the flowers out of something heavy and trace those few over and over again.  I wouldn't look for a new flower block next week...I think these more complicated ones (and there are more than I remembered) are going to take a couple weeks each.

I'm still working in the yard. I've decided to cut everything back.  It's time for some fresh starts out there.  I am enjoying poking around at the base of plants, looking for a little green.  I'm finding it on most.  And, there are a a lot of woody shrubs where the stems are still green, and I'm still waiting.  I cut all of the old burned growth off the wood ferns and am letting them start over.  Look at all the fiddle heads that were out there.  But, the forsythia, spirea and mock orange all lost their flowers and are putting out leaves all over.  I'm happy enough to see they're alive that I don't even mind losing this year's bloom.  

This is called donkey's ear.  The leaves are soft and fuzzy like a donkey's ear and usually look much better than this.  They're not cold hardy at all and Rob had this one in a greenhouse that he built on the back of the house, taking advantage of being out of the wind and staying warmer because of the house and fireplace.  It was starting to bloom, but this weekend, it really started to get color.  It seems to be a biennial.  It needs to grow a couple of years before it blooms.  It makes a lot of babies along the edges of the lowest leaves.  I had harvested them, but lost most of them in the freeze.  I won't be able to give any away this year, but maybe next year.  

That's about it for me.  We had the tree trimmer here this week and he opened up some sun for a young tree and for my garden.  I'm looking forward to a great gardening year. 

I wear a mask.  I wear a mask because I choose to.  I wear a mast because I believe it's the right thing to do.  I wear a mask because it's not time to be complacent.  

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The governor of Texas is lifting the TX mask mandate.  The gov is a tool.  The gov needs to distract people from the terrible mess that Rs made of Texas' power grid that caused all the problems a couple weeks ago.  And, he's willing to sacrifice Texas lives to draw the attention off of that.  The gov is a tool.

Everybody have a great week!  I'm working way harder than I should be.  I think I need to take a day off to spend it outside in the sun.  Take my knitting out and knit in the sunshine.

Lane