A little of this, a little of that – but first don’t forget about the give away – I have trouble with my computer server now and then the last couple of months and it wasn’t working right last night for awhile so if you couldn’t get on my blog try again.
Enter the giveaway at this link and tell me where you are from. Last night before I shut down the computer I saw I had 44 comments on the give away already – lets see how high that number gets 
Everyone welcome – this is an international give away.
I cut some flowers for a cute little mug that I have that isn’t even 4 inches tall. It normally just sits on a shelf looking cute. But right now I have some cute little Lily of the Valley’s blooming and thought I needed a few in the house. In fact I had to put them right next to the computer so I can enjoy them.
I am really enjoying this new table of mine – it is working out great as a computer/sewing table and the topper looks just right on it.
It got up to 80 degrees yesterday! Wow – it won’t last though – would you believe it is possibly going to get down to 35 degrees on Thursday night or is it Friday – I will have to keep an eye on the news – of course I have my little garden planted yesterday, tomatoes, peppers and such – my rose bushes are covered in buds and here they are saying north of us at the county line between Arkansas and Missouri might get snow! Unbelievable. I will have to cover what I can and bring some things in the house. And here it was in the 80’s yesterday and for Tuesday and Wednesday as well. It will be back to windows closed, sweatshirt on and heat on to stay warm – I do not ever remember a spring like this and I have been here in Arkansas for 32 years.
My rhubarb with a petunia by it. Good thing I didn’t plant all the petunia’s yet – I will hold off until after the weekend for sure now.
More of the Lilies of the Valley in the flower bed.
More quilting done on the Bow Tie – this was from Saturday.
This part on Sunday. I skipped Monday.
Last night instead of hand quilting I was hand piecing a block for the Patchwork of the Crosses and have this much of this block done, now the row of white around it.
I’m already itching to start piecing another quilt – I’m really bad sometimes! I think instead of a new top I really need to get the nine patch quilt basted and start the straight line quilting on that one instead – it is about 80 x 80 so it will take me awhile – that should satisfy the urge to start something new.
really and truly this time. Look at these azaleas. I had a couple branches that had grown so tall last year much taller than most of the rest of the branches that I decided to trim them off for a table decoration. And I left them tall for fun.
And I moved the bird feeder after I took the above photo so the birds will leave the garden alone. Of course they have to find it now in its new location. I threw a cup of seed out on the ground to help lead them to it – no birds yet -
but the squirrels found the seed on the ground already and scattered when they heard me come out the door and ran up the nearby tree – you can see this one peaking out.
The first clematis blooms.
Rose buds by the deck.
More of the azaleas. 3 big bushes of dark pink, one bush of red and one of white. I planted two more that I rooted off of the red and the white but those are still small and you can’t see them in this photo. I also have one that is another shade of pink on the opposite end of the white not shown in this photo.
and the wild violets pop up all over the place and I let them – I really like them.
No quilting photos this morning. I was busy yesterday with outside stuff and never got around to any until late in the evening and didn’t get any photos. I got my garden planted yesterday – a small garden lets hope it grows. I added fertilizer, lets hope we don’t have a drought and heat wave like last year.
And here are the leaves on the trees! green grass that has already been cut once and will be ready for cutting again in a couple days. A couple of the trees are still pokey and the leaves are just buds but they will be open fully soon.
It is so nice looking out the window now while I sit at the computer or the sewing machine and see so much green outside! The leafs seemed to have appeared on the trees practically overnight. The rose bushes by the deck are covered in buds and the clematis are flowering – well one of them is. I will try to get photos later – I was going to take one yesterday but they weren’t fully open.
For all that asked about the sewing pressing foot that is on the machine – it is a 1/4 inch foot with a nice ridge on it – I left a link in the comments on yesterdays post . I think I mailed the link to everyone but if I missed anyone you can find it there.
I really didn’t do all that much yesterday – I was kind of lazy I admit and finished a book and did the patchwork on the table runner using up all the squares I had, now to decide on a small border for it. I used two mini packs of 2 1/2 inch squares that I had and cut 2 1/2 inch squares of white to go with it. I will look through the stacks of fabric to see what I have that could possibly go with this for a border and continue on from there. (this was already about half way done so I really didn’t do that much work on it yesterday)
I finished one row of quilting on the Bow Tie Medallion on Friday night and Saturday I rolled it down and marked designs on part of it and got started quilting it after I took this photo. – It never really changes as the designs just repeat but one day it will be done.
This much of the this POTC block is finished, I haven’t spent too much time working on this block this past week – normally I would have been done with it in two days and I think I had this one laid out 4 or 5 days ago – I use the new sewing machine as my excuse for not working on it. Again I didn’t do much work on this one yesterday I had already been part way done with the outer ring and added more.
Another one I started and now neglect is the Fantasy Floral block – the green is done and I am working on the light purple. Haven’t worked on this one for a couple days.
I really need to get busy and plant these veggies seed packets that I picked up last week and hadn’t gotten started. I bought a small bag of seed potatoes also and need to get them in the ground – my excuse it has been cooler than normal for April but really not so cool that I couldn’t have gotten started. Hopefully I will get busy and get that done today. It is a very little garden – I think I have mentioned before that it is mainly for me, Mike doesn’t eat all that much in veggies – he is picky.
A little this morning and an hour and a half last night – quilting on Bow Tie Medallion is moving along once again – but I haven’t worked on Patchwork of the Crosses – Oh well, I’m sure I will get back to the other quilts again soon – the fingers will only last so long and then hand quilting break time will start again.
I got done with the last little bit of the area I had left off on Saturday and sprayed the blue lines out and left it to dry – here is what the back is looking like if you have not seen it – kind of hard to see the quilting but this is the color of the back – beige with white print.
Then I cranked it down and got back to work.
Where I left off last night and hope to pick back up on sometime today or evening.
I am enjoying the move I made of the cutting table and everything is so nice and neat right now 
I wonder how long that will last?
the clematis is going crazy growing outside – I actually have buds on some of them right now – I have six different plants, some are not as big as others – this is the oldest plant right here – it is growing and trying to find places to cling to.
Leafs are on the trees – well some trees – some only have buds.
Like this one – but this is the last tree to loose it’s leafs in the fall so I guess it is only right that it is normally the last tree to get its leafs.
Spring – oh joy! now if only I didn’t have allergies to just about every tree and grass outside!!! 
oh well, I stuff my pockets with tissues so I’m ready when I sneeze – and yes I take allergy meds – 2 of them – can’t imagine how bad it would be without them! But you know I love spring anyhow!
Time to prep some more colors and white for the Crosses. I have run out of white once more and don’t have enough to finish the block I started last night. When I get done with this part of the block – no more white pieces. Better get busy 
I pulled out some colors to mix in with what I have also to mix in for more blocks – what I have and the colors I pulled. I might grab one more red and maybe another blue to mix in -
I got two more rows sewed on the 9 patch yesterday as well – I hope to squeeze in another row today – maybe two – depends on how busy we are doing yard/house stuff. I have had to drape half a row over the top as I am running out of room on this design wall once again. Three rows on the bottom to attach.
Several have asked how we deal with the tornado warnings and how scary is it. I think we are so used to the warnings that we never really think it will get us. We normally have about 2 or 3 warnings a year – rarely more than that. But there has been a time or two when we had 2 or 3 warnings in one day. Neither Mike nor I have ever seen a tornado although the closest one has been to our house has been about 5 miles east of us that did a small amount of damage before it went back up in the sky and skipped another 15 miles down the road and did major damage some years back to a low population area. We have a tornado shelter and we do use it. We both have a weather alert on our telephones and if there is a tornado coming to our area we get a phone call alerting us and it gives us plenty of time to grab a few things and go sit safely. There are sirens that go off at the town 12 miles from us – the closest siren is about 5 miles from us and sometimes we can hear it in the house and sometimes not – depends on the weather.
Another question is what do I grab to bring to the shelter with us – well – already in the shelter – I keep bottled water and a tightly sealed plastic box with a change of clothing and snacks and first aide kit. What I grab – a large tote bag with maybe not what a lot of you would grab but what I feel I want – my laptop, my kindle, book light, flashlights, camera and phone and all the battery connections & power cords for them (just in case the house is lost I have all I need to make them work). Then I quickly go to the kitchen to grab my medications and toss them in the bag. (I run to the bathroom – never know how long I will be in the shelter!) I grab a jacket as the shelter can be chilly even in summer. The kindle so I have something to read while I pass the time if I feel I want to. My phone – text message the girls that we are safe in the shelter and chat if I want also I have the weather aps on it so I can be checking the radar and no when it is safe to come out – the laptop – it has all my photos on it. I feel that quilts can be replaced – several wondered how do I decide what quilts do I grab – I don’t – really I am not so attached to any quilts that I have made – I can always make more. I love them but they are replaceable. Sometimes if I have hand piecing handy I might grab a box to spend time sewing while waiting.
I would say when we get the phone call we most likely have 5 to 10 minutes to get in the shelter so I have time to do all of the above! Early warnings are a real blessing! We have hardly ever been in the shelter for more than 20 minutes at a time occasionally though we have had to go back to it several times over a span of 4 hours or so – one day we were in 3 separate times for about 20 minutes each of those times. I keep saying I need to put a fresh coat of paint in the shelter to freshen it up and find a Wizard of Oz poster to hang up on a wall – I can have a weird sense of humor 
maybe I need to do that this week!
So I hope that answers all the questions – I do hope I continue to never see a tornado and that one never hits our house – we have been here in Arkansas 33 years this summer (32 in this house).
Well the Rainbow quilt is now squared up and ready for the boarder which will be narrow strips of some colors – I’m contemplating a very narrow boarder of black all the way around the quilt before adding two or three narrow borders. Something to think about and that will wait for a week or two. Here it is hanging the opposite direction than what it had been hanging. It always looks like it isn’t straight – it is I just don’t have enough room to stand back far to take the photo and so I am usually almost at an angle.
Patchwork of the Crosses – almost ready for these blocks to be put into rows. I needed 11 blocks so I could extend the 5 x 5 rows to 6 x 6 rows and I am working on the 11th of those needed blocks.
The one I finished this morning and the last one that needs the one row of white blocks all the way around it and it will be done also. I wasn’t going to put more yellow in these final 6 blocks as I mentioned a week or so ago but I had no other colors already printed and cut that went with this one so I went to the yellow. I will have to get more colors ready for the next round of the quilt when I am ready to extend it to 7 x 7 rows. I should be able to get all of these up on the design wall and decide on color placement this weekend. I will show another photo then – then it will be back to work for a week or two sewing 11 blocks and connector blocks in place.
Ah – the winter storm is close to being just a memory once again – it has warmed up to 35 degrees and all the ice is melting.
The daffodils will be standing back up again tomorrow and if I see any with broken stems they will come in the house.
I had to clear a path to walk to in order to get to the steps which also had to be cleared off so I could feed the birds who have been acting like they are dying of hunger when actually they have been getting a full feeder almost every day.
Some icicles still hanging in the shade – they should be gone tomorrow the weekend is to be in the high 50’s and get this – Monday 40% chance of wintery mix once again! (those forecast seem to change daily so who knows when they will say on Monday) Then back in the 50’s by the next day – one day winter will be but a memory once again.
