A bowl of June

I give up. The sky is blue and the sun is shining it's bitterly cold and there are two feet of hard packed snow on the ground and we are all sick and tired of it and sick and tired of complaining about it.



And now it's March and time for thoughts to turn to something else.  Something fresh.  Something that isn't white.  Something encouraging.  Something to look forward to.

 

 One of the things I look forward to the most is the first strawberry picking day of the summer.

 

It's true, I have been known to hound and beg the farmers at the U-pick fields.  I've been known to ask if there wasn't some way to "hurry the berries along" because I want to make my pie. I've been known to tell them "I don't mind the hunt, I don't mind if there is just one ripe berry in each row. Really." If they remind me "it's been a cold spring." I offered once to go out there with my blow dryer and warm things up a bit.

 

I want to taste a real strawberry.  I want the girls to come and help.  I want to see the juice dribbling down their chins. There is no juice in a grocery store strawberry.  You know they aren't real berries, don't you?  Those are painted Styrofoam.  I want real berries. OUR berries.  Juicy, sweet, ripe, red, it-doesn't-get-any-better-than-this berries.

 

So I made a square to put somewhere into that posy quilt I finished a couple of weeks ago.  This berry fabric was my focus print for that project.  And I loved the black gingham basket(I think gingham is my new favorite thing...look out stash, here it comes!)I made for the blueberry square so I thought it could be a nice bowl for strawberries.

I fussy cut the berries and appliqued them to become an overflowing bowl of June.