Some spools and sewing baskets

This week I have made a row of spools and a row of baskets for my Bee in my Bonnet Row-along quilt. Both rows were fun and ended up pretty straight.

 

My mug row is the most curved one, so next week when I have finished the row of flowers which is the very last one, I must be careful when I sew the rows together. There will be an inner border and a wider outer border to make after that.

 

The Spring came late this year, but it was very short. We have such an abundance of flowers everywhere. The lilacs are in full bloom too, and I brought these home when I was pruning dry branches in my FIL's garden and accidentally cut some fresh ones too.

 

The temperatures have been up to 25C (77F) and more during the last week, and today my first peony opened!

This week's rows and other finishes

This week I picked some apples and went zig-zag with my scrappy quilt. I managed to finish two more rows for the Bee in My Bonnet Row-along I'm making at my own pace.

 

My first four rows look like this, and next week I'm making some mugs and flying geese.

 

My blog remote control (DD) helped me find what was suddenly wrong with my pictures: The camera has settings for white balance, and somehow I had managed to change them. It made the pictures all blue, and I only thought it was the spring light, and tried to edit the worst of them. With her help I found the settings and at least the top photo looks OK now. The wind was blowing so much that I couldn't get the four rows lay still but had to take them in for a group photo shoot.

 

I made a little baby quilt for a friend who is going to have a baby next month.

The fabrics are all leftovers from the preemie quilts I have made earlier.

 

In the evenings I have been knitting dishcloths from some lovely cottons and bamboo cotton  blends.

Then I had to try this new to me traditional potholder pattern. I should have used heavier yarn, because the holes are so big you can burn your fingers if you use this for something really hot. This potholder is double-sided, the reverse is black. Can you find the missing stitch? I only noticed it now from the picture. I will go and add it, no problem. This will be my first entry for the Craft Olympics 2013 Special category.

New quilt in process

Finally I feel like making quilts again. When I pulled fabrics for the Happy Scrappy Spring quilt, I decided to use the same fabrics for another scrappy quilt I have been wanting to sew. It is Lori Holt's Bee in My Bonnet Row Along that started last August, but the free tutorials are still available on her blog. I have finished the two first rows.

 

For a long time already, I have cut the leftover bits of my fabrics into 2½" to 1" squares, the biggest size I can, and tossed them all in a jar next to my cutting table. I was lucky: I needed 44 - 1½" squares in white for the butterfly blocks, and that was exactly how many I had in my jar.

 

The 4-patch blocks of the first row were cleverly sewn from 3" squares and cut twice after they were joined together.

 

The Spring is really coming here too. You can see our snow is almost gone, but we need warmer temperatures and some rain before there will be any new green to see.

 

The blackbird has started to sing, early in the morning and late in the evening is the best time to listen. We had a couple staying over winter, but they don't sing then.

 

I have seen cranes flying over the village on their way from the South, and Mr. K saw some swans already. The ponds are all still under ice, but seagulls have arrived to wait for open waters.