Rhubarb!

When I went out this morning I looked to see how the rhubarb was doing and to my delight the pink knuckles poking out of the ground have turned into leaves.  Pretty soon, in a few weeks, the leaves will be bigger, the stalks will be longer, and we'll be able to have rhubarb sauce or pie or crisp or bread.  Yum, rhubarb.



This group of goldfinches came for a snack today.  I don't know if you noticed but the goldfinch on the top left isn't as far into getting his summer dating coloration as the one on the lower left is.  It makes me feel smart to notice them changing colors.  It also means spring is really going to come and maybe summer too.



 
Today was a making day.  I melted a bunch of oils together to make a batch of lotion bars.  The tubes are like big lip balm tubes.  I used just a hint of clementine essential oil because I'm addicted to the clean scent of citrus these days.

After lotion crafting I fired up the sewing machine and sewed up a shirt from reclaimed Caribbean fabric.  I kept the neck and sleeve hems as-is and just cut the sides and bottom using the Shirt No. 1 pattern from 100 Acts of Sewing.  I'm going to get a lot more wear out of this than I ever would have if it stayed in caftan form.  I have two more reclaimed Caribbean garments cut to resew and one more to figure out how to re-purpose.  Not tossing them into the donate bag makes me feel virtuous.

 

Tonight I finished the ribbing and started the one-row stripes of the next Packer hat.  I like it.

April 26--Claude Monet, The Cliff of Aval, Etretat.  

Waves batter the cliff,
water forces the rock to part,
makes fissures,
pushes its way into small gaps.
Stone is no match
for the soft, malleable,
uncompressable
water of the sea.
~~~~~

Now I see that I've stayed up too late--again.  Arrgh.  And I feel like I'm getting a sore throat although I'm trying to convince myself that it's allergies.  I'm not convinced.
--Barbara