As I posted yesterday, the kids have been in the pool. I did manage to take a movie of Jack, whose hand is being firmly held by his mom, Lorna.

If you can stand it, watch it to the end to hear Jack say water. Jack mostly speaks Klingon. It's not baby talk – he's speaks consistently in distinguishable words – just not words any of us know. Water is something like 'blalalala'. Always. Thankfully, he has started saying some words in English. It'll be nice when we can have a conversation!

It's been in the 60s here for the last few days and the pool has been looking especially pretty. The kids found it irresistible – although not for long. The water is still really cold.

Steve is on Spring Break this week so we took the weekend to work around the pool. Jeff had started the stone work at the north end of the pool at Christmas. These stones are laid using a dry-pack method. You dig out underneath the area where the stones will go. Mix sand and cement in even amounts and make a bed of it underneath where the stones will go. Then you place the stones. That part is the hard part. Everything has to be level and the stones need to end up at the correct height.

We were hot at the end of the day yesterday and we both jumped into the pool. I was in and out in 15 seconds!

There is metal edging between the stones and the flower bed. We added new dirt and good mulch. I've just started planting. The purple phlox is a low growing, sun-loving ground cover that should cover the mulch and keep the ground moist. The little bush with the yellow flowers is broom. Lowe's had them. They are supposed to grow to 6' and be evergreen. I want something big here to keep the kids from taking a running jump at the pool. Maybe this will work.

This is where we had to stop. It may be a couple of weeks before we get back to it. You can see the pea gravel between the stones. We are not using concrete with these stones because our electric cable runs underneath here. If we ever have to dig it up, this will be easier to move.

FYI – that bush with the yellow-tinged leaves is an elaeagnes. They grow tall and are evergreen. It is my hope that the pool equipment will be out of site by the end of the summer.

Last summer we gave the Napa Valley Quilters Guild in Napa California permission to use our Everyday Best pattern from Quilts with a Spin as the basis for their Opportunity Quilt. Here is the final product. Twenty-three women worked on the quilt. Barbara, who sent us this photo said that many expanded their skills as the guild offered classes in paper piecing and hand appliqué.

Here is the final quilt. Barbara says that everyone in the guild loves the quilt! Of course they do – this is a really pretty quilt and we hope they raise lots of money with it.

I embrace technology. I love my Kindle and look forward to falling deeply in love with an iPad (in a year or so when version 2 or 3 comes out). However, I freely admit that there are some truly lovely books. whit that thought in mind, here is a site that you might be interested in…

BibliOdyssey is Paul Peacay's blog. He lives in Sydney and posts beautiful, book-related images. For example, I love this chicken from his post of Dutch picture books.

There is a big button on the upper right side of his blog that takes you to 'The Annotated Archives of BibliOdyssey'. This is an easy way to find Mr. Peacay's older posts. They are worth looking at.

I think it's funny that I find so many great images on a site called Weird Friends. It is true that I sift through a lot to find the images that make me smile, but I think it's worth it. Seriously, does this not make you smile out loud…

And this… I'm not a dog person but if I was, I would want this headboard. It looks appliqued.

And then there are these quilts that make me very happy. They look like quilts made without rulers which is very much what we are doing in our book, Applique Outside the Lines.

Those of you on our eNewsletter list know this already – we are about to ship our newest pattern pack!

My Whimsical Quilt Garden is packaged like Aunt Millie's Garden – it is not exactly a book but it's more than a regular pattern. MWQG has twenty, 10" blocks that you can use to make a big quilt, or a smaller quilt, or in any other way you can think of.

We also have a fabric kit for the 20-block quilt. Linda is the one doing the work on this (think you, Linda!) and she matched the fabrics in her quilt as closely as possible.  

Do you remember the block contest we had last year? Photos of the winning projects are in MWQG. Congrats to Sarah Crumly, Carrie Pippins, Rebecca Bishop, and Barbara Annn Lambrecht.