More Spring and sewing

Those blossom covered trees are really making me happy so I moved my photo taking outside.

Love that balcony in the tree tops.  It is a great summer place to read a book.  I bought a chaise lounge chair and placed it on that balcony.  It feels like you are in a tree house.

This smaller balcony is just off the kitchen.  It is where Opal was hanging out on Saturday.

My view of the "Y" from my front porch.

Lovely!

And some more surprise tulips bloomed.  Now those are cheery tulips.

There are now red tulips, too.  I think I will have to shop the Thanksgiving Point tulip sale again so that I can fill in all those spaces.  It has been so fun to see what will bloom next.

This is what has been "blooming" inside.  I won a prize of a Riley Blake Vintage Happy 10 inch stacker from the Quilty Fun Sew Along.  I was so excited to win!  My "bee happy" block was highlighted on the Fat Quarter Shop Blog.

Then they announced another sew along this time using Lori Holt's new book "Great Granny Squared."  I already had the book so I decided to see how many great grannies I could make with my 24 pieces of fabric 10 inches square from Lori Holt's new fabric line.

This was a pretty great way to go because there is no waste and I could cut sixteen 2 1/2 inch squares from each fabric square using 12 of one fabric square for the outer level, then 8 from another fabric, then 4 from another, and a center square from yet another.

I easily pieced ten blocks with a few leftover squares, so I ordered another 10 inch stacker of Vintage Happy and I plan on making the quilt on the cover which is made with 20 great granny squares and 5 1/2 yards of white background fabric.  I picked up some Kona white cotton at JoAnn's with a coupon and senior day discount for that part.

I would rather make this larger quilt than participate in the new sew along.  Vintage Happy really does make me feel happy.

I also picked up this month's Saturday Sampler packet last Saturday.

This morning I put together these hexagon blocks.  I'm so excited to see the final quilt.  Just two more Saturday Samplers to go and I think it will mostly be applique and finish work.

I bought their hexagon template rather than try to make my own.

I bought it because I thought I might want to make another quilt using this ruler after I saw Amy demonstrate what happens when you off set the hexagon blocks.  Can you see that fun little zig zag happening?

And finally, this is what I watched outside my favorite window last night or rather early this morning.  It was pretty amazing. So glad that we had clear skies and that it was easily viewed from my window.