This is crown vetch; it's a member of the legume family and fixes nitrogen into the soil, improving the garden base. :) This one is growing on the cul-de-sac circle in front of our house.
This is common thistle. I've never heard why that is the flower of Scotland, have you? This plant is growing on our circle, too (no doubt a 'weed'). The only good thing I know about thistle is that birds love the seeds. :)
These are begonia flowers, growing in a bed at my doctor's office (had a routine appointment last week). My mother loved begonias and I always think of her when I see them.
Sometimes when I go out walking my neighborhood I find things that make me wonder. Do you see how lovely a variegation these leaves have?
This photo shows a farther down section of that same variegated leaf/branch. Here you can see both plain green and white-edged leaves. I wonder if this plant is showing a normal variation or if this is some kind of mutation in the leaf coloring? I could not dig around the bottom of my neighbor's fencing to find out. :)
When it does not rain I have been going out walking my neighborhood daily. I am truly enjoying watching plants flower and show off around the area. There is always _something_ interesting to look at when I walk. :)
Speaking of rain, we've been having quite a bit of it. Still within normal-for-Maryland amounts, I think, but seems like a lot to me. :P One evening last week we had a particularly heavy downpour - the rain pounded down for quite a while and the sidewalks became running waterways:
I took these pictures standing on our front step (happily we have a roof over the area or I'd not have done that:). As you can see, the rain is accumulating quickly! Not as serious as the floods in Yellowstone Park of course, but exciting in my usual daily routine.
This has been a busy weekend when judged by my usual life. Barbara and Patty went to the York guild's quilt show in PA last Friday ... but I stayed home (intestinal upsets) for the day and pretty much did next to nothing. Late in the afternoon I remembered that I was signed up for a Zoom workshop with Cindy Grisdela on Saturday through my modern guild. Called Fabulous Freehand Curves, it was an improv workshop and I LOVED it. :)
Improv piecing makes my heart pound faster at any time - I enjoy the process so much. I did my first improv (we didn't call it that - Jazz Piecing was what the teacher called it in my day, mid 1990s) with joy and have been enraptured every time I've played with it since. :) I did not expect to learn much ... but I did. Cindy had been a guest quilter on The Quilt Show a while ago (I am a charter subscriber), right after her newest book was published. So I went and watched that episode.
I got so fired up I dug out a nice pile of batik fabrics (purchased from The Bears Paw shop last Monday when Mimi Dietrich's Grad Class met there) ... and started sewing. I made four blocks using Cindy's stack-and-whack approach that evening and so was primed for class on Saturday. It was a loooooong day for me (9 a.m. to about 3:30 p.m.) and was beyond fun. :)
Here are the six blocks I had finished by the end of class. Keep in mind that every cut was made freehand, without a ruler, and sewn that way. :)
Today I finished a ninth block and threw them all up on the wall to photograph (you can find the three additional blocks I made I'm sure:) - no editing here, just to visualize:
As you can see there is plenty of space for moving things around and re-orienting blocks, etc. I'll mess with this during the week and see how I feel about placement before I sew them all together later this week.
My search for a condo for my brother Kevin goes on - I saw three more units today but each one had some major thing we did not want about it ... so no bids, yet.
Tomorrow I get to stay home and putter. Supposed to rain and be pretty warm/humid. Typical early summer in the Baltimore region.
:) Linda
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