Okay… it’s going to be hard to part with this one. But I’ve done it, I’ve put it in the shop.

Yes, in addition to the Hidden Heart Baby quilt, I also quilted my Cluckers this weekend.

Aren’t they just awesome? I’ve said it before, but next to cats, chickens are probably my favourite animal. I know it sounds kind of odd, but if you’ve ever kept chickens, you’ll understand.

We had them when I was a kid. When we moved to the country when I was 12, we had to give them up (they went to live with my grandparents who had their own coop). I still long to have a place I can keep chickens again. For now, I’ll make do with sewing them.

These ladies were so much fun to put together, made more so by the themed fabric I had to work with.

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And I’m so glad I was able to get the chicken-wire print for the background and backing.

I still have a good chunk of it left, as well as some other chicken fabrics in the stash. This won’t be my last chicken quilt!

In the mean time, I hope this one lands in a good home!

First, let me wish you all a Happy St. Patrick’s Day. (And a happy birthday to my SIL, Jenn!).

We normally don’t do anything for St. Pat’s around here. But the other day, I took down the snowflake decoration I had hanging from my Welcome sign. It’s too early to put up the hanging basket that lives there in the warm weather, and it needed something. I thought a shamrock would be just the thing and hit the Dollar store. I left it a bit too late though, and there wasn’t much left. All I managed to find was a foil shamrock garland. I cut a few of the shamrocks off, and tied them to the hook on the sign

It’s not quite what I had in mind, but it did the trick! Of course, there was still almost the whole garland left so I hung it between our living room and dining room.

It’s such a silly little thing, but seeing it hanging there has been so cheering this last week! I think I need garlands for all the holidays!

In other green news, one of potted shamrocks is going gangbusters too.

As you may recall, I keep these guys outside in the summer (I have burgundy ones too), but they do fantastic as houseplants as long as they get enough light.

Now… to the fluffy bits…

No Burton… not your fluffy bits! (as cute as you are). Right now I mean the knitting.

Does it look much longer than the last time I showed you? It is. But not as much as it should be. At first I was really good, putting the requisite four rows on it every night before working on everything else. Then things got hectic and I was barely knitting at all. Then when I did have time to knit, I just wanted to work on happy striped socks.

But I need to get back to those four rows each night. It’s the only way Im ever going to get through this one. And I’m determined to do it. Then I promise never, ever, ever to buy mohair again. I love the fabric, but it’s certainly not a thrill to knit with!

Saturday saw me back up at Mom’s at the quilting machine. The first I tackled the scrappy baby quilt.

And I couldn’t be happier with it! Al those little scrap just pop against all the white. I told you I was going to do something a little special with the quilting…

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… and while I did m usual swirls, mixed in amongst them are a bunch of little hearts, randomly placed throughout. Can you see them? I left the coloured scraps un-quilted, which makes them pop just a touch more.

All those little critters were just perfect for the back, and I think the pink binding wraps it all up quite nicely.

This one is now in the shop and ready for a loved little wee one.

The old: This yarn. While not truly old, I bought it last year intending to have it used up by Christmas. Plans changed and it became “stash yarn”. Which qualifies it as old.

The new: It’s a new sock on the needles!!!! Nothing fancy, just a plain, old, south-soothing vanilla.

The somewhat blue: Three cool stripes! (though one is slightly mauve)

It’s a man sock and the colourway is Thunderstruck. I’m not sure how that name correlates to the colours, but hey – it’s fun. It’s hard to see in the picture, but there are three shades of orange too. First a pumpkin orange, then a slightly more coral orange, then a dark red-orange.

They are definitely not colours I normally gravitate to, but they are fun none-the-less.

I’ve had a couple good nights of knitting so I’m almost through the leg. I’m using a little leftover light blue Alley Cat (left over from Rowan’s hoodie) so I don’t have to break up the stripe sequence. I’m definitely enjoying it so far.

That’s the good news.

Now for the bad news. Remember that order of Felici I told you about? When I posted about it, it has been shipped, but not yet arrived. A few days later, it just stopped tracking. I waited, and waited, and then finally contact Knit Picks. It does appear to be lost. They are replacing it, no problem. However, by the time they determined it was indeed lost, they no longer had and of the Goth Kitty! The whole reason I placed the order in the first place. They are also out of the Rainbow, which make me sad, but not as sad as losing out on that darn Goth Kitty. Oh well. Maybe I’ll get lucky and that lost parcel will get found and make its way to my door.

It’s been another week with not much chance to sew, but I was able to carve out a little time to work on one small project.

All the snowballed leader/ender blocks have been sewn together and surrounded with a pretty white on white border. Unfortunately, this picture is not showing how bright and cheerful all those little scraps of colour are.

I’ve got this fun little animal print for the back, and the scrap binding bin yielded up some pink for the binding. I’m thinking I might do something a little special with the quilting on this one… stay tuned!

…and Burton knows just what to do.

It has been a mostly glorious week. Sure,a few days were cloudy, and one even rained, but to have afternoon above 10 degrees C…. fabulous!

This coming week is not expected to be quite as nice, so we took advantage of the sun and warmth and spent as much time outside as possible.

It’s still early to do much in the garden, but I cleared away some winter detritus, and cut down a few old stems, and was rewarded with a little more green poking through.

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Top Row L-R: Allium, Yarrow and Leopard’s Bane. Bottom Row: Day Lilies, black Irises, and Chrysanthemums.

The trees still aren’t showing much in the way of signs of life, with the exception of my lilac.

She never disappoints. She is one plant I’m really going to miss when we move. You may recall, she’s a double bloom white with just a hint of pink (White Russian). I’d never seen one like her before, and I’ve never seen one since. Doubtless there are more out there, and I really hope so. She’s too big to dig up and take with me. She was one of the first things I planted here.

One thing that didn’t fare well this winter is my birdbath

I guess I should have brought it in last fall. I thought I had enough clear on it to weather the winter, but apparently not. It’s only on the bottom half, which is odd. But oh well, I can always strip off the remaining bits and repaint the bottom. It’s not like I don’t have a boatload of paint!

Is your world getting sunnier and greener?

I’ve mentioned before the Relic is a REALLY BIG cat, and Rupert is a REALLY SMALL cat. But I think this picture sums it up perfectly

It didn’t take long at all to burn through the snowballed blocks I had cut up for my last Leader/Ender project. There was just 48, just enough for a baby blanket, and they are all ready to be assembled into a top now.

Which means I needed another L&E project. My basket of 4 inch scraps was overflowing so I figured I should do something with them before things got out of hand. My plan was to make four patches for a Jacob’s Ladder quilt, but as I started going through them, I noticed there were quadruples (or more) of quite a few of the prints. So I switched gears and chopped up a pile of black solid squares.

And I’m now happily making a pile of cheerful nine-patches instead.

And I’ve got quite a few scraps to go through so this L&E should last a while!

Here’s where my other projects are at:

• Cluckin’ Eh! – Ready for quilting
• Spinwheels – Nine pinwheels left
• Around the World in 256 Days – Ready for top assembly
• Homecoming quilt – Just got to sew assemble and sew the last round.
• Which way, Baby? – Ready for top assembly.
• L&E quilt – As you see above

Since I last showed you anything on the needles, by knitting has been mostly neglected. I haven’t even put any of my required rows on the mohair stole. I only knit in the evenings, and lately, I just haven’t had the energy.

But, the last few nights, I finally found some juice, and focused all my stitches on the Burger Baby socks.

The Hamburger colourway of Felici makes a great pair of shortie socks. Like the full length pair I made, the pattern is The Socks Are Lava.

The full length pair are being sent off this week. But this pair, I’ll hang onto until the beginning of June when our Miss Rowan turns 13!!! I’ve got a few other things planned for her gift, but it’s nice to be ahead of the game with these.

Saturday was eaten up by errands and there was no time to sew. So you can bet your bottom dollar I was devoting Sunday to my little black machine. I really wanted to complete at least one top on the weekend, and since my lovely chickens have been sew patient, I decided they would be the big winner (but not winner, winner, chicken dinner). They just needed their nesting boxes (sashing) and a border, so it really only took a couple of hours.

That’s sixteen cluckers all snug and happy in their homes. And as you can see, I had a nice chicken-themed fabric for the outside border too.

This was such a fun one to put together. I really love that chicken block, and it was a great use for my “Hen Pals” layer cake. The whole thing finished up at about 68″ square.

As I mentioned before, I bought enough of the chicken wire fabric for the back. And I felt it really needed something red for the binding.

There wasn’t a lot of red in the stash to choose from. But there was just enough of the border fabric leftover from Shave and a Haircut. I think it will bring out the red and golds in the chicken blocks nicely.

So this one is ready for quilting this weekend. Look for an FO post sometime next week!

“Yay Mom! We did it! We put those cluckers in their place!!!”