Wait. What? It's May 16th! What Happened to April?

April had very few showers and a lot of flowers.  I didn't realize how many Magnolia trees are in New Westminster.

 Star Magnolias look so delicate.

 Our February Japanese Cherry Blossoms were very late this year as we had a cold spell with snow in February.

 The tulips were later and longer this year also.

 More Magnolias these ones are in my friend Rita's garden on the quay.

 So pretty.

 My favourite group of tulips outside our condo.

 Love this one.

 A couple days later the ones by my condo are opening up.

 Even the dandelions look great.

 So regal on one of our rainy days.

 My favourite brunch restaurant moved into a larger venue.  From 34 to 99 seats! Plus a larger outdoor seating area that they are prepping to open.

 They opened on Good Friday and boy were they busy.  I got a view of the kitchen

 Counting off groups of tickets to prep.  The wait was long.

 At one point the waiting line for the wait list was out the door.

 They make a fabulous Bacon Benny, I always take the fruit to go.

 The outdoor entrance, so they can be open later than the rest of the RiverMaket when they start doing dinner.  Right now they are just open for breakfast and lunch.

 Love rogue tulips amongst the many.

 These tulips remind me of Mary Englebreit flowers.

 Love the peonies that are starting to bloom.

 I decided to do two wool blocks of the month.  This is Sue Spargo's Fresh Cut.  My friend Uschi Greiner of Woolies On The Coast. She is working hard on getting her website up and running.

 She dyes her own wool and has substituted other fabrics as many from the original block of the month are out of print.

 Block 2, I'm waiting on some of the speciality threads to arrive so I'm working on multiple blocks with the colours I have.

 Love the Knotted Italian border stitch on the yellow polka dot fabric.

 This one has been fun to stitch.

 There are several birds scattered thru the quilt.

 I had lots of fun stitching on so many parts of this block. Cast on Bullion, chain stitch closed Fly stitch.

 Uschi didn't have the striped ribbon and she found just the perfect cotton striped fabric.

 The cream velvet flower was fun to add.

This was another fun one to stitch so far.

 Woven bars at the end of the chain stitch.

 Then Crested chain stitch and French knots were added.

 I've been trying to take up the challenge of stitching every day for a month.  So far I've stayed on track.  I'll probably stitch till the end of the month as I started almost a month ago.

 This is what I was working on last night.

 Lots of little bullion knots around the leaves and then as crosses on the small green circles.

 Woven backstitch.

 This is block 6 when I stopped.

 Now all the basics are done and the fun stitching is to start Spargoing it up.

 I used a periwinkle blue on that striped fabric which I think worked well in the deep V's of the leaf.

 I love the rich purple and teal paperweight print fabric on the leaves.

Next time I'll share my Something's Fishy BOM designed by Uschi which you can still join.

Focusing in February.

My Focus shifted a bit this month as part one of a three month kit arrived from The Stitchin' Post in Sisters, Oregon.  I've long admired Tonye B. Phillips work and have always wanted to do one of her patterns.

 Unfortunately she only has done House Party as a class project and not released this pattern.  I borrowed the image from her website.

 She is doing House Party Revival at the store starting this weekend and I found out that I could order the kit.  Tonye sent me pictures of the house and the details of the window so I can do it from afar.  So far I've traced the four window items onto freezer paper and cut out the fabrics.  I do the starch way of applique and just need to prep them and I'm ready to start stitching.

 I finally got all my templates for my Down the Rabbit Hole last Thursday despite giving the wrong suite number on the invoice.  Luckily I checked and saw them sitting on the floor of our mail area along with another package that I miss-addressed.

 Here is my centre Dresden Plate along with the stems for the flowers will will do next month.  I had thought of doing it in browns to represent the Rabbit Hole and dirt but as it is the centre of the quilt I chose to use yellows instead.

 I'm trying only to use my stash for this project but wanted a third yellow so I invested in a Moda Grunge Yellow to go with my Earth Series by Dianne Leone for Northcott Silk that has been ageing nicely and Rainforest Honeycomb by Alexander Glass.

I've also finished my Hawaiian Applique for Happy Days, the last of the applique blocks for this quilt. On Saturday my friend Tricia is hosting a group in her amenities room and my plan is to work on some of the many pieced blocks I've avoided since November!

 The second recovered package was my King Tut Threads for my 2016 Row by Row projects.

 I also got some 30" zippers from Sew Much Nicer for these projects.

 During our snowy period I worked on a multicoloured shawl that is now finished.  The colours are brighter than the photo.

Feeling good about my adjusted focus in February, and still have time to piece those other Mika and Sunflower Gathering blocks.