Out and About Late Winter at the Beach

a few tiny snowdrops

Anyone who expects spring, late March at the beach, is doomed to disappointment. The ground and sand are barren of life, the wind is frigid and howls. Yesterday the gale was so strong that the crystal sun catchers were knocked off my windows by the glass's vibration. I offered Mo his usual walks but he hustled out, did his business and ran back to the sheltered deck, lying happily in a weak patch of sunshine.

This gave me time and energy to make my little quilt for Lori's swap on Humble Quilts. I am always stumped, whatever might the recipient like?---so I'm making a version of an antique doll quilt in my collection.

The top is finished, whew! I can't really show it to you yet, tradition is the little quilts aren't revealed until the person receives it. A few fasties had their quilts done and shown on FB the DAY after we received our assignments. My mind boggles and then I feel like a kid who forgot to do her science fair project,lol.

I didn't quilt it yet; have to switch sewing machines. Today I'll make the yellow pillow covers to briefly brighten my living room and perhaps make a few Basket blocks. I am newly enthused to do my Baskets by these wonderful white ground shirtings sent to me by Nancy at Joy for Grace blog. I love them, so very authentic looking.

This coming week I have a medical treatment--- I will ''lose'' about 10 days, between cooking and cleaning beforehand and then recuperating. It's annoying and the side effects are painful but as one MD charmingly told me, it is better than the alternative [dying!]. What a guy.

Indoors, late winter:

I went with black transferware and white ironstone .

And flowers....

At the grocery store, large bundles of crop grown dandelion greens.

I'd never seen these before. Wish I had bought some, they go in salad, right? Not at all like the little plants I see later in the grass here.

Outdoors:

Mo and I go almost every day to the koi pond now. One day we caught the beautiful Tuxie, a feral cat friend, gloating over the goldfish in the pond! Would he actually try to capture one? They are quite large now, maybe 12-15"? but lethargic from being in ice for months.

This feral cat is exceptionally fluffy and chubby. Mo adores him, not sure what Mo thinks he is though.

We also passed by this interestingly shell decorated fence one day while walking to the beach. No wonder I never find whelk shells for my shell strings!

Hope your week is good! 

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach...

Welcome Spring, A Giveaway Winner, and Mo's 5th Birthday!

Hi! And so Spring begins! Big full moon tonight for the equinox celebration, be sure to go out to look. It has the unfortunate honor of being called the Worm Moon. Ick.

For my scrap bag giveaway I had not many takers but enough that I got out the random number generator and let it choose. The winner is JulieQ which is appropriate since she is a dedicated scrap quilt maker. Julie, email me your address? 

Tuesday was Mo's 5th birthday! He is all grown up now.

Some presents:

This is like if your gramma gives you underpants for  Christmas! Face swabs and paw wipes:

A pretty Tiffany blue enameled ID tag. [not really Tiffany,lol.]

A beautiful t-shirt, in XL. Hahaha, XL chihuahua maybe. Lots of scissoring and fitting to make it work.

We baked a cake!

For those of you who may be tempted to make a cake for your own dog, I did a  little baking test. These mixes are from Chewy.com.

Supposedly dog friendly ingredients.

I made the regular cake as cupcakes, because Mo cannot be begin to eat a whole cake. [We froze the rest to bring to big dog friends next playdate.]

The mix's how-to was, to me, surprisingly complicated, the same as making a regular cake mix, lots of ''add eggs and oil, mixer needed'' etc. Lots of effort for a doggy who would rather have a jerky skewer. But fun.

The frosting, as you can see was a bit of a fail. I cut it off and discarded it, only giving Mo the bottom plain cake. He threw up anyway, poor little man.
I actually tasted the cake which had a nice taste and crumbly texture, and a bit of the frosting that was also pretty delicious, but sweet.

The other mix makes a smaller microwaved cake, and includes a silicone pan, so I guess we'll try again in June for Mo's adoption day celebration.

I hope you all enjoy lovely warm springs. No snow, no floods, no pollen, good luck!

''Summer makes me drowsy.

          Autumn makes me sing.

          Winter's pretty lousy, 

          but I hate Spring.''                - Dorothy Parker.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

other springs, below