I am hoping, dear friends, that your Easter was full of blessings. We began ours with our farm animal friends and ended ours with a long drive to take Ryan back to Penn State. It was a beautiful, crisp, blue sky day. Yesterday's snow has melted and there is once again the promise of Spring in the air. The long car ride gave me a chance to count my many blessings. I am so fortunate to have good health, the love of a wonderful man, children who are happily making their own good lives, true friends and the ability to enjoy my varied endeavors. I am a very lucky woman. Life is good.
this quilt on the living room wall of the farm. This quilt has been so much fun....I could hardly wait to begin each new block before I had even finished the previous one. This has given me much practice in the machine applique technique.
This little tractor represents my John Deere tractor/mower and our other two farm tractors. Our favorite is "Tin Lizzy"...a vintage 1950's tractor that still runs, but most of the time serves as decoration by the barn. Our other workhorse is a Cub Cadet that looks a bit more like this quilt block, but is all yellow. 
This morning's quilt square commemorates the 100 blueberry bushes that we planted last Memorial Day. We hope to some day have a high enough yield to open a pick-your-own blueberry field. We envision a place where families can come with a picnic lunch and pick blueberries and see the animals. At last week's inspection it seems that all of the plants have made it thru the winter and are starting to show buds already.
The inspiration for today's quilt block came from the grape arbor that Jack and I built together last winter and the grape vines that we subsequently planted around it. Last summer we harvested 5 grapes.....yes, I said 5 grapes.....just a taste of what is to come in the future. Hopefully we will have enough grapes to someday produce our own grape jam with the excess.
The wild orchids had broken through the ground. The moss and ferns were bright green.
We picked up a rock and found a salamander...not yet ready to venture out of his protected den.
The bluebirds were nesting and all around us were the sounds of birds singing their cheeriest songs to attract prospective mates. It was sunny and delightful....making it almost impossible to bear any return to snowy weather.
Yesterday's sewing yielded these two blocks, representing the strawberry patch and the pond which is stocked with fish. I especially like the fabric that I found for the fish....it is a print that looks just like fish scales to me! I must tell you that this is the second fish that I did. The first one (and they are not quick) I assembled the fish parts and very carefully appliqued and embellished to the wrong side of the fabric. When I realized what I had done, I tried cutting the fish out and using fusable web to adhere it to the right side of another block, but it looked cheesy....so I started from scratch and made another fish. I actually like this one better anyways.
Today's quilt block is in honor of the fainting goats....this one looks a little like Chip.
I completely finished my first quilt (which I will post as soon as I get it outside for a photo in the sun.) My next quilt is beginning to crystallize in my mind. I am making it one block at the time and designing each block after something significant on the farm. This will be my official Bee Have Acres quilt. Here is what I have come up with so far. I still have to applique the corn and the bluebird blocks shown on the right. And I have more blocks planned...such as a goat, a horse, strawberries, blueberries....and more that have not reached my consciousness yet.
(This is Andy, my son.)
Wow! What a lot of driving I did. Seven and a half hours to N.C. on Friday and the same on the way home Sunday. But the inbetween stuff made the trip well worth it! It was great to visit with Andy and spend a bit of time together. We took a trip to the Biltmore Estate on Saturday and toured the house and the winery and did a wine sampling. The weather was beautiful....a great taste of Spring. The Biltmore is more like a castle than a house...and the grounds are vast and beautiful. Daffodils and tiny iris were blooming (meanwhile it was snowing back home!).
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