"Mystery Squash" - are you ready for your mystery squash?

Maybe the heat is doing funny things to my brain, but I've been watching a volunteer squash plant grow and develop for a month or so,  now. What will it be? Will it be worth the time and effort? 

The tune that advertised a popular game when I was young (I know!) came to my mind: "Mystery squash, am I ready for my mystery squash?" 

Maybe  I should have ripped it out and thrown it in the compost pile when I first saw it sprout? I'm hoping it's not a dud!  It's growing very fast, and has almost covered my Cherokee Purple Tomato plant. 

Hmm.......... time will tell.

.Maybe it's a pumpkin? Let me know if you have a guess. 

Top o' the morning!

I don't know that quilting will ever be a great hobby of mine.

Yesterday I shared my 'oops' moment. I realized I should've used a quilting frame or embroidery frame to hold the quilt and border tight.

But who wants to tear everything apart and start over? Not me!

I did tear out the 'stitch in the ditch' basting stitches, and then opened up the bottom of the piece and stuffed in some batting.

I also used embroidery thread to 'tie' my quilt.

It is still not perfect, but much less lumpy looking. I'll take it for a first effort!

Still have to fix the stick and hanging tabs. They are too red neck even for me.

And next time I'll put my mini quilt in a frame of some sort. Next time?

Yes, I think I'll try again. :)

Crocus in March -hurrah!

I thought about the fact that this is the 15th, and thus, Garden Blogger's bloom day.

I had little hope that I had anything blooming yet.

I have been out, raking up the pine needles (there seem to be SO MANY this year!)

We stack the needles on one of our walking paths. And, then I noticed (look on the left, up the path) that we really DID have flowers already! Every year spring is such a wonderful surprise.

Although it shouldn't be a surprise. I see last year in March, my crocuses were blooming.

Saint Patrick's day decorations, or will the luck o' the Irish hold?

I bought some small remnants with shamrocks on them several years ago and then didn't know what to do with them. It didn't seem right to make a bag out of them. Finally I decided to try to make a wall hanging. This seemed like a small enough project that I just might be able to finish it.

Step one, find some fabrics in my stash that would look good with the two shamrock fabrics.

A shamrock template off of the internet was easy enough, and then..........

cutting out the squares and sewing them together went along very quickly.

I appliquéd the shamrock and added tabs............

Things started going wonky when I put the border on and then the backing, though.

You can see from this picture that the squares are not flat and tight. bah.

I hung it up for a few days to think about what to do next. I didn't want to take the whole thing apart again. (I'd already tried to make it look smooth by sewing basting stitches across the quilted pieces. I'll show you what I did to fix it tomorrow.

Snow day in March

We got about 5 inches of snow last night

not much fun to drive in, but beautiful to look at!

I love how lacey these snow covered branches look.

Another Flicker sighting

I saw the flicker again!

This time it looks like he/she is wondering where the tree went -

we lost the tree in a bad windstorm in December.

Here's a great shot of its wings. I wish I remembered if the bird was taking off or landing.