Flower Friday Tulips

We had another dusting of snow overnight but on the plus side the sun is shining brightly. Spring might just be on the way. This bouquet of tulips is such a colourful pleasure to look at, and will be my contribution to FlowerFriday on the Blipfoto site.

Pink Hyacinth

Snowdrops for FlowerFriday

The snowdrops seem to be shooting out of the ground and I love seeing all those white clumps in our garden. They seemed the most appropriate flowers to use for today's FlowerFriday challenge on the Blipfoto site.

Flowers for Flora

It's Friday again already and that means the Flower Friday challenge on the Blipfoto site, that this week had the extra twist of Love and Romance. I had no ideas so decided to simply picture my gorgeous daffodils.

But Flora had other ideas and poked her nose into the photograph, and there it was: my current love interest and her flowers. Theme sorted!

Flora and Flowers

As you can tell, the ground is frozen at the moment, a gritter came by just now but on the plus side the sun is high in the sky. I greatly prefer the cold to the wet and grey. Flora too enjoys being out and about and is getting to know all the nooks and crannies of our garden. So far, the fencing seems to be adequate to contain her but we are keeping a close eye on it.

Looking back over the 3 months or so she has been with us the difference is astonishing. Her eyes are so much brighter, the coat so much softer and that tail is no longer between her legs. She is beginning to know she is much loved and is giving all her love back. The two of us bonded as soon as we met, but she is now very keen on John too and goes and greets him when he arrives back. She remains wary of other people (specially men) and also of large boisterous dogs. She barks ferociously in her own defence! There is still a long way to go and some remains of her traumatic early years will probably stay with her through her life but the transformation so far is nothing short of miraculous.

I could have been cheeky and entered Flora's picture for today's Flower Friday challenge on the Blipfoto site (her name after all stands for flower) but instead I will enter a picture of this gorgeous amarillis that has come into flower. Mine never seem to make it in time for Christmas but instead they brighten up the dark days of January and February. This one is the first one to make an appearance and it's one that I kept over from last year. There are another 3 to come out.

Uppercase Fabric Flowers

After months of making fabric flowers I thought I would have way too many for the quilt they were meant to go on, and I had already made plans to produce a cushion with the leftovers. But once I started to appliqué them on, the quilt seemed to swallow them up and in the end all the flowers found a place on the quilt.

I will show you the finished quilt in the future but here are some details of the flowers. All the fabrics I used are from the collection called Uppercase produced by Windham Fabrics. The fabric is inspired by the covers of past Uppercase magazine covers.

White Orchid

Bromeliad Flower

Flowers, Food and Flora

It's Flower Friday again on the Blipfoto site and today there was an extra challenge to combine the flowers with food.

I eventually got a result (as seen in the top picture) but was rather handicapped in my efforts by my assistant's sense of smell. Flora clearly was aware of the truffles present.

The Hunt for Colour

FlowerFriday on the Blipfoto site is much more of a challenge in winter time but I still managed to find colour in the garden. Above a cotoneaster whose colours are stunning specially at night. I'm spending a lot of time in our courtyard at that time waiting for Miss Flora to do her business. Technically speaking however this is not a flower.

The sedum however is. It might be on it's last legs but the colours are still stunning with those deep mauves and purples.

Pink Delight

Friday is Flower day on the Blipfoto site. I don't always participate but as I received this beautiful bouquet with pink edged chrysanthemums I wanted to capture it in photographs.

As you can tell someone else was very interested in the blooms too. Flora seems to ask herself two questions every time she encounters something new. The first and most important one is: Can I eat this? And if not then:  Can I chase it? The flowers proved to be a disappointment on both scores.

Mum's the Word

Chrysanthemum, to be precise!

Flower Friday Begonia and Born Free

As you can tell it has been a very wet night and although the sun came out for a bit this morning it is now looking very grey again and these begonias will get even wetter soon.

Still there was some brightness to be had inside as my Born Free quilt came back from the The Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate  last weekend, adorned with a red Judges Merit rozette. Always a joy! You can read more about this piece here.

Flower Friday

 Every Friday is Flower Friday on Blipfoto. The challenge is simply to post a photograph of a flower that you took that day. I don't always participate but the garden is looking it's best at this time of year (despite the weather!) and the challenge is an added incentive to wander around and see what to capture.

Delphinium

Hardy Geranium and Meadowsweet

Red hot poker, and a view of our new roof (which looks exactly the same as the old roof but is a much improved version)

A very good Friday

daffodil

Spring is in the air and very soon now I'll be off on an exciting journey. The garden has sprung into life too and the sunshine today showed off what colour there already is the garden. 

primroses

cyclymen

The Miracle of a Single Flower

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly...........our whole life would change.(Buddha)

Daffodil Friday

It's FlowerFriday on the Blipfoto site, as it is every Friday. I don't always participate but we have this gorgeous bunch of daffodils around at the moment so it seemed a shame not to take a picture or two. 

Flower Friday

Every Friday is Flower Friday on the Blipfoto site. This can be quite a challenge at this time of year and I don't always participate. But this morning I ventured outside to see what I could discover in the way of flowers in our garden. Firs stop was the greenhouse where this tiny primrose (the flower is only about 1/2") has started to put on a show.

Then I went and checked out our various hellebores and found this rather dilapidated flower. Still looks good from a distance with that purple ring around the outside but close up it's clear that the weather and snow have taken their toll.