This is one of my favorite times of the year… the sun is coming up earlier… and I’m awakened to the commotion of birds chirping chirping chirping away outside the window… they each seem to be clamoring to be the loudest in the tree… it’s as if they can’t wait for their day to start! Sometimes they are so impatient that they start chirping even before the sun comes up.

I’ve been working on some painting, just a little at a time… just trying to grab 10 or 20 minutes here or there. You can see that the warm spring weather has inspired me to paint some pretty butterflies- pretty soon, we will have the real things in our gardens:

I’ve been working on the 2017 Block of the Month! The applique is all done, and I’ve been putting the blocks together. Soon, we will be cutting and folding the fabric for kits. I still need a name for this BOM, though! Club members got a sneak peek a few months ago… look for an announcement in the next month or so. The first block pattern will go out in August!

….Also working on some embroidery for The Art of Home Club… this one has a bit of a summer theme:

And since we’ve been having such nice weather, Alfie (my Chihuahua) and I have been enjoying long walks in the meadow out back. That yellow flower is wild rabe – beautiful, isn’t it? Last spring, we were in Europe, and as we drove for miles and miles, there were fields and fields of it. A sea of gorgeous yellow!

My copy of the Splendid Sampler book arrived yesterday! They are available here, and are scheduled to be in stock at the end of April.

Here’s my block which appears in the book:

Hop over to the Martingale blog to enter the giveaway (runs through April 21, 2017):

Finally, last week I revealed the winners of the UFO Challenge. One of our winners, Monika, has graciously offered to share her patterns with everyone! Click here to get her patterns to embroider and applique these cute sea creatures.