In my garden

Well, garden and garden - on my balcony. I have flowers! It has been raining for a while now and I needed to see that we do have sun now and then in this country, too. I took these a week ago.
I love the colourspectres on these flowers.

This plant is so dark blue it looks like velvet!

And again my African Lilly is flowering! Seeds taken from my aunts garden in Nairobi, Kenya. It transferred pretty well:) It takes forever! to bloom, though. It is about six weeks since the bud came out. And it still has a way to go before it comes into full bloom.

New LOOK!

Eventhough life is still the same, it doesn't mean it has to look the same, does it? :-)

Buzzzzzy bees

I am testing out the macro on my camera. Amazing what you see when you are looking closely enough. Look at the patterns on the wings!Even on a day without sunshine, the colours are amazing. We are having a very green summer this year.

And getting close to the bees, I suddenly found this green guy - almost dissappearing in the greeness.

This one, I have no idea what this plant is. I think they might be thissels, with an attack of spiders... This was the only one who looked like this, like big balls of yarn!

The flowers makes me think they are thissles, as they look like the other ones.

While walking, I came across a 160 year old barn. I love the way weather and time wears out the wood,

and the way they used all of the wood, even the ones with all the knot holes:) Like a piece of art.

Enjoying nature

My old friend, Tommy, is back visiting me while his other servants :-) are out galavanting the world. This time he was allowed out on my balcony after I made it cat proof. He hasn't been outside for a while now, and it took him by suprise. He spent a full day just smelling the air. Funny sight:) And then he experienced my plants.

I guess the leaves of a rasperry bush smells intriguing?
The he started to make himself useful by picking off the dead leaves of this particular plant, and eating it! You would think I did not feed him! He is not particularly fond of the cat grass I sowed especially for him, though. Picky... And as usual---"Pay attention to me!" And if a claw here and there doesn't bring the necessary attention,we do what we can to make it too hard to do anything else but pay attention....

I wonder how he is going to react when he returns home in a week, and find this new addition to the family:

Welcome to your new family, Spike!

Warm wishes

I thought 'Ruth's quilt' from Leanne's House was the perfect quilt to make for a friend who had been going through a rough time, and still haven't quite gotten through it all yet. It also gave me something nice to work on during my own dark winter of unemployment.

I finished the binding today. It was such a nice day so I decided to bring the quilt outside to sew the binding. Though the quilt got done, it was NOT a good idea!!! Why do I never seem to remember that you don't feel the sunburn until it is too late!!?? Sigh. You would think age would bring some wisdom. But the sun did make for nice outdoor pictures:)

I added some of my own good thoughts, which I hope will add to her enjoyment of the quilt. I wanted her to be able to wrap herself up in warm thoughts when life is bad and you just want to hide for a little while. This one: Distance and times means nothing to friends - is a reminder to her that we may live far apart and we might be busy and not always have time to talk or visit, but sooner or later we will:)
She loves stripes and squares, so I quilted it with lines and squares, too!

Happy birthday, Inger. (I hope she doesn't visit my blog until she gets the quilt!)

Numbers

I am NOT good at numbers. I still have problems remembering my mother's phone number, and she has had it for the last 30 years. Thank goodness for cellphones that keeps numbers for you! I have managed to fight my way through quilt patterns and fabrics for the last decade or so, but I seem forever to mess up on the backing! Why I can not follow the patterns suggestion, I do not know. I should have learned by now.
So we end up with this, backing with a lot of seams. I was just lucky that I realised it soon enough to go back and get more of the same fabric! Oh well, the receipient won't know it wasn't supposed to be like this:) Unless she reads the blog, of course :-) Her birthday is next week. I should be done.

Otherwise, I have been experimenting. With stars,

with a little added extra. I wanted to see if I could mix my love of quilts with my love of knitting. It might work. There are so many lovely, old knitting patterns in Norway, and it would be fun to see if it could add an extra dimension to my quilts.

This is my first attempt. I used cotton, it should wash the same way as the fabrics. I hope.... We shall see. Fun to try new things, figuring things out.

On an end note - I just passed this overgrown pasture the other day (what a paradise for a horse or two!), and I am so infatuated with the lusciousness of the field, and the eyepopping green colour.

Duckies!

There is a little lake on my biketrail. The little ducklings are so cute!

One...

two,

many!
It is a wonder a mom gets time to take care of her own feathers!