First of all, I have to say that we got lucky with the weather today. It is a beautiful, dry, mostly sunny day here in Portland, and my boyfriend and I had the day off, so after a morning errand (which included a filling breakfast out), we returned to the house to do some yard prep. He took the hoe to the veggie garden area while I was working on weeding around the flower beds, so we should be ready for a trip to the nursery in the next couple of weeks!

That said, it's supposed to return to the usual rain by tonight, so back to the sewing studio tomorrow. The week to come is going to be one of those "just get things done" sort of weeks. No surprises (hopefully!), no special projects, just finishing tops and working on quilting.

Last week I basted and started quilting another of my "monochromatic" (or more accurately "analogous color") quilts.

Planning to finish this guy up in the next couple of days, hopefully... I'm so confident of that, I'm about to baste another quilt:

I don't know if this will be next in the quilting queue, but I also managed to get borders on the green and aqua curved-piecing quilt this Sunday. I didn't expect to put borders on it, but after adding sashing

it just felt unfinished. I definitely feel this brings it more completion:

Next week I'll be heading out to Montana with J to visit with his family... which means staying in the room just next to his mom's long-arm! Trying to decide which quilt to take with me just in case I get some practice time in. I'll keep y'all posted!

As I went outside yesterday morning, taking advantage of a rare moment of sunshine to add to my meager compost pile in my back yard I noticed the first hints of the tulips emerging from the ground.

Which compelled me to investigate further... and here is what I found among the winter's detritus of an ignored yard:

day lilies

new shoots on an ancient rose that we transplanted last fall and I had assumed totally bit the dust

and my spindly little apple sapling, which is establishing itself from the roots of an old, mistreated, slightly damaged fruit-bearing apple that I had removed a couple of years ago!

you can *kind of* see the buds on the branches, though one of the drawbacks of these digital point-and-shoot auto cameras is that it doesn't always focus on what YOU are focusing on!

Now it's just a matter of waiting for the next dry day that ideally is over 50°F to do a little clean up around these beauties!