Garden Surprises

I looked to my right up a path as I walked to feed the chickens today 

and this is what I saw.

 I looked down at me feet on the path and saw this lovely stuff.

Then  I followed a path through the woods of the garden 

and I turned a corner to find this

Then I fought my way through some overgrown grass that had 

strangled the path and this came into view

On the last part of the path to the house I found this lovely sight 

in a spot where I didn't even know we had this variety planted.

I hope you'll walk with me in my garden on another day.  

You never know what surprises might be in store for you.

It's Raining

Well, maybe not as much as it did in February of last year, but enough that I feared I wouldn't be able to get out and back in if I did what I had planned today.  So instead, I'm here at home looking at a day of unplanned leisure.  Kind of nice.

This is what I was supposed to do today.  Hoku and I had an agility seminar scheduled.  They are still doing it; we just aren't joining.  At least not today.  We may still go tomorrow.  Good thing the teacher, Andrea Dexter, is from the Seattle area.  A little or a lot of rain isn't going to stop a good north-westerner.  Hoku really does enjoy the agility.  She'd be even better at it if her mom found more time to practice with her.  At least my teacher is there so hopefully she will be able to transfer any tricks that Andrea gives us today to me over the course of the next few weeks.

And in case some of the rest of you are also in the doldrums of rainy, snowy, or whatever winter, here is a bright spot to warm your day.  

I don't remember which vireya this is, but it is a sunny spot in the garden when it is in bloom.

Just One More Thing

As Rachel Maddow would say, "Just one more thing".....  I learned another lesson from this quilt.  Do not, I emphasize, do not use a deep blue color in a quilt unless you first wash it with Retayne or some other fixative and then probably wash it a couple more times.  

I should have known better.  I did know better; I just didn't pay attention.

Anyway, this blue bleeds.  It really bleeds.  I knew it would.  I tested it on scrapes and extra material.  I tested it with dye catchers and I still had bleed.  The dye catchers did their job valiantly, there was just too much color flowing plus where the blue was up against some other color in the washing process, it bled onto the other color.

So I had a choice.  I could send it unwashed and tell my nephew and his wife that they would have to dry clean it.  Or I could wash it and suffer the first consequences for them.  I debated.  But the main reason I made this quilt for them was to have them use it.  I visualized them all curled up under it on the couch.  They have one two year old child and another on the way.  They weren't going to use the quilt and dry clean it.  Wasn't going to happen.  It wouldn't have happened in my house when I was young and it still wouldn't.  A quilt that had to be dry cleaned would go into the cedar chest never to see the light of day again.

So I washed it.  And it bled.  It will probably still continue to bleed so I'm sending a box of dye catchers with the quilt.  But now they have no excuse not to use it. 

From a distance, the quilt doesn't look that much different.  At least not to the camera.  But when you do a close up of one of the stars, you can see the blue bleed.

One can always have would of's, should of's, and I obviously have one on this quilt.  But I still, given that it was going to bleed, think I made the best choice.  Wash it, take the hit, and send it off to them to be used.  However next time, I'll remember the lesson learned here.