Some quilting and a lot of gardening

I set it as a goal to have this little top finished this week.  It took a considerable effort to do that and get all the points to match...well most of the points to match.  Can't wait to quilt it.  I'm pretty proud of how it came out and of the twist I put on the pattern.  There are a couple things I'd have done different, but overall, I love it.  It will look great with some quilting and a nice binding.  It came out to 32" square.  A great size for a wall hanging and small enough to do some really fun small scale filler quilting.  

Lesson learned about sitting on the floor to sew.  That ended up being the hardest part of putting it together.  I started it sitting on the floor and thought about moving the machine to a table and sitting in a chair.  It would have been much easier, but there was all that moving (the featherweight, known for its portability) and rearranging (everything was massed in the floor around me) and I was in a 'can't be bothered mood' and ended up doing the whole thing in Easy Pose.  When I was a kid, my Aunt Jane brought her sewing machine to my Grandmother's house to sew some fringe on her living room curtains.  To get to sit with the family, she sat in the living room, on the floor and sewed.  I always think of Aunt Jane when I put a machine on the floor.  Of course, she would have been younger then than I am now.  

Oh, how they used to sit around and laugh when they all got together to visit.  

We had heavy rain last night, so no telling what I'll find coming up in the garden this morning.  It's been like greeting old friends, some I've been expecting and some I've forgotten that are surprising me.  And, of course, the poke salad.  Someone up the hill must have quite the stand of that going on because every year,  I get more seedlings.  It started with that one plant that I posted here so proudly until some of y'all told me what it was and how poisonous it was.  I didn't let mine go to seed, tho.  But, there have been lots of other plants, too.  

The spirea has come back.  It was looking very sad last year and there wasn't much of a bloom, but a little haircut and some good food and it seems to be ready to have another life.  

I didn't expect much bloom from the mock orange after we cut them so drastically last year and that was a safe expectation.  They aren't putting on the show they normally put on, but they are putting out some beautiful blooms here and there.  

Columbines.  The garden starts with white blooms and this is the first of the yellows.  

And, the leadwort plumbago.

I maintain a training manual at work and update it annually.  Last week was that week and it sure was nice to have the garden to walk around in every so often to let my eyes rest and have something pretty to look at.

It's going to be a busy week.  This morning, I have a doctor's appt, first thing and then there will be people in from all over the country.  I've been recruited to pick up lunch from one of Austin's premier barbecue joints on Wednesday.  There was a time I would have been so nervous that something would go wrong, but I'm feeling pretty confident.  What's the worst can happen?  Oh, never mind.  Let's don't do that because in just a couple seconds, I thought of a couple really bad things.  It will be fine.  

Everybody have a great week!  Do something you enjoy, two things if you can!

Lane