First Day of Spring! Happy Birthday Dad.

Happy First Day of Spring and my Dad's birthday.  Glad we didn't have any snow as we did several years ago.  In fact our Cherry Blossoms are quite behind with all the snow we had this year. We do have crocuses and snowdrops popping up along with the occasional Daffodil.

 I made this collage of my House Party Revival for Instagram the other day.  Have started some of the detail stitching for the blocks.

 First was the drizzle stitch and outline around the trees. This picture washed out the green and I used two different threads on the trees.  The red one has a darker variegated thread than the yellow ones.

 Next was an open Trellis stitch around the window and then I did a Palestrina knot instead of back stitch for the four quadrants of the window.

I also did the Palestrina knot around the edge of the roof.  I think I'll stitch around the chimney and will think if I'll add anything else to the block later.

 I also made a one hour basket to hold my stash of 2016 Row By Row fabrics out of the border print.

 Rather than using a fusible I outline machine quilted some of the details.  I used a King Tut Blue around the shape of the houses.

 Another King Tut Green for the grass and a Red for that narrow strip of red along the top.

Kelby Sews has a great tutorial and the basket pattern is a free one on Craftsy. Here is a link to the tutorial.

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.