I am sitting watching the birds visiting my garden busily looking for food.

There is a lot snow on the ground and on the birdbath. I have put out some birdseed and breadcrumbs and hung up a net of nuts and a fat ball. This seems to be a good combinations of foods as the birds visiting include a pair of redwings, several blue tits and long tailed tits, a pair of blackcaps plus a very bossy blackbird and an equally bossy robin. They both think that the garden belongs to them.
However, the ‘bad boys’ are the four very plump wood pigeons who ‘emergency land’ and seem to scare off all the smaller birds.
Oh no, what is that on my ‘bird table’?
It’s Penny, one of my cats. She has not seen this piece of wood on the garden stool before, my ‘bird table’, so she has jumped onto it and tried to eat the bird food. She is a very curious cat and is quite naughty sometimes. I will have to bring her back indoors and give her some cat food.   

All the activity in the garden has made me feel quite lazy so I am going to do some sewing.
One of my New Year Resolutions is to sew a new patchwork block every week and what else could I start with … Yes a ‘SNOWBALL’ BLOCK. Quite appropriate for the weather!
I am now making an indoor snowball - none of that freezing cold, white stuff that makes your hands so frozen and gloves so wet. 
It seems easy to do;
A square of white fabric (17 x 17 cm) and four small squares (7x7cm) of coloured fabric.
Draw a diagonal line on the WS of each coloured square and place onto the corners of the white square, RS together, photo 1.
Stitch along the diagonal line on each square. Trim across the corner and fold back the fabric, photo 2.  Finger press on the seam and hey presto; a ‘Snowball’ has appeared.
The block looks a bit irregular because the seam allowance is still included, photo 3.

I will make some more with different colours on the corners and join them together to make a cushion front. I think I know who will like that... Penny!

Helen

Have a look at the pictures to see how to make this block.