May OMG: A Finished Flimsy

It was a busy and enjoyable day yesterday. My first stop was to check on the poppy. Do you think it will ever open? I'm betting a day of warmth and sunshine will get it to spread its wings.

Okay, so no poppies yet. It was time to finish off the Snow Globes. I needed to sew together the bottom two rows of blocks...

And then I sewed them to the top half of the quilt, and I had myself a finished flimsy. Ta-Da!

The white snowflake fabric doesn't photograph well, and so the pink fabric, which is a sort of rose pink color, washes out (or darkens...not sure which) to make it look more lavender. Anyway, it looks different in person. Also, I sewed the one seam I needed to make a quilt back from this fabric.

The backing fabric was chosen for its wintery look, but also, I loved the bit of metallic silver. There is a lot of metallic floss in the snow globes, and so this seemed like a good choice. I still had about a half yard left after I made the back, and so I'll use that for something else.

This being May's OMG, I'll be linking up at the finishing party at the end of the month.

There was bread rising upstairs while I was doing my sewing. The instructions suggested an hour and a half was enough time, but mine took 3 hours. Kind of chilly in the house yesterday, I guess. When it baked up, it was a thing of beauty.

I waited impatiently for an hour to cut into it. It was beautiful inside too, and very tasty. It has a nice crust and good flavor.

This is the Sheepherder's Bread that Sue brought me from her trip south this past March. She and her husband stopped off at Erick Schat's Bakkery as they drove through Bishop, California, on their way home.

The bread was good, and sometimes The Google can be benevolent where these kinds of recipes are concerned, and so I went in search of Mr. Schat's recipe. Interestingly, an article from the Los Angeles Times recommended the "bakkery" as a not-to-miss stop if you find yourself nearby. I didn't find his recipe, but I found one from Sunset magazine that I would like to try sometime. My loaf was baked in a loaf pan, and the recipe from Sunset makes a larger loaf. I'm guessing that making half the recipe would work for baking in a loaf pan. That will be for another day, however.

It was time to get to work on the latest Tiny Tuesday block...this one from Sally Trude called the Bear's Bow Tie. Sadie loved these fabrics.

Don't they look beautiful next to my furs?

The block went together fairly simply. It isn't nearly as complicated as it looks.

I gave this one a straight setting.

As I started laying them out for their picture, Sadie registered her disappointment with my arrangement right away. She and Smitty have been attending quilt design school taught by Molly and Buddy, and they have very strong opinions about these sorts of things.

So, I laid the blocks out together for their picture, and I thought this was a pretty good layout.

Sadie disagreed.

No, no, no, this is all wrong.

If you want something done right, get a cat to do it.

And let me tell you, when Sadie works, she moves like a house afire.

There. That's much better.

Hm. I'm thinking it might be difficult to sew them together in this arrangement. We'll take this up again when I have more blocks.

After that, I started working on the May blocks for

The first block is a bee skep. Smitty was helping with this one. Actually, he was no help at all. I was just trying to take a picture and he kept wagging his tail over the top of the block. You can see the shadow in the upper left of the image below.

All the while, he was saying,

Take your picture now...okay, now...ooops too slow...now!

Finally, I was able to get a picture between wags. I was thinking I was finished with this block when I stopped for the day. Later, I realized I need to applique a circle for the opening into the skep. As it is bees can't get in or out, and that won't do at all.

There's another block to do to finish up May's commitment. I'd say I'll finish it up today, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have. Sue and I are heading down to the open house at Adelman Peony Garden. You might recall we took out our iris bed last year, and I'm looking to plant some peonies there this fall. Mike and I will build some raised "pots" for them since the soil is terrible there. Raised pots will give them some good dirt to grow in before they hit the more clay-like soil below. My quest today is to chose five pretty peonies for planting later this year. Hopefully, I'll come back with some pictures for tomorrow's post.

So that's my day. I think we might have threaded the needle between rain storms. A little sunshine would be a bonus.