Spring blooms and a bit of sewing

The flowers are coming along and all the trees in the yard are blooming.

 I took this shot from the kitchen door, looking north. The crab apple tree is right in front of the dining area window and the far tree is a maple.

This is a closeup of the blossoms that are right outside the window.

Keeping it real .... this shot, right below the tree, is the mess from replacing the leach lines to the septic tank.  That was done right before our first big snow and it has involved a lot of work cleaning up where the ivy vines were dug up and the rock wall and brick steps from the lower part of the yard were "disturbed". It is a work in progress.

This is the tree round the corner on the east side of the house. I took these photos from inside the house looking out my bedroom window. While the crab apple tree buds took almost a week to all open; the buds this tree seemed open all at once overnight.

Two close up shots of the tree 

I have no idea what this tree is; it has small red berries in the fall and the birds love both trees. 

The dog wood trees are also blooming but no photos today.

 This is a bush on the west  side of the house and below that the photo shows the giant Lily of the Valley plants that are blooming next to the bush. This bush was more orange when the leaves first opened and now it is gold but starting to turn green. It will be green all summer and turn orange again in the fall. Of course, we don't know what it is.

This is the Hosta border around the flower bed where the Lily of the Valley is planted. The hostas all need to be divided. We could probably plant them around the whole yard and have some left over.

The sedum is doing well too in several locations.                                                                                      There are grape hyacinths and Brunnera and creeping phlox and some other things coming up too. Violets are everywhere and the vinca ground cover is growing in the wooded area. 

                                                                     

 I have been pulling weeds and raking up debris around the yard but I have had sometime for sewing.

I made some spring place mats. They have a light sea foam green border and will have a yellow binding. I pinned it around one place mat to make sure I like it and to make sure I would have enough fabric for all 4. I would have had enough but I cut one strip wrong and I am an inch short of cutting another strip. So now I have 3 fabrics of which  I have "almost enough". Unfortunately, they are from 3 different quilt shops. One is for a backing so I will replace it with something I can get when I go back for more yellow binding fabric. I am sure I can get another piece of the same yellow but just in case I can't it will be OK because it has not been sewed on to any of the place mats yet. As for the other fabric I need, I might get more of it and I might not and that will be OK too.

I also made some log cabin hexie hot pads and I will save those for another day when I finish them.