Sensational Spring!

Spring and Autumn/Fall are my two favourite seasons. I love the changing colours and the more mild temperatures. I think that Spring probably just manages to gain the edge over Autumn though, because Spring is an amazing, glorious riot of colour and scent.

Ornamental Plum Blossoms

 We live in an area where there are a lot of orchards, so Spring always brings a patchworked landscape of hills covered in pink and white blossoms. It's so pretty when the blossom petals start to fall and gather like pink and white snowflakes.

Apple blossoms - I hope the birds don't get them all this year!

A bobtail lizard staying cool under the agapanthus

Gorgeous irises and lavender that we picked up at the local farmers market.

Aren't they gorgeous?

A Crimson Rosella just hanging out in our fig & mulberry tree.

Someone must have announced groundhog day... we went back to rain, and frozen toes!

The first poppies of the season

 I just love the poppies. They make me feel happy. The pink mop head poppies are my favourites (which I think I mentioned last year) and sadly we only got ONE single pink one again this year. I found a lady at the local markets who had some seeds for the pink poppies, so I'll have to scatter them in the garden soon in the hopes that next year I'll have more than one!

My lone pink poppy

 Last week we went to the local botanic gardens for a friend's birthday. We had a devonshire tea in the tea rooms and then let the kids run around and burn off some pent up school holiday energy! I keep forgetting how much I love the botanic garden.. which is dreadful as it's only 5 minutes from my house!

Fields of poppies!

There are lots of lovely water features around the park.. it's so tranquil and peaceful.. Except when you're chasing after 5 crazy kids!

Pansies are such adorable flowers.

You could imagine that you were a million miles from civilisation..

The Wisteria at the Tea Rooms. Divine.

And what could be a more tangible symbol of spring than baby chickens? Phillipa and I purchased 6x day old Golden Laced Wyandotte chicks between us in the hopes that we could graft them onto my broody bantam, Honeydew. Amateurs that we are, we tried too early and she hadn't been sitting for long enough, so now we're hand rearing them.

At 4-6 days old - some people have goldfish on their desks while they work, my husband had chickens.

2 weeks old - enjoying a week's holiday at Phillipa's while the kids and I spent a week with my Grandparents.

The chicks are now 3 weeks old and are comparatively huge, compared to when they first came home with us. They have lots of feathers and are spending the days outside in our "chicken palace". They love it when we let them out so they can explore. They have no fear and will attempt to fly from pretty much anywhere! Another week or so and they should be able to spend the nights outside too. Unfortunately, getting the chicks didn't solve my broody Honeydew issue.. so last week we picked up some fertilised Araucana X eggs (the blue/green ones) from another breeder close by and she's now happily sitting on those. 2 more weeks and we should have another 4 chicks to add to our "family"!

The kids love the chicks, and I love that they have the opportunity to experience raising and caring for the baby chicks - especially now that the bantams are bigger and prefer to do their own thing (and Bean is much more comfortable dealing with the smaller chicks - he loves Honeydew but finds her too big to handle).

My poppies, all out in their splendour.

Ahh Spring.. what a splendid thing!

Poppies, parcels and progress..

It's been a pretty crazy week, but honestly I won't bore you with the details! Instead I'll share with you some photos that I took of flowers in my mother-in-law's garden, my order that arrived from Quiltjane, and some of the progress that I made on my Harry Potter quilt and my Christmas table runner..

 My mother-in-law used to have a garden filled with these beautiful pink mop-head poppies. When my husband and I were first dating I used to love going to their house when the poppies were out because they were just gorgeous and divine and beautiful. When we moved up into the hills 4 years ago my MIL gave me some of her poppy seedlings to plant in my garden. Every single one was plain red single layer poppies. Infact, every single poppy either of us has grown in the last 4 years has been red. We figured that the poppies must have reverted or something because my MIL had never had red poppies. And I was sad because I thought I'd never again see those beautiful pink mop-head poppies... and then on Wednesday, what did I see???? There was one little pink poppy amongst the red! Oh happy day!

 That doesn't mean that I don't like the red ones though, don't get me wrong.. there's just something kinda special about those pink ones, you know?

 And Cosmos.. I love cosmos. A couple of years ago I had them flowering profusely in my garden in shades of pink.. light, dark, in between! This year my winter grasses have taken over my garden and I've given up hope of anything being visible in there. But one, single plant has also come up in my MIL's garden.. doesn't it just look cheerful? I know I have some seeds saved somewhere.. when we move in I might scatter some more seeds and see what happens!

 My package from Quiltjane's Want it, Need it, Quilt! store came yesterday! Woohoo! Look at all that fabricy goodness. I must say that I was surprised by how much MORE I loved Kate Spain's Good Fortune in real life than I did online! I think I'll be buying more of that once I lift my fabric buying moratorium. I also can't wait to play with my Grace layer cake.... I think I have the perfect pattern picked out.

And isn't Jane a sweetie? She sent me a teeny tiny 2.5" square baby charm pack of Antique Fair. I love it!

 When I finally got around to doing some "real work" I cut some tumbler blocks out of my black backing fabric and then cut them in half so I can put them at either end of my tumbler rows. This way they will square up nicely and it will be easier to do the horizontal sashing. Unfortunately my MIL broke her ironing board(!!!) so I can't press my seams until Monday (Well, I suppose that's not strictly true, but it's a good excuse to move onto another part of my project!).

All my rows chained together (when I added the 1/2 tumblers to each end)

 And while I was chain piecing, I finished stage 1 of the Christmas table runner piecing..

I was clearing out the kids drawers the other day, putting aside all the clothes they've outgrown to keep or send to Good Sammy's (thrift shop).. but at the last minute I pulled out all the flannelette pyjamas. I think I might upcycle them into a snuggle rug. Maybe even try out a rag quilt. If I unpick all the seams I can then send them through my Accuquilt GO! and turn them into squares and half square triangles. I just loved my babies toddling around in their flannel pjs, and if I turn them into a quilt they can be used for sleepovers etc and I can enjoy them all over again. Is that a crazy idea?