First Flowers of Spring

It was a beautiful sunny day, the kind when it's almost a sin to stay indoors when the sky is so blue. So I went for a walk in Central Park. And, as you can see, the sky was cloudless and in protected spots the grass had turned green.

I know some spots where crocuses come up early, but there was no sight of them. It's been a cold week, and, in fact, it was still pretty cold -- colder than expected when I first went out. However, I went up into Strawberry Fields, the memorial area for John Lennon and, there, under some trees were tons of little white snowdrops. Click on the picture and it will enlarge. My first "wild" flowers of the spring.
At the "IMAGINE" mosaic near the entrance to Strawberry Fields there were many tourists and the circular mosaic had lots of flowers on it, some in bouquets and some arranged around the outside -- I truly thought I took pictures of it but there are none on my camera. Maybe I was so amazed by the abundance of flowers -- the most I think I've ever seen, that I didn't open the camera properly. So, take my word for it, there was an outpouring of tribute -- often there are just a few, but usually there are some flowers there.
I am moving ahead with quilting the quilt. This picture shows the double rows of chain quilting in the white areas. I'm going on to the wide print border. Here the quilting mostly will not be very visible -- more so on the back than on the front, actually. But it just has to be quilted. I spent more time, actually marking the quilting, with barely visible red chalk pencil, than actually sewing. I'm aware there are computer programs that will figure out the exactly right size for border quilting but I say Poo! Yes, Poo, I say to fiddling with a computer program -- I'd still have to mark and sew. And this is MY quilt with my generally non-type-A personality which is happy to work out what is necssary at the corners to make them "work" even if they're not a perfect fit. Happily the chain stencil was a very near perfect fit -- just a little fudging on one corner, really. So ... moving right along. The border is wide, lots of square inches to fill up, but I may have it done tomorrow and then there will be only binding and label. HOORAY!