Spring Time and a Springtime Quilt

The weather has finally turned a bit warmer and the nasty Polar Vortex has relinquished its hold on Michigan. Yay. What that means for life on a dirt road is …. mud. Lots and lots of mud.

Snow Melting

You see we have such a deep level of freezing in the ground that as the air warms up the huge piles of snow and makes them melt, the water cannot absorb into the ground. (Due to the aforementioned frozen ground.) Therefore it makes mud. 😦 Ooey gooey squishy makes your white car all brown kind of mud! Luckily for me my new ride has all wheel drive and all that mud hasn’t stopped me from buzzing around. It has slowed me down considering some of the pot holes on the dirt road could make me bottom out if I am not careful. LOL. You can actually tell who the locals are on our dirt roads as we drive like we are drunk and pay no attention whatsoever to which side of the road we should be on. We weave and bob just to find the path with the least amount of mud and potholes. 😛 Today should be a balmy 55 degrees and hopefully some of this mud will dry out.

Spring also means more animals are wandering around our property. I just saw a very large Tom Turkey and his 5 Tina turkeys by the house munching on sunflower seeds. They ran away before I could snap a picture though. We of course have quite a few birds: Red Headed Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, Titmouse, Chickadee, Mourning Doves, Yellow Finches, Cardinals, Nuthatches and a few more I don’t recognize. Oh and I did see a Robin today. Hurrah.

Hairy Woodpecker

I got into trouble with the hubby the other day. I had been throwing old apples out the back door for the squirrels this winter. It was so cold and I thought they could use a little extra food. Well, then I had a couple of pieces of stale bread and I thought that maybe the birds would like that, so out it went. And then came this little fellow.

Opossum

He was rather cute, but looked like he needed glasses. Kind of fumbling around among the discarded bird seeds looking for food. Cool, eh? I thought so until a little while later I saw…

Raccoon looking for bread.

Yeah. A raccoon. Very cute. Very smart. Very much trouble if they get too friendly around your house. They have been known to make such a pest of themselves. Hubby was not so happy and so he curtailed my feeding of the wildlife. 😛

He was inspired to make a new squirrel feeder though.

Squirrel Jail

It is really cute! The little squirrels go into it and eat the seeds. Alas…the coons like it too so it had to come back into the house until there is more food from nature. Oh well.

Enough about the weather. I know you want to look at quilts right? 😉

My quilt guild had garage sale the other day and I managed to snag some fabric in colors that I LOVE.

Fat Quarters

I have such a hard time thinking about what colors and patterns would go together that I am always thrilled to find things all together. With all the grey and mud and dreary that this spring has given us I decided I needed to make a spring time quilt. As you know, I am a new quilter. This will be my 4th quilt I think? Anyhow, I asked around and was directed to a link that showed how to make a Disappearing 9 Patch. The end result looks complicated to a beginner like me, but it was super easy. This first picture is it laid out on my bed as I was trying to set the pattern.

Disappearing 9 Patch

And here it is all pieced together.

Pieced Disappearing 9 Patch

Try to imagine how it will look without the fuzzy slippers. 😉 I think I will do some free motion quilting on it and keep it this size. For a baby quilt. If someone decides to give me a niece. 😉

I have a few other projects in the works, but no photos of them yet. With the weather warming up I am looking to get outside and enjoy the fresh air and perhaps with my rain boots on enjoy a walk on my mud road.

Thanks for popping by!