Bunny Hop

Here are all the bunnies sewn together. One might be tempted to call this quilt Bunny Hop. But given the past year, this quilt makes me squirm a bit because there isn't enough social distance between the bunnies. Egads. Did the pandemic turn me into a modern quilter devoted to negative space?  Probably not. However,  the working title for this will be Pandemic Scofflaws.

A Fourth Row of Bunnies

 Why yes...that is a fourth row of bunnies. And for this photo, I didn't crop it tightly so you can see that my design wall is just a bit of batting clamped to some shelving. My large design wall was dismantled during the power outage so I could use the gas fireplace. This flimsy design wall is in the same place, so Molly did try to run up it only to have it all come down around her kitten ears. 

And I assume some of you has been as busy as I have supervising the birth of the eight newborn kittens at Kitten Academy where the term supervising is used so loosely it becomes a synonym for watching.

And for those of you showing off your spring gardens, I thought I would show that daffodils can fit in nicely within a debris field. 

I was going to show you photos of my immense progress in clearing tree debris, but I think progress remains very much in the eye of the beholder. I have sorted the debris by type and size, uncovered the logs and a lot of the lawn. But, just like a neatly organized fabric stash, an untrained eye just sees too much fabric regardless.

Add Another Bunny Row

 I decided that quilters are better suited to handling debris because it's just taking large branches and turning them into smaller branches, then twigs and then stuffing them in a bin to eventually become something else. 

And just to compound the madness, I added another row of bunnies. I have made all the bunnies I need, I'm just slowly pulling the quilt top together. 

As Expected

 

As expected, no debris was removed yesterday. The first row of bunnies held a bunny brainstorming session and all they came up with was a list of synonyms for "make more bunnies."  So now we have another row of bunnies. I wonder how much debris removal we will have today.

Help and Hiding

 I decided to hire some help to clear the tree debris. What could go wrong?

Here's Molly sitting in her Buddy-proof box. She knows exactly what can go wrong.

Green Gardens

Here are my green diamond blocks. And the stars must be aligned today because I may have finished in time to post my contribution to the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge for 2021.

 And since the microspools (finished size is 1.5 inches) is a never-ending project, another handful came along for the ride.

Meanwhile, spring is fast approaching here in Portland and I should already have my snow peas planted. Instead, I have been working in the backyard. As you can see, it had a very old timey look and desperately needed an updated look that reflects the times.

So this is what my backyard looks like now. My neighbor's oak was obviously jealous of the dogwood and got a bit carried away.

And now the oak has been literally carried away. A woodworker stopped by and asked if he could have the oak...so now it has gone to live its life as furniture where it can be jealous of a bowl of fruit instead.

Some Progress

I do remember how to use a sewing machine. And unfortunately, Molly remembers how to break the thread between the spool and the machine. I made some of these blocks in pink last month and now here are the yellow ones.

And for those of you into a snow dyeing fail...here it is. I set it up with the fabric laying in a tub below a a slotted tub packed with snow and unmixed dye. In theory, as the snow melts, the dye drips on the fabric creating interesting effects. In my case, once the power was off, I was not interested in having a tub of snow in the house. I dumped everything out except for the fabric which I jammed into a plastic bag (a very hurried version of low emersion dyeing). The fabric sat in the bag in a part of the house that was roughly 40 degrees F (where as I recall 78 degrees F is recommended). When we got power back I did put it through many soakings of hot water until it ran clear. 

I would not recommend this technique.

Meanwhile, there is still a lot of activity around the neighborhood, although everyone around here now has power. But this branch was one of the reasons my neighbors had to wait a day longer for power. This is a view from my neighbor's yard, looking back towards my house. One day there was a crew to take down this limb.

Then the next day, the crew took down the entire tree. Unfortunately, Molly is taking photobombing to a whole new level.

Here you can see more tree work and less cat.