Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all my readers! The kids were busy looking for eggs this  morning around 7AM. Took them a while to find all 42 eggs. I guess someone is getting better at hiding them! They hid 2 each for Mom and Dad..and we had to find them. We did get hints, thank goodness!

We will be having a small meal with everyone home today (The grocery store hubby works at is closed on major holidays!). Ham, potato and a veggie and I hear I am requested to make another loaf of the Oatmeal back of the bag bread from King Arthur Flour. It was easy to make and oh so yummy.


I plan to get a little hand quilting in today on the cat and mouse quilt on the frame. Not much progress has been made this week.

Saturday I was able to get a few stitches in on this little practice piece. A few weeks ago I saw on the Celebrate Hand Quilting Facebook group a note from Jim at YLI. He was asking for 50 people to test a couple samples of YLI as they have a new supplier in part of their processing chain.  I was sent 2 spools of thread to test. They arrived Friday! First, I pulled my existing natural YLI thread I am using on the cat and mouse and felt for differences. One was softer and one was a little harder/thicker. The original was in the middle. I grabbed a couple of cuts from the back of the last quilt and some batting. Pulled a book and drew a design onto it with chalk. Pinned and quilted.

I stitched with the softer one, then the original, then the thicker one.  They all quilted fine. It was a little harder to bury the knot on the thicker one. I think I prefer the softer one, it glided in the fabric a little better but I was happy stitching with all three. I'll continue to quilt with the different spools today and make sure, then I'll fill out the questions and e-mail it back to them. On a positive - the stitches on the back look like the ones on the front! I think I am finally getting better at this!

There are always other projects in case the mood strikes! Crochet was added this week on Emily's afghan and I need to grab another skien of yarn from the sewing room. This is the blanket stitch - pattern from Mamainastitch. It is a nice relaxing stitch and works up so pretty.

If I am able to concentrate..... I really should finish off the first row of sheep on Aidan's knitted pillow.

I also have 2 more EMD blocks to make for the month.... and the next release is 3 day's away! Best get busy on that one. One will be EPP (Which I found a video on Bluprint with instructions) and the other is borderie perse.... but I may swap that to something else. We will see.

I believe a puzzle will also be taken out to work on today since Aidan is now comfortable doing his Zoom school meetings in his room and the girl scout table in the front room has freed up and can hold the puzzle pieces. We will start with a 300 piece and then move onto the 1000 piece one! We needed to replant parts of the garden yesterday as well. My beans came up and some of the kids plants did but my beets and swiss chard were a no show so we will try again and upped the watering time in the morning - since it is hot down here. I added scallions, radishes, a couple types of lettuce as well. One tomato plant has little tomato's but the set of 6 in the garden has nothing yet. Fingers crossed they produce. I might throw some peas in today and see what happens... it might be too hot for them though.


Linking up with the other slow stitchers at Kathy's quilts.