Today’s featured artist is Terri Degenkolb of Whimsicals. Hop on over to meet her and check out her free holly placemat pattern (so very cute). Be sure to leave a comment on her posting!
–Sue
Archive of entries posted on November 2009
Robins
We have a lot of robins around here, and in the fall they start to feast on the crab apples out my window. Sometimes I get several in the tree at one time, and they are pretty quick getting in, grabbing a couple of apples, and getting back out.
I had a couple of birds, however, seemed to have nowhere else they had to be. They didn’t seem to be after the apples too much but mostly looked around, especially when this guy caught a glimse of my camera’s focusing beam, then he would stare right at me:
Here you can see how the birds have really been cleaning the apples off the tree:
This guy had been eating apples, judging by the evidence left on his beak:
I hope they come back. They were a lot of fun to photograph.
–Sue
Stash Report
Fabric in: 2/3 yard Christmas panel to coordinate with one of the panels I purchased last week. (Picture at the bottom of post.)
Fabric out: 2/3 yard into the UFO Afternoon Tea that I’m working on. Woo-hoo, I’ll have something to report on UFO Thursday this week!
Okay, about those Michael Miller Fairies panels…do you ever discover something, and you just have to have it…in every color? You want it ALL!!! A week and a half ago Pam B and I were at a LQS and I found the Christmas Fairies panel and a yellow Sunshine panel. I bought them both. They immediately made me think of my mom. I’ve been trying to think of how I know she would love them, but I just know.
At home, I started cruising the web to try and find coordinating fabrics. THERE ARE MORE FAIRIES!!! There’s a fall one, a blue one, a rose one that is pretty scarce, another pink one…AND…there is a coordinating panel that has little fairies blocks. I got the coordinating panel for Christmas yesterday. I plan to lay it out something like this. I just need to decide on some sashing:
They will make up as a small throw size, perfect for an accent on a sofa. As a bonus, I will have four of the small squares left over, perfect for making placemats. And here is the Sunshine block (I have the small-blocks panel coming):
And I have ordered the blue panels, the pink panels, and the fall panels. I think the pastel ones would be perfect for a baby quilt, and you couldn’t get one much quicker to put together! So, look for more fairies on next week’s stash report! For this week, check Judy Laquidara’s blog for other quilters’ stash reports.
–Sue
CCC Blog Hop — Day 7
Kari at New Leaf Stitches is today’s featured quilt designer. She offers a free holiday pillow design on her blog, with wool felt, rick-rack, buttons, and beads! Her step-by-step tutorial will take anyone through this project with ease.
Be sure to make a comment on her blog to be included in the drawing!
–Sue
A New Tradition?
Okay, this is going to sound weirdly morbid.
Whenever a group of us quilters are together, we are always picking threads off of each others’ clothing. Am I right? (And why am I always wearing black when I’m sewing with light-colored thread?) Anyway, while at our Wednesday hand-sewing group this week, someone picked a thread off my clothes. I don’t know why — I cannot explain how my brain works the way it does — but a mental image jumped into my head.
In my flash-forward vision of the future, I was laid out in my casket, dressed all in black (of course thinner/younger/prettier than I am now, but then this is MY vision). My quilting friends were lined up to pay their last respects at the visitation, and as each one passed by me, they solemnly stuck a piece of thread ONTO my clothes. What a last tribute!
And I feel I should add, because this is the 2nd time in two weeks that I have mentioned “my funeral” — I feel good, I am in good health, I don’t walk anywhere close to banana peels, I look both ways before crossing streets. Maybe it’s turning 60 this year. Maybe it’s because it’s autumn and the leaves dried up and fell off the trees. Maybe it’s because I looked in the mirror. I DON’T KNOW! But if you are around when I pass on, be sure to tuck a thread into your purse or pants pocket before heading to the church.
–Sue
CCC Blog Hop — Day 6
Today is PamKittyMorning’s turn to feature a free pattern. I have to admit, I haven’t routinely followed Pam’s blog but I have happened on it from time to time and have enjoyed it. Now I am adding her to Google Reader so I don’t miss any of her posts.
She won my heart over when she mentioned, several times, how much she loves coffee. A girl after my own heart!!! (Even though my blood is on the anemic side, I know it must be highly caffeinated!) And wait ’til you check out her free project. Gotta make this one! Be sure you leave a comment while you’re there.
–Sue
Finishing Binding Tutorial
She has a great tutorial today for doing that final join on your binding. When I first started quilting, I did a straight-across seam; didn’t like it, but did it on many quilts.
Then I played around and came up with my own slightly cumbersome method of doing a diagonal seam for that final join so it looks like the other seams in your binding. Celine’s tutorial is for doing that nice diagonal finishing seam. I can’t wait to try it on my next quilt, as it is probably a little more streamlined than my method. Check it out!
–Sue
Photo Friday…out my window
This morning, as I was having my coffee and chatting on the phone with a friend, I was wandering around the house looking out the windows. (Do you do that? I know I should be DOING something, but I wander through the house and look out all the windows.) This time someone was looking back — a red-tailed hawk! Well, the friend and I had a good discussion going and I didn’t want to say, STOP, THERE’S A HAWK IN MY TREE!!! Let me go get my camera! Fortunately, my camera is always within handy reach, and I was able to grab some one-handed shots of this guy. He could see my focusing beam and would stare at me, but apparently I didn’t look like a threat because he sat out in this tree for about ten minutes.
The challenge was getting the camera to focus on the bird, not the tree branches, and I didn’t think it would work to holler out, Hey, You, would you mind stepping out from behind the branches, fluff your feathers, and turn a little to the left? He already looked a little pissy. (And I know this isn’t a great shot — I’m WAY past the 12x optical zoom and well into the digital zoom, probably up to the full 48x. That results in the grainy look.)
I had the same problem in Texas with this tri-colored heron. You would have thought he was avoiding the paparazzi! Or maybe he was just shy. And by the way, did you know paparazzi is plural and paparazzo is singular? The useless things you learn when you check your spelling!
You can see by the sharpness of the photo that I was much closer to this bird and didn’t have to go into the digital zoom.
So when you get a picture where you can see the camera chose the wrong object on which to focus, just try again and again, if necessary. You can usually land a shot on the desired subject.
–Sue
CCC Blog Hop — Day 5
Today’s featured quilt artist is Healther Mulder Peterson of Anka’s Treasures. Be sure to stop by and drool over her new fabric line, enter in her drawing, as well as check out the wool penny mat pattern she has free today.
–Sue
A Little More Texas
We were at “Port A” for 12 days last month, which we greatly enjoyed, despite the fact it was a working vacation. We have a condo we like to visit from time to time. Because it’s in rental when we aren’t there, it needs some concentrated TLC at least once a year.
We had quite a range of weather this year — cloudy, REALLY cloudy, REALLY-REALLY-ALMOST-SCARY stormy, and absolutely never-been-better beautiful. So some pics…a beautiful day on the Gulf:
I think the storm is here! This was taken at 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning:
The weird light after the storm/rain:
A beautiful sunset — and this is kind of a reflected sunset. We are facing kind of south/southeast:
This was the most unusual sight — the Gulf was almost smooth and the evening light made the water look like a pale aqua mirror. I tried adjusting the camera settings every which way, and just couldn’t capture what the eye could see. This was as close as I could come:
And a favorite view — DH Jim enjoying a walk on the beach. (And darn it! I got the water line crooked again! Oh, well, he’ll get extra exercise walking uphill.)
–Sue
