Garden Love

Every year about this time, just as spring arrives and it's nice enough to spend time enjoying the outdoors that never ending to do list of garden chores begins to add up. 

When you have 5 acres the list can get pretty long. Especially when you spend as much time on Pinterest as I do; convinced that every other woman in the world lives like....well Martha Stewart. That I am probably one of the few who don't have perfect tulips popping  up, vegetables planted and mulched, roses pruned, cutting garden seeded and an endless array of other perfect woman chores that I will probably not get to until I am 85...if then.

But today as I was enjoying the breathtaking hill country views from my favorite rocking chair on the front porch it occurred to me how many small little things in my yard bring me joy. Those little often overlooked items that have resided on our land from the previous owners over 15 years ago, the garden art that seems to get better with age, the trusty perennials that ask nothing of me but admiration or my sweet canine companion Angel who couldn't care less how the yard looks as long as she can be by my side.

So I pulled out the camera and spent the afternoon with Angel snapping pictures of all the things on our land that I love. And once again I am reminded that when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations I have really good days!

Hexi Quilt

This is the latest quilt I finished about 2 weeks ago. I made it for a 10 year old girl who lives near me named Kati. She helped pick out the fabrics so it would match her room. I love hexi's so had fun making this with a pattern I picked up at Valli & Kim where I purchased the fabric. Kim at the store embroidered Kati's name in one of the Hexagon's for me and Delpha who teaches classes there did the quilting on her long arm. I really love the way it turned out. Kati did a great job picking out the fabric combinations and included many Kaffe Fassett which is always a good thing!

The Raven

 I love, love, love this fabric. For the past year I have been looking for a fabric that I thought would be the perfect one for my husband's Christmas present. He's not much for bright contemporary colors and I didn't want to make one with dark traditional fabrics. Michael Miller came out with a line called Edgar Allan Poe Nevermore and it couldn't have been more perfect! Now here is where it gets weird. My husband is a writer and at the time I was making this quilt which he knew nothing about he was writing a song about a raven. The song was filled Poe like imagery. It was very exciting when he finished his record and I realized how much the quilt and songs had in common. He was thrilled with the quilt and gets plenty of use out of it. The name of his raven song is "Count Your Blessings" and I certainly am counting mine :)