Winter Days
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Thank you for all your kind words of encouragement on my last post about my beginner’s watercolor journey! I love that you are all so sweet and your comments are always kind…. thank you!
The past few weeks have been rather busy. I have had some big days of doing stuff for others – my parents, other family members, and friends…. the days that take me away from home really wear me out. It’s not that I don’t like being in town or grocery shopping or running errands… well, I don’t like medical appointments…. but it’s more that I just love being home.
I especially love being home in the winter…. I love the wood heater being on, doing some baking or making soup…. and I have been doing a bit of that and bringing some over to Rose Cottage for the oldies:
Some of you have asked how my folks are doing – they are settling into Rose Cottage well, thank you! My dad and I have been pottering around in the garden… we planted out a whole bunch of pots with an assortment of flowers….
We also put in some herbs and veggies, and then of course, we had some heavy frosts last week… so I was out early watering the plants to melt the frost so that when the sun hit them it wouldn’t kill them… I managed to save all but one plant, so I am pretty happy about that.
Talking about the garden, it has gone crazy. We have daffodils blooming and strawberries growing in the middle of winter:
I have never seen the bulbs coming up this early… and as for strawberries in winter, while it has been so cold….??
It is strange….
Oh, and this snapdragon self-seeded in our wall last Spring… and is still going strong!
Like I said… strange…
The fur babies are also enjoying winter, competing for who gets to cuddle up on the quilt on my lap…
Quilts, fur babies, and winter… what more could I ask for?!
Snow… I would love some snow…. but that is not likely to happen where we are in Australia… sadly!
I hope you are all enjoying the season you are in…
Here in PA it is fairly hot with heat advisory
I bet your folks are in heaven being near you! Your plants look so healthy, maybe it’s just the right spot for them. I hope you get your snow. 😀
Hello Joy, I so enjoy your blog and all the ideas you share. I am hoping to be able to make your sampler QAL, but I am struggling with color selection and wondered if you can help with more information for us newbies. I am working with just scraps that I have collected through the years so because I would like to have a finished piece that looks halfway decent I would like to know more about future blocks. Such as how much does the background fabric show in other blocks? How many light and dark fabrics are being used? What other suggestions can you make about choosing fabric from a stash and not from a co-ordinated collection? Should you pick like patterns and colors or with your block designs will it matter? So hoping you can help. Thanks, Janice
Hi Janice,
Thank you so much for your sweet words!
I am so glad you want to join in on the sampler. Thanks for asking about color selection! When I started quilting I had such trouble with that (still do sometimes!).
For this sampler if you choose a light background fabric, it will make up about half of the fabric of the quilt. Then you can pick a mix of medium to dark colors for the “feature” fabrics. Don’t stress too much, just pick fabrics you like! It is going to be a scrappy quilt, but as long as you use the same background fabric in all the blocks, it will look cohesive. If you like you could even choose one color of scraps, like all blues, or pick two colors… any of these ways will look lovely!
Hope that helps, and if you like you can send me some photos and I can try to help you a bit more…
Lv,
Joy xx
It’s been very hot here (yesterday it was 36C, feeling like 44). I’m so glad to hear your parents are settling in well and I’m sure it’s a huge relief for you to have them closeby where you can keep an eye on them. No doubt they think THEY’RE keeping their eye on YOU.
I enjoy winter a lot. More so right now when the temps are above 90F and not a rain cloud in sight. I hope this is the year that you get at least a dusting of snow. Watching snowflakes fall is such a magical sight.