Creativity Happens at the Worst Times

I have a pile of hexie flowers sitting on my worktable. I’ve been waiting for them to tell me what they want to be. Yesterday, while I was watching a quilting video on a completely unrelated technique, they decided. I love their idea. I have all the supplies.

I cannot start the project right now.

I went as far as pulling some material from the stash before I came to my senses. I cannot start anything new until after this fire department auction is over. The pile of material is sitting on my worktable next to the hexies.

Instead, I worked on finishing up some projects. I finished quilting the wallhanging. I made and attached the binding to it. I made and attached the binding to the second Baby Bear Paw quilt. And I started quilting the Blue Thistle quilt, because I had an idea I wanted to try out. In her promotional video for her Every Daisy quilting rulers, Amanda Murphy did a combo design of loops and flowers using the smallest Daisy ruler. I thought it would look good on this quilt:

I love it. The first few flowers are a bit rough but I can always take them out if they drive me nuts. I got better as I went along. The thread is a variegated King Tut 40wt cotton; I wanted to use the Wonderfil Konfetti 50wt, but I could not find a suitable color in that thread. The King Tut, however, has subtle color changes and looks great.

This will go quickly. I did that amount of quilting in about 45 minutes.

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Seedlings are starting to pop up.

These are hollyhocks, a variety called Jet Black, or Nigra, which apparently date back to 1629 and were also planted in Jefferson’s garden at Monticello. I love hollyhocks. I had them in my herb garden at one time, but they died out. Some of these will go in my garden and some will be sold at the plant sale.

And the swiss chard is up:

I could have direct-seeded these, but I thought I might sell some at the plant sale, too.

The fruit trees I ordered from Stark Bros arrived yesterday afternoon. The husband happened to be home from work early, so we went ahead and planted them. The two peach trees—Hale Haven and Reliance—went out by the garden. According to my mother, Hale Haven was the variety my grandfather had in his orchard. They are supposed to be hardy to zone 5. And I am pretty sure that Reliance is the peach I bought a number of years ago at Costco. That is the only peach that has ever produced for us and it is delicious.

The other two trees are a Snappy Mac (Macintosh variety) and a Whitney crabapple. They went in with the trees in the front yard, where we have the apple orchard.

I have so much to do and it all has to wait until after this auction. The husband set the brooder box up in the garage. Getting chicks is on the schedule for next week. I still have to plant the cukes and melons and a few more things for the plant sale. I have to start working on promotional material for the plant sale. I need to dig up lavender, thyme, and other herbs from the garden and pot them up for the plant sale. I got seed potatoes a few days ago and they need to get planted. I’ve got to make a decision on garden layout so I can move the plastic around and start setting up my new watering system. I’ve got three serger classes scheduled for April. And I am going to make a quilt.