On the weekend, I popped up to Mom’s to finish up the parrot quilt. First I had to sew all the green fabric to the parrot banner. I waited to do that at Mom’s because it was a pretty large chunk of fabric, and she has more space for working on large projects like that.

It also meant I was under the snoopervision of Princess Winnifred. With her help, top construction went pretty smoothly and it was ready to quilt in no time.

I probably won’t surprise you when you hear that Mom took one look at those parrots and decided they needed some fancy quilting.

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It was tricky to get a crisp shot of her stitch work, but I think you can get an idea of it here. After all 10 birds were done, she turned the machine over to me and I did my usually loops all over the background and green fabric. Not long after…

It’s a very simple design, but I think the use of batiks make it pretty spectacular. It’s a decent size too – about 60″ x 70″.

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I love those colourful, rainbow birds, and the heart shape they make. If you’d like the pattern for those birds, you can get it here.

The whole thing is backed with this fun polkadot fabric. And it’s now safe in the hands of neighbour Krista who will use it to raise some money for the Hamilton Aviary. I’ll provide details of the fundraiser as soon as I have them!

When I finished the Thunderstruck socks, I still had a little bit of yarn left. Not as much as when I finished the Hamburger socks. Naturally the Thunderstruck socks were much wider and longer. But it was enough that I thought as long as I was creative, I could eke out another shortie pair.

And so I did! Now Rowan will have a pair that matches her Dad’s socks, as well as one that matches her Mom’s! And I have used up every inch of that Felici which makes me feel good!

I will admit, by the time I had them off the needles, I was a little sick of all that blue and orange. Time for something a little more varied. Details soon!

As Leader & Ender blocks are wont to do, my nine patches have been piling up. It was time to take a break, lay them out and see where I’m at!

They are about 10.5″ big, so they build up to a good size quilt quickly. As you can see I have 19 done so far, but I’ve still got quite a few scraps to work with, so I think I can at least get a twin-sized quilt out of them.

I don’t know about you, but I think there’s something just so charming about a nine-patch block. I may be a bit biased – the very first quilt mom made when I was about 7 years old was a nine patch. I’m a little sentimental about it.

For this one, I think I’m going to do a nice, thin black sashing – something simple to let all those scraps really shine!

I got a cute little Easter hanger from the dollar store, but that’s about the extent of our Easter celebrations this year. Oh, I do have a ham, and a some nice pineapple for dinner. I’ll probably make Dave some scalloped potatoes (I don’t like them much, so they are a real treat for him when I do make them.). But that’s it for us. In truth, Easter isn’t really a big deal for us, but I haven’t even bought myself an Easter dress this year. We’re saving all our pennies for our future house. (Still looking, but not discouraged)

Of course, every day is a feast at Squirrelington’s

If walnuts are out, the patrons still ALWAYS go for them first. But it seems otherwise, everyone has gotten up to speed on the new set up.

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Even the Blue Jays have figured it out, though I’ve yet to be able to get a picture of them at the bar. They are much more wary of me than the squirrels!

The weather has been all over the place this past week. Up, down, rainy, sunny, foggy, windy. Even a little bit of snow. Still that hasn’t kept the neighbourhood critters from stopping by for a bite… and I don’t mean at Squirrelington’s…

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Quite a few of the sprouting bulbs have been munched on, the but the crocus flowers seem to be a bit of a favourite.

Speaking of favourites, my favourite (and oldest) crocus has bloomed.

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Until I got smart, and planted some crocus bulbs out back, this little guy was my only crocus! He’s in the front garden, on a corner that gets just enough sun to keep him coming back year after year. I love his purple stripes.

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This wee little daffodil cluster is a new one from the bulbs I planted last year. It’s one stalk with five or six flower heads, and as you can see with my hands for comparison, it’s quite small.

And last, but definitely not least – this big happy yellow daffy has bloomed. And it won’t be the last – there’s lots more to come!

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Adorable from every angle!

The other day, I had done my required four rows on the mohair wrap, and I wasn’t in the mood to work on the Thunderstruck socks. I wanted something NEW.

I still had the Tabby Cat Chunky yarn sitting out from when I dyed it up the other day, so I decided to go pattern hunting. I came up with Silla. Because of the tweedy shades in the yarn, it needed to be something fairly simple. Any pattern would just get lost.

The asymmetrical fronts give it a little bit of interest. Or at least it will. It doesn’t look like much now, but I’m only about halfway through the yoke.

I know a chunky knit isn’t what most people normal would cast on going into spring… but hey… I’ve never claimed to be normal….

On the weekend, I turned my attention to making more of those pretty parrot blocks. Once I got going, I got pretty good at them. I could turn out a pair in pretty short order. I got to the point where I could put them together with barely a glance at the instructions.

And before I knew it, all 10 were done!

As you can see, they got sewn together, and then a strip of the light blue background fabric sewn to the top. Now the quilt is almost done!

The above panel you see is about 60″ wide x 14″ tall. It will make up the top portion of the quilt. The bottom will be all one fabric.

This beautiful leafy green batik you see on the bottom right. The rainbow flower batik will be the binding, and those colourful dots the back!

It’s a fairly simple design, but I think it’s going to be a stunning one when it’s all together!

Burton, however, would like me to give all these bird-themed projects a rest though… I guess I better go hunt in the stash for some cat fabric!

Well, I did not expected to have these finished quite so soon… but you know how it goes with self-striping yarns. “Just one more stripe” really adds up – even on giant man socks

To recap, the main yarn is KnitPicks Felici, in the Thunderstruck colourway. I have no idea how those colours equate to the name. But they are colourful and fun at least.

My camera is still having difficulties capturing the difference between the two lighter oranges.

I finally got it on that close up, but it took some tweaking. It’s still much MORE noticeable in real life. For cuff, heel and toe, I used some leftover Alley Cat in “Sea Spray”. It was left from Rowan’s Christmas hoodie. It’s not perfect match for the blues, but I think it works none-the-less.

This pair is for my brother for his birthday… which you may recall is in December. So these will live in the gift box for a good long while. Nothing wrong with being ready, though!

My HST Leader/Ender project has been languishing since I finished the last of the 256 HSTs needed for it. To be honest, I’ve been dreading working on it. That’s a lot of HSTs that needed to be arranged and sewn together. It seemed like a HUGE task.

To make it a little easier, I decided to sort the HSTs and break the quilt down into quadrants.

I took an afternoon to lay the first quadrant out.

Normally I would clear the whole bed off to use it, but look closely in the upper left-hand corner of that picture.

I obviously couldn’t disturb Rupert’s beauty sleep. So I quietly worked around him. After an hour or so…

One quarter of the quilt top was done! Only three more quarters to go! That wasn’t so daunting after all.

Right Rupert?