It's spring and, as is traditional at our house, babies are being weaned and sent out into the world to live.
I had a sparrow build a nest in a hanging basket on the porch. I'm really careful to stop them doing that, but every few years, they get one past me. I don't mind them being there, but they get really upset when I water the plant. Anyway, these sparrows found a hanging basket right outside our back door and before I knew it, they had a nest built. Soon, we could look in and see eggs, then it got really dark in there for a while. Then one day, I tapped the basket and all that darkness turned into 5 yellow beaks, open for breakfast. Then I looked in and it was all feathered faces and eyes looking out at me. And, the parents were so busy bringing back bugs. All day long it was one or the other of them flying in with a bug hanging out of one side of its beak. And, last week, I got to watch first flights. They flew from the nest to deck furniture close by, then from there, some went out into the yard, but the funniest ones tried to land on the steep plastic roof of my greenhouse and then had to catch themselves and fly a little further. Short bursts that got longer and longer. She kept them in the yard for a few days, being sure to warn us and the dogs if we got too close. And, for a couple nights, they came back to the nest. Now, they've changed shape and look like adults, and while there are a lot of sparrows in the backyard right now, I can't tell which were born here. It was so fun to watch.
Every year, an opossum has babies under my greenhouse. I'm not even sure how she gets into that small space, but she does. Dottie went nuts about the babies in the yard, but she didn't hurt them. Just barked a lot to let us know they were there. This little guy (okay, he was big as a cat) climbed on top of the fence the other day and sat there for nearly an hour. I got close enough to see that he was young and I think he'd just been weaned and was lonely. Poor thing.
This orange iris opened this week. What a beauty! I really need to get this moved. It's grown into the monkey grass border, trying to get more sun.
And, the daylilies are getting started. Just a bloom here and there for now, but it won't be long.
I've been shopping, not for quilts, but for quilt inspiration. One of the first things my first mentor taught me was to pattern draft so I could look at a picture of a pretty quilt and figure out how it was made. It made me a great pattern reviewer when I did that for a short time. When I want quilt inspiration, I don't usually go to my pattern collections, I go to Pinterest. This time, I decided to use eBay for ideas. I've been shopping for quilt kits, not to buy, but to be inspired by. Okay, I did almost buy one. If I hadn't gotten distracted Saturday morning, it would have been mine. But, I have fabric. I can draft. I don't need kits (even though they're a lot of fun). Sometimes I just need ideas and a couple weeks ago, when I was doing all that cutting, that's what I did. I saw a quilt that I liked and I picked fabrics and drafted it and cut it out. I saw this block made in 4 browns and was just blown away.
I had these four blender fabrics I'd bought when Rob and I were driving to different quilt shops one day. It was a fun day and a nice memory the included a very nice lunch. I don't know why I only bought four of the colors. I'd have loved to have the rainbow and make something from that, but I didn't, so they sat in a basket with other fat quarter collections, waiting for inspiration. (btw, there's only one collection of fat quarters in that basket now. I cut the rest into quilts). When I saw the brown quilt, I knew these four blenders would be very pretty this way. I used my Dresden plate ruler, and I cut half the pieces by lining up along the narrow end of the ruler and half by lining up along the wide end (if you want to do this, cut a strip 5" wide along the long side of the FQ and cut the outer blades using the 7" mark (not the end of the ruler, which is 8"), then cut it to 4" wide for the inner blades. A couple of small blades will come from the fat quarter. Center circle is 3.25" diameter). I had originally planned to make the blades and mount the smaller ones to the larger ones before assembly. I realized I was not going to have enough control over where the smaller blades met if I did that, so I made two plates, hand appliquéd one down and then the other on top. This should have been a leader/ender, but I got so excited about it, I had to just do it.
I also got all the wedding ring blocks assembled into rows. Next week, I'll start turning those rows into a quilt. Yay for S curves, right? Yeah! let's go on those S curves! You got this! you can do it, you can do it, if you put your mind to it, go team!
Just pumping myself up for this very difficult task.
I've done it before. I know I can do it again.
Everybody have a great week! I read just enough news to keep up with the utter buffoonery happening in the federal government. And, that's enough. We were in Costco the other day and I reminded Rob that the last ships that were tariff free are arriving now. If we're going to buy it, we need to get on it. But, we also have to factor in the fickleness of the tariffs and whether we even need to worry about that. It's the not knowing that's making things so difficult.
So, I'm making plans to make strawberry jam. Because that's something I can control. That's something I can plan on. That's something I can be confident about. And, I love it. I'm also planning a bird net for my blackberries and there might be enough of them for some jam this year as well.
Figure out what you can do and focus on it. Let the rest happen around you.
Lane
