The large and the small

The quilting continues.  Man, is this thing large.

All the flowers have been outlined.

A small meander around the flowers in the baskets and cross-hatching on the baskets.

After reviewing the new Pajama Quilter Reloaded DVD I remembered how much I enjoyed Dwirling when I first tried it.  So I dwirled one of the corners....and need to finish this weblog and get on with the other three!

I went out to stretch my legs and found the clematis blooming nicely. 

I have no clue what variety it is....but it's pretty!

I bought some mealy worms for the bluebirds and a pretty glass holder for them.  I put some worms out this afternoon and I don't think anyone has found them yet.

One day older and a bit stronger!  :-)

And making noise now too!  :-)  (Sheesh....you'd think I'd laid those eggs!  LOL)

Cool green

In the middle of a project The Tramp's brad nailer went kaput so the fun new purchase of the weekend was a Porter Cable compressor which included a new nailer.  He had a blast with it (no pun intended) while I was upstairs with my nose to the grindstone Juki.

The project?  A gate for the front stoop.  Since a great big covered porch is not in our near future I figured a gate would allow the dogs to be out front with us while we are puttering in the garage or gardens. 

It still needs a coat of paint but I think it looks great!  And it operates perfectly.  I keep telling him he's talented but he says he doesn't believe me.  Sheesh.

Ivy had no problem with it.  Give her a mat and she just settles down to watch the crazy people.  :-)

Maisy and Ngaire are not so sure.

The pond is still brown from the storms.  Yesterday a neighbor added algae treatment and you can watch it spread.

I tried to get a picture of the wonderful blue-black feathers on the goose.  Looks almost like fur.  This is the best I could come up with, without him moving away.  Click the photo and you might get a better look.  

Today we drove out to Lake Jordan to visit friends.  They have a new RV and this was the test camping trip.  Storms were predicted but the weather was quite fine.

The Tramp gets to see the lake every day.  The road on the other side of the lake is on his route to work.

The RV is comfortable and has everything in it you could want!

I've had a week-long migraine so it was nice to sit quietly under the trees surrounded by cool green....with no quilt, no weeds, no housecleaning and no animals clamoring for my attention.  :-)

The Tramp was a bit green today too!  LOL

I checked the bluebird box this afternoon and where there were eggs yesterday there are now five tiny bald and fuzzy chicks!  They all begged with open mouths when I opened the box but only for a second or so.  It seems they are so young their heads are too heavy to hold up, they kept falling forward :-) ...and too young to make noise either.  It's a lousy picture, I lightened it so you can see one persistent open mouth (I guess he/she is the oldest) and the back of one head.  Maybe I can get a better pic tomorrow.

All the stitch in the ditch quilting is done and I've quilted around all the flowers.  I've done a small stipple around the flowers in the baskets and will move on to the baskets tomorrow.  Still thinking about what to do.  The crazy quilt is so big it's taken me some time to figure out how to wrestle it into submission.  But I'm getting better!

On Wednesday I had taken out my Pajama Quilter Reloaded DVD to review some of Dawn's quilting techniques and the darned thing wouldn't play.  :-(  We tried it in both laptops and the regular DVD players but nothing worked.  Part of the issue for me is the sticky label on the DVD.  The Macs have slot-loading drives and it's always a bad idea to insert a CDROM or DVD with a paper label on it.  I emailed Dawn to ask for a replacement and possibly one without the label.  She was very gracious about it and a new DVD arrived today.  With no label!  She wrote on it with a felt marker and as a bonus I now have her autograph.  :-)  Thank you Dawn!

Tonight I'll dream about Dwirling.  :-)

Sore fingers

It's never a bad moment to show off baby photos.  SIL and Stardust catching some rays.

And look at that tiny hand going for the gold already.  That's my girl!  LOL

Mom has been working on a selvage quilt.  Pretty neat!!

This is why I have to constantly wipe the front window.  You'd think it was a busy street, not a private road.  Sheesh.

Saturday I left The Tramp alone to putter with wood and tools and took in the local spring festival.  The quilt guild had a booth selling raffle tickets for the opportunity quilt.

Vendors as far as the eye could see, lots of fun for the kids, several stages with music, and plenty of Earth Day goodness.  The bag monster must have been pretty hot under all that plastic!  And that pirate looked like Davie Bowie with one striking blue eye and one dark eye!

It is a statue?  Nope.  Every once in a while she played her drum and looked around.  Pretty spooky when she was so still.

Kathie and Cordula had their first booth with their lovely hand dyed scarves.

It seemed like I walked for miles!!!

These two monochromatic blocks for the Karolina Kwilters block swap are in the mail.

And I finally mailed these two Hallowistmas blocks to Tonya.

And (drum roll please) the big mystery quilt top is finished!!  Yay!  The darned thing is HUGE.  It's completely covering our king sized bed and the hope chest.  I've run out of places in the house to lay it out so I can see it!  :-)

And looky!  The colors are almost a perfect match to the wall hanging my mom made.  How cool!  (Ugh.  I still have to paint those walls!)

I took it with me to Cathy's studio to purchase the batting for it and she had plenty of space for me to lay it out for a photo.  :-)

Then I got the backing put together and got it ready for basting.  I re-watched Sharon Schamber's basting videos on Youtube and dragged The Tramp out to Lowes for the long boards.

Then I had to find enough tables to hold the 10ft of boards and quilt!  It took three, and two of them are propped up on cookbooks to get it all level.  I used the herringbone basting stitch per Sharon's instructions.

It was pleasant working in front of the view.  Good thing too.  It took hours and hours!

The birds and I kept an eye on each other.  :-)

And it's finished!  Phew!  My fingers are sore. 

This evening The Tramp messed with the speed limiter we built to see if we could get it working a bit better.   On Sunday I asked my dad to explain to me how the potentiometer worked.  I knew he could.  He said it was all part of the radio theory he taught in Montreal during WWII in the Royal Canadian Air Force.  When I was growing up he was always building something electronic.  I don't think much of it rubbed off on me.  Only the sewing stuck.  Heh.  Gosh, when we were in high school my brother built a huge color TV!  Anybody remember Heathkits?  :-)