Red, White, and Blue days

ED took some great photos of Grands #1&2.  These were at the Memorial Day Parade.  Aren't those boys the cutest!  Love those plaid shorts.  I'm told they were THRILLED to meet Batman.  :-)

Last night and this morning were all about rain.  Tropical Depression Beryl was passing through but by noon things were starting to clear up.  We were very fortunate as Beryl spawned a nasty tornado on the coast.  :-(

My brother send photos of his new hobby.  I'm impressed.  Better him than me!  Insects seek me out, sigh.  I do my best to keep them at arms length....or further!  His hive is still quite new and shiny.  His clothing and equipment look new and shiny too.  :-)  He said it's his mid-life crisis hobby, much cheaper than a Corvette!  lol

On Monday we hauled Charlie's  cage outside for a good hosing and scrubbing.  I installed some of the new things we bought at the bird show and he's settling back in.  I bought him a toy made from playing cards and he had the best time ripping it apart.  So tonight we stopped at the Dollar Tree and bought a whole bunch of colorful children's flash cards and cardboard puzzles to add to the parrot toy box.

 Monday was Mom and Dad's 58th wedding anniversary.  Wow!  They came over to our house for dinner.  Now the backyard has less trees we get nice afternoon sun in the dining room.

The Tramp and I decided to serve roast beef and yorkshire pudding.  I had made fabulous gluten-free scones in the morning from the King Arthur Flour gluten-free flour mix and the recipe off their website.  YUM!  I had been looking for yorkshire pudding recipes online and while the scones were baking I realized the flour box had a popover recipe on the back!  Yippee!  Much to everyone's delight the recipe made wonderful yorkshire pudding/popovers.  We really enjoyed our meal.

Yesterday and today I worked on t-shirt prep for another quilt and did a little sewing for myself.  Charlie was all over his play stand having the best time ripping up and banging his toys.  His latest trick is to get down on the edge of the seed guard and get nose to nose with Maisy.  I'd left the stand was too close to my sewing table and suddenly I heard him gnawing on the table!  I also have to make sure he can't reach my books.  What a mess that would be!

For a while now I've been itching to make a new purse.  So today was the day.  The old one (behind) is getting threadbare around the edges.  It's Anything But Boring's  Long Stemmed Tulip purse pattern.  Easy to put together.  Since Janice is in our guild you see lots of versions of her purses at guild meetings.  Fun!

"Blue skies, Smiling at me, Nothing but blue skies, Do I see."

Well not quite all blue.  :-)  Today seemed to be all about the sky.  We received this great photo of Grand #3 and his dad at the Wellington Zoo with the city (and the spectacular sky) in the background.

This morning the sky here was a peculiar grey.  I ran to get the camera because the sun came out while I was peering out the bathroom window at the grey sky and glowed with the sun on the trees.  Of course in the time it took me to run for the camera the sun disappeared.

On our way to the Apple Store this afternoon the sky was much bluer.  The Tramp had turned his laptop over and realized the battery was bulging.  Yikes!  So we rushed off to the Genius Bar to make sure it wasn't going to blow up.  He has a new battery now.  :-)

After a gluten-free dinner at Chipotle, this was the sky on the way home.  Uh oh.

About a mile further along the weather turned into this.

We got soaked through running into the house!

The slimy mud pit back yard.

The slimy river side yard.

Our soil (or clay) washing away.  Sigh.

While it was pouring The Tramp opened the porch door for the dogs.  They were having none of it!

Earlier today I went to JoAnn's for some thread.  The turtles were basking along the edges of the pond.....which is looking mighty green and slimy at the moment.  Yuck.

And on available perches.

The geese were lounging in the road.

My turtle project from Lyric Kinard's workshop has been calling me.  Today I did the sewing around the turtle parts.  It's reverse applique.  For a trapunto effect it has batting behind it.

 I zigzagged this one but I want to try other ways of stitching the edges on a future Appli-Punto project.

Lyric suggested we save the pieces we cut out of the first fabric and fuse them to a background.  A twofer!  It isn't quite as pale as it looks in the photo though the contrast could be better.

When that was done I did some stitching on my bunnies while we watched several episodes of QI.  Oh my goodness how we laughed!

I also finally finished my Tilda angel today.

In particular I am very pleased with her hair.

I think she's quite a sweetie.  :-)

Housing crisis

I finished another huge t-shirt/graduation quilt top on Thursday and decided to take a short break and catch up on my houses.  Yikes!  The Julian calendar tells me today is the 147th day of the year.

The quilt.

The houses.  More letters to spell our names.

Stardust.  Mwah!!  :-)

MD vamping at her wedding reception.

Charlie.  :-)  We went to the bird show at the State Fairgrounds today.  There were so many beautiful birds to see and lots of vendors selling food, cages, birds, toys and toy parts.  Tomorrow we're going to take Charlie's cage outside and give it a really good scrub and then put some of the new things we bought in his cage.

This house is just plain weird.  :-)  I got my house pieces mixed up and came up short under the window.  As I'm wont to do, I gnashed my teeth for a couple of minutes when I couldn't find the scrap I'd cut from.  But I managed to force myself to "get over it" and throw the purple in there.  The butterfly isn't centered either.  Aaaaggghhhh!  Another "get over it" moment.  :-)

Dogs all in a row.

Captain America?  I have no idea.  Where are the grandsons when I need them!  :-)

The Tramp, contemplating the sea.  Taken the day before our wedding on the beach.

More Kiwiana.

Spidey!  Him, I recognize.  LOL

So that's houses 65 -87.  Still a long way to go until I catch up.  I'm also itching to take them to the store and select sashing fabric.  Maybe soon.  But right now I have three t-shirt quilts waiting for my attention.  Sigh.