Red, blue, green, and orange

Well I tried to post a couple of days ago but our router wasn't cooperating and now I'm finally getting back around to it.  :-)

Ooops!  I neglected to show the pattern I won.  Look what I got from Jodie, all the way from Australia!  Sweet!  Thank you Jodie!  Once I figure out where to get the wool flannel for her body I'm gonna make me a Little Red.

This is the last picture I dare take of the bluebirds.  They are even showing a hint of blue!  If I peek at them now they look back at me through the hole in the box.  It's got to be pretty crowded in there!

Days have been alternately cool and dark (and wet), and warm and sunny.  The clematis has bloomed.

The house has disappeared behind green.

Same view without the zoom.  Mother goose is at her post under the red tree, the ducks are snoozing on the bank, and father goose is mooching around on the opposite bank.

I took Ivy for a brisk walk.  I forget which day it was but it was quite cool.  I notice the rhododendrons are in bloom.

The park was quiet....unless you count the birds.

By the time we came back around home, father goose was snoozing in the road in front of our house.  The ducks and geese pretty much ignore the cars and people and sleep wherever they damned well please thank you very much.  :-)

Here I was wishing I had a rhododendron and guess what?  I do!  How did I miss this last year???  Oh. I know.  We don't use our back yard.  Sigh.  But *happy dance* the tree people are coming tomorrow to thin out our "forest."  Yippee!

Houses have been sewn.  I'm no where near catching up but I'm trying.

At bee on Tuesday we revisited the quilt we made for the town of Fuquay-Varina's centennial.  It was ripply along the bottom so we added a sleeve and a pole to hold it straight and it will go back into it's display cabinet.  It was fun to admire the good work we did a couple of years ago.

I'm still watching for novelty fabrics for my windows.  I love this bird.

Eldest Daughter.

Sisters.

Love birds.  :-)

Grand #1.

Eventually I will have enough letters to spell our names.

Yesterday they were smoke testing the sewers in our neighborhood.  I snapped this picture of them working at the manhole at the foot of our driveway.  A moment before I grabbed the camera they were enveloped in a cloud of smoke.  I didn't smell it in the house so I'm assuming we don't have sewer gasses sneaking in.

Today I finished and delivered this t-shirt quilt.  It seems orange is a favorite color.  :-)

Bedtime.  We have to get up early for the tree men!

Woot!

There is stuff on the design wall!  Wooohoooo!  It's been empty for so long!  But before we get to that...

Yes, the insides of their mouths are that yellow.  It's raining today so I haven't looked but I suspect more eyes are open.

On Saturday (during a sudden cloudburst!) our new couch was delivered.  It fits nicely and I think we are really going to enjoy it.

Apparently they aren't wasting any time introducing Stardust to skateboarding.  lol

Parrot down!  Yesterday Charlie decided to flutter over to my sewing table.  Maisy takes her job of bird shepherding very seriously.  :-)

She stuck with it until Charlie decided to nibble at her toes.

Yes, you pooped on my table.  Stop laughing!!!

The Tramp recently acquired and installed an Apple TV device so we can stream video from our computers.  Apparently this necessitated changing out our receiver/amplifier for another one bought on Craigslist.  It's big, so he had to add a shelf for it.  There were many runs back down to the garage for the bits and pieces to make it all work.

Charlie was unsure about the whole thing.

Ivy watched The Tramp go back....

....and forth with various cables and things.

As usual, Maisy was too comfortable to care.  :-)

Ngaire, figuring discretion was the better part of valor, hid behind The Tramp's chair for the duration.  She was already thoroughly put out by the arrival of the couch.

So.  Look at that.  The design wall is covered!  Woot!

This is the Jelly Roll 1600 quilt for The Tramp.  It's supposed to be a lap quilt but it's a lot bigger than I realized it would be.  I doubt The Tramp will mind.  :-)

The table runner is from a Connecting Threads kit Mom bought for me last year.

And this is all the leftover fabric.  I could make at least two more!   (Even with my cutting mistakes.  :-P)

This is my Temecula Quilt Company Twelve Days of Christmas mystery quilt.  Finally with borders!

I made it from a set of 7" squares that were supposed to be for something else.  I put these together for the backing.  Pretty fabric!  I have no idea what line it is.

We've been enjoying the Apple TV, rainy weather, and staying home doing stuff.  Though I did go to the Carolina Ballet this afternoon with Mom and Dad to see Carmina Burana.  It was great.   This evening however, it was Jim Croce and Art Garfunkel.

Which kept me company while I worked on my Tilda doll.

Back to t-shirt quilts in the morning!

Newness

The weather has been a little bit cooler this week.  And a little bit rainy....emphasis on the "little bit."  We could use a good soaking rain.  I've been keeping watch on the Bluebird nest and thought it would be fun to post a progression of photos.

Day 1  Tiny birds still wet from the shell.  April 13th.

Day 2  Fuzzy and hardly able to hold up their heads and squeak.

How quickly they grow!

Yesterday.

Today, day 6.  Feathers starting to show and one eye almost open.  Proud Mama.  That's me!  LOL

And in other news.   The new baby in the house is....ta da!....a china closet!  China cupboard?  Hutch?  Breakfront?  What do you call it?  Every once in a while I had been checking for china whatchmacallits on Craigslist and on Monday this one showed up. Tuesday we went into Raleigh to the house of the lovely young couple who were selling it.  For me it was love at first sight.  :-)  We admired their new kitchen and collection of mid-century modern furniture and chatted for quite a while after loading the the top of the china thingamabob into The Tramp's car and the bottom whosie-whatsit into mine.  Let me tell you.  This thing is HEAVY.

It matches our dining room table and chairs almost perfectly.  *happy dance*  The piece was made by Temple-Stuart in Massachusetts who are no longer in business.  It has very cool bubble glass in the doors.

And lots of storage below.

I am so thrilled with it I couldn't stop taking photos!    I smile every time I see it.  There is something just so right about a china closet full of china.  My china.  Sigh......

The Ikea buffet has served us well but now it can go.  Hmmmm.  I need to darken the shims under the front legs of the thingummy dojigger.

Ok.  Enough excitement for me.  :-P

The not-at-all exciting event this week was/is an invasion of ants.  Ewwwwww.  Yuck!  Gross!  Ants are creepy....and crawly.....and NASTY.  (Sorry....I have an ant thing.)  They are coming in, I believe, from behind that switch plate to the right of the kitchen window.  I cleared and cleaned and the darned things just kept on coming.  The worst part is that I can't see the tiny black ants on the evil black granite.  Grrrrrrrrr.   As I wiped up the ones I could see, I didn't realize every time I leaned against the counter I was taking some ants on board.  About the time the third one marched across my glasses I FREAKED!  All day long I was sure they were in my hair and I itched all day.   *shudder*   Anyway, today the exterminator came and squirted some gel-like bait around.  So now of course there are bunches of ants coming in to feed on the bait.  Sigh.  I just hope they are taking it home with them.  Good Lord, my head is itching just thinking about it.  Ugh.  Ugh.  Ugh.  Ugh.  Ugh.

Better news is that I went fabric shopping today.  No ants involved that I'm aware of.  Oh NO!  That green fabric in the stack of fat quarters has ants printed on it.  What was I thinking???

Ok.  Down girl.  Take a deep breath.  Change the subject.

I bought border fabrics for The Tramp's Jelly Roll 1600 quilt.  Batiks were on sale this week.  :-)  I also got a bright flannel for backing, a pile of fat quarters for swapping and a couple more skeins of Starbella yarn.  Yummy.

I finished and delivered two t-shirt quilts to Julianne.  These will go back-to-back to make one quilt.

Tonight was guild meeting and Mom wanted a photo of "Daisy of Savannah", our raffle quilt.  It's gorgeous.  Actually there are two of them as prizes, the second one is a lap sized.  The quilting is wonderful.  I could be quite happy winning this one!