The first Daffodils

Yesterday on my walk, I saw these guys looking at the sun. They're so sweet and sunny looking. Happy flowers.
Yesterday I also started quilting on a UFO. I 'll have pics for you all tomorrow.
Today I'm going to try to get to my Dresden. I have to finish up a little baby quilt first, then I can reward myself by working on something truly beautiful.
Take care, Brandie

Rain..bow

Yesterday was a beautiful day. the sun was shining and air, almost warm. The family went to lunch and we caught a rainbow. It was a wonderful day.
Paradise is about 20 miles above the city of Chico. Every time you leave Paradise, you drive past a little canyon. But do you stop and say "AWE"? Not often, but yesterday we did and it was worth it.

The rainbow that made us pause and open our eyes. Can you see it? I've learned that it is very hard to capture everything on a camera. Our eye sees it, but the camera doesn't.

Standing on the top of the cliff, trying to take a pic of that rainbow.

I do believe this is the first bee of the season. I only hope she doesn't get caught in the next storm.

Another view, this one is to the left. A beautiful day and I'm glad I stopped and took a breathe.

Take care, Brandie

Black and Blooms

This is one of my all time favorite quilts. Black and Blooms is tribute to my Grandmother's garden. Her garden's had everything. Fruit trees to roses and everything in between. She had a passion vine on the south side of the house that had beautiful blooms. Every year I was in awe of these unusual blooms.
So I made a quilt to capture that memory. When I look at this quilt, I'm again surprised at my creativity. I think I may have lost it somewhere.

I had a lot of fun with the quilting on this quilt. Years from now, the fabrics will be wore away and the the thread will be holding all together. I used a variegated purple and a variegated green thread. That is what you first see. There is a background of black, bottom-line, that makes a grid behind all the other quilting.

If you look really close you can see the dot-grid in black behind the green feather. (ignore the lint)

Again this is one of my all time favorite. Thank you Grandma!

Take care, Brandie

A green finish

I finished up the green circles yesterday. It couldn't have happen at a better time. Tonight is guild night and I will be able to give it to our community service lady.
Years ago, I started this to learn curved piecing and free monition quilting. At that time, I wasn't very good with either, so it was put aside. Well now it is just takes up my precious space.
When things don't go perfectly well, I tend to set them aside. If you'll look carefully you'll see this doesn't even line up. Each row is a different length. And one end doesn't have a border.
But looking at it now, I think it's kind of charming. It has a Gee's Bend look to it. So now I'll say, "I meant for it to look like this."
Take care, Brandie

Green circles

Yesterday I had a large coffee and I almost finished "Green circles" another UFO. I was buzzing for hours. I had forgot to ask for a decaf. The one good thing thing about full strength coffee, is I accomplish quite a bit. But the headaches are not desirable.
So today I will be finishing up the quilt. One more out of the basket!
Take care, Brandie

The beauty of green

For those of you who are still waiting for spring, I have a couple of pics of green.
Yesterday I noticed this green moss growing on the east side of a pine tree. Whatever side it grows on, will be beautiful.
Even moss on an old stone fireplace. Can you see the little fern growing in the rocks?
How about now? Gorgeous!
The middle of winter makes even ivy look beautiful.
This years first violets. So dainty.
Wild iris's growing along side the road.
Beauty is every where, be careful not to step on it.
Take care, Brandie

CHOCOLATE!

This weekend my MIL and I took a truffle making class. It was a lot of fun and boy did it taste great! Our teacher is a local Chocolatier, with a shop in down town Paradise. She was a very knowledgeable teacher. Did you know that each American consumes 12 lbs. of chocolate every year, while the Swiss consume 22 lbs.? Americans always get the bad rap about our bad eating habits and our percentage of over weight people, but we eat less chocolate. Hmm. Doesn't seem right.
So here is our teacher showing us how the Ganache looks when it's ready to use. She had pre-made 3 different kinds of Ganache. 2 dark chocolates, 1 milk and 1 white chocolate.

After the Ganache was release from the pan, we rolled them into balls. Pretty easy right? Only if your hands are cold, like my MIL's. All her truffles looked round. Mine, not so much, That's why I only have a pic of her truffles.

This is the one thing about my MIL being with me, that I don't always like. She takes pictures of me all the time. Most of the pictures show me with my eyes rolled back and my mouth wide open. I'm not a good subject to snap pics of. But she did capture 1 pic of me looking almost normal. But her camera does this weird thing to my body, it adds like 50 extra pounds!

(You can also see what I meant about the lack of sun)

These are my truffles done. We than rolled the Ganache in all sorts of things. Powdered sugar, cocoa, ground coffee, raw sugar, nuts and coconut.

My MIL's truffles all packacged and ready to go.

A close up of mine. I didn't package mine. I knew it would be a waste. And it was, these trufflles aren't around any more. They disappeared in 2 days, like I knew they would. It was a fun class and if she has more classes, I'll be there.

Take care, Brandie