Razzberry Hill: Raspberry challenge done!

What a wild two weeks it has been. It is definitely spring. On my way home from work we had a tornado warning. Traffic was stopping on the road. Nobody wanted to drive towards this! Fortunately I was able to exit and head home. This did turn into an EF1 tornado that touched down.

The skies remained ominous all the way home.

These are the clouds I saw while waiting at the light close to home

But spring also brings flowers.

This is the earliest blooming iris in my gardens.

It is very short. About 12".

I really like the way this ground cover is spreading.

It is so bright in the rock garden.

I'm slowly getting enough grass to put on the veggie garden.

Die weeds die!

Last week I finished the raspberry quilt.

Here is the butterfly.

The markings for the images iron away.

I added a hummingbird. I don't think they go near raspberries....

But this one does.

My first attempt at a meandering stipple!

It was actually kind of fun to do.

(I did have to remind myself to breathe while I was doing it.)

It is a little hard to see the bird with the stippling

but it will be fun to see people find it.

I did have to look up butterfly images to draw this.

I wonder if anyone will find the caterpillar.

Binding on. Done.

(Except for the sleeve and label)

I have to remember I finished it a week ago today.

The other challenge quilt I'm doing is based on a free pattern.

I found this one online a long time ago.

The other part of the challenge is to select 4 crayons and base your colors on them. I was lucky and pulled a light orange, dark orange, brown and gray.

(I wish it had been blue, white, yellow and green)

You can add other colors and use your stash fabric but you have to buy some of the fabric. I had to buy all of it.

I didn't have any of these colors, that worked together.

I like using freezer paper for the pattern and starch to turn the edges.

Starch is my friend.

I love how stable it makes the fabric.

I took some vacation and had to get some yard work done.

I had to weed the raspberry patch and turn it from this.....

To this.....

I ended up with a bunch of plants to give away.

We had some extra bricks which dear hubby stacked in the raspberries to get them out of the way. Unfortunately they were in my way.

So I moved them by the fire pit to create a path.

I also took the blocks from the strawberry bed and built a new strawberry bed.

This one is çloser to the house.

Maybe it will help keep the deer from eating them.

The original bed was like a buffet for them.

Plants, roots and all. Grrrrrr....

My day ended with seeing a hummingbird on our feeder!

We have them but they always eat when we aren't there.

A great way to end the day.

The lily of the valley look so pretty.

(But they are trying to invade the yard)

Grrrrrrr........

So here is the crayon challenge quilt.

My take on it is to do six blocks, each one worse than the previous one.

It goes from good to bad.

I'm going to call it "a good day gone bad."

The first block is good and then the errors or mishaps begin.

I'm trying to include as many as I can think of.

It is supposed to be fun and kind of like a "where's Waldo" thing.

See the burn mark on the left?

I did want to include a burn mark but this one was done by accident!

Ha ha ha ha!

Then the crazy weather returned.

The tornadoes returned.

This one hit about 50 miles from us.

They also got monster hail!

They sunk 6" into the ground on a golf course.

The hail looked like snow!

Then another tornado hit the same day south of us.

Then north of us they had FEET of hail!

That's not snow! It's hail. They had to bring out the snowplow to move it.

We had tons of rain.

We now get the Willy Wonka chocolate river thru our yard due to the construction uphill from us. The bad thing is that it goes right into my veggie garden. Grrrrrrrr.......

Progress on the quilt.

I hate matching up all those seams.

Fortunately I didn't have to on the yucky section!

This is my bad applique.

It also has buckling.

It hopefully will mess up the quilting and create a fold.

This weekend I added a lower strawberry bed and planted the upper bed.

Thank you Jane and Bob for the rocks.

I used them to terrace the upper bed.

I just have to pull out the remaining blocks from the defunct strawberry bed and finish the lower wall, add compost from the compost bin and plant the remaining strawberries. I suppose I should mulch them too.