Very Valuable Advice

I read this on the needleprint blog some time ago (It is one of the blogs that I have listed on the sidebar, written by Jacqueline Holdsworth ), and it has really stuck in my mind.  It is one of the most useful bits of advice on creativity and how to proceed with a project: 
I'm sorry I can't direct you to the place of the original post, because I just did a screen capture to remember it, and now I can't find where on the blog it's located,

Sunday Morning Reflections

Aren't weekend mornings the best time to think about all sorts of things?  things that happened over the past week, what you might want to accomplish over the next few days, gaze out the window and see what show nature is putting on today...

 My orchid is blooming like mad right now, and it even has a double bloom- like an egg with a double yolk.

I sewed a bit on my bonnet girls quilt yesterday, and pieced the center quite simply:

 I decided to use only 12 of the blocks, and so I have 3 leftover,

they are pretty too, and could be nice sewn into another project, but I'd rather stop at just making one project with these blocks.  If anyone else would like to have them, either to sew something, or just to study the way the applique was done, just leave a comment below, and send me your snail mail address in an email and I'll pass them along. 
The applique is done quite nicely, you can see some pencil outlines on the white background to show where to place the pieces, as well as on some of the lighter fabrics, I suppose to show where to turn under the cloth to sew it in place.  Sort of like a match-up puzzle.

I started a new knitting project,  (well, actually two of them)
It is going to be a cardigan for me.

 It will be a tweedy dark blue.  This picture shows how far I got with the first ball of yarn.  It is on 4.5mm needles and it is a simple stockinette stitch-- that's about as easy as you can get!
This is a photo of the goal:

from the book, "Knitting at Home, 60 Classics from Ella Rae Designs", by Leanne Prouse

 It is going to be quite a big project for me, and so I am not going to take any chances in it shrinking later, so I am using a Superwash wool!

 You can see that at the moment, the live oak trees are shedding their old leaves.  Every day Richard blows off the deck, and every day more leaves drift down, pushed off the tree by the new leaves,

 And this morning, there were several cardinals darting around,
I tried to get a photo of them but I was quite far away, and I don't have a zoom lens on my camera, so I apologize for the blurriness,
Cardinals are quite new to me, since they don't travel as far north as Saskatoon.  I had only seen them in books before, and I think they are really pretty birds.

I hope you are having a great weekend too, and storing up lots of energy for the week ahead!

Happy Saturday St Patricks Day!

Happy St Patrick's Day, (especially to you, Patti!, happy Birthday)

The weather has been fabulous, and the azaleas continue to bloom!

We've had a quartet of turtles in the creek who like to sun themselves on a log, but they are very shy, when I try to take a photo of them, they dive down into the water,

And, ta-da, the popover pan works beautifully,

the recipe Deirdre directed me to worked really well, and they suggest brushing the hot popovers with melted butter and rolling them in sugar and cinnamon. mmmmm

 I tried something different, and was inspired by the wonderful artwork of Geninne, this is her blog, here, and I have her link on the sidebar under the blog list,
She does amazing beautiful things, that just make you wish you could be that way too!

 So, I got out my little art box of watercolors and made an imaginary fish,
and some imaginary butterflies...

 It was really fun, and pleasant, dabbling away

 This winter, on my "sabbatical", I'm having a good time trying all sorts of different things that seem to get pushed off during regular life! 
I've also added a couple more blogs to my sidebar that you might like-- Artisun, here, which I find really interesting-- written by a wonderful art teacher in California who shows what her talented students are working on as well as her own stuff.

Bonnet Girls

Yesterday I did a little bit of sewing,
I wanted to do a few more reference swatches for FMQ (Free Motion Quilting), 

 and so I did these four, but then my embroidery foot/FMQ foot, broke, so I had to stop.  (The metal bar just broke off!)

 However, I am getting quite a library of swatches!

I moved on to another project-- the antique Bonnet Girls.
These are a group of applique blocks that I bought one year at Houston Quilt Market.  There are 15 blocks.  They were sewn into a quilt top with plain white fabric as a checkerboard, but it was really wonky, so I took it apart and washed the blocks.

 I decided finally to just start something using them.  So first I am sewing a 3/4" border of yellow, and then a 3/4" border of light grey around each of them.  (Oh, I trimmed them all to 10 inches, since they were pretty uneven). 
As I was handling them, I appreciated all the lovely fabric combinations that were made,
I also noticed the embroideries in the little bouquets were not all done the same:

 My personal favorite, with tiny little bullion knots,
Plus, this ladies bodice and umbrella is the exact same shade as the grey I am using for the borders!

I'm not sure what I'll do with them next.... thinking of various types of pieced sashing,  maybe I'll need to do some embroidery!! Who knows...
Any ideas would be welcome.