My grandmother, who could quote reams of poetry by heart, always quoted Swinburne at this time of year: "The hounds of spring are on winter's traces."
Spring has been very slow coming this year, and April more like March. But in spite of continuing grey, rainy days, spring is winning. Here are some ferns poking up through the mulch:
And shy bleeding heart buds hiding their heads under the leaves:
The dear little wood violets:
And my mysterious anemone -- given to me many years ago by a friend to transplant to our woods, it disappeared after the first year, only to pop up this year:
I wonder about these little mysteries. One year a showy double white columbine came up near the path, literally from nowhere. We've never seen it again. And our patch of Dutchman's breeches, once as big across as a round dining table, has gradually shrunk to almost nothing. I don't know enough botany to know if this is natural or if we are losing our wildflowers to doubtful progress.
Wednesday I go to
The Clearing in Door County for nine uninterrupted days of quilting (uninterrupted if you don't count taking the time for fabulous meals and even better fellowship). If not my favorite place in the world, it's definitely in the running. (There's a Smilebox slideshow in an earlier post of the magic of the place in January.) I'm going to finish all the pieced blocks for the Pieces of Time sampler quilt class I foolishly started in February of 2008; at least they're all cut. And I hope to get sashing around the blocks of a whimsical 4-Patch Posy I started in October.
Finally, if I finish all that, I'll make the 140 blocks for my contribution to the collaborative quilts (Freddie Moran and Gwen Marston) projects we started a year ago. In January 2008, thirteen of us made 130 blocks, divided them into packages of ten for one another. But most of us decided we need a lot more blocks. Another quilter has joined the project, hence the 140 blocks this year. Each of us makes a different block from brights and black & whites. If you haven't seen Freddie and Gwen's book "Collaborative Quilts" it's a treat. Just seeing Freddie's house is a treat. And I covet Gwen's fire engine red Featherweight.
Gratitudes:
MRI for shoulder over
going to The Clearing!
found my red raincoat
One of the many treats of the week was the flowers, mostly wildflowers at The Clearing, but also all the naturalized daffodils around North Door, as the northern part of Door County is called.
We took several field trips to visit these -- just spectacular!
I finished all but two of the picky little sampler blocks I had hoped to do (could have done all but didn't have the fabric with me), and after making one or two of those stinkers, I let myself do a simple quilt top -- which I just love! Photos to come.
