Fred

I'm still not having any luck adding videos here.  Blogger Help is pretty useless.  Oh well.  The video is of Maisy watching the birds.  The masses of finches and pine siskins are flitting back and forth from feeders to ground to trees looking much like a swarm of bees.  Maisy was whimpering at them and walking back and forth between the window feeders with her feet on the windowsill, her tail wagging madly.  Ivy is there just to make sure there are no people, dogs or delivery trucks she needs to keep track of.  :-)

The pine siskins put on quite a show for her.

There are up to 50 of them at a time taking advantage of all the facilities.

I was surprised when this one lone robin showed up.

The three canada geese are here most days, successfully (and noisily) defending "their" pond from other flocks of geese.  Often the mergansers stick close to the larger birds.  When I got my binoculars out for a closer look I realized this one was floating gently around asleep.  :-)

The weather has alternated rainy and sunny.  Which means swings up and down in barometric pressure.  Which means the migraines have been one day on, one day off, one day on......

But even so, quilt tops have been going out the door.

Sunday was another lovely day and we decided to do some work outside.

The dogs lounged on the deck and porch.

While we played with wood and chicken wire.

It isn't quite finished but now we have a three bin composter.  Home Depot (at least ours) has a new policy of selling their culled lumber for 70% off instead of cutting it up and throwing it out.   So much waste!  We think this is a fabulous policy decision.  The 2x4s are somewhat curved and twisted but for this kind of work they are perfect!

The initial applique work on this BOM is finished and now I'm working on adding embellishments.  I've pinned on some wool bits to represent inchworms, butterflies, ladybugs, dragonflies, bees, and a worm.  I'm thinking I need a frog.  But no rush to get it done.

What a mess I make!

Two more quilts tops are finished.  These are a two-sided quilt.  I don't know why, but they both fought me every inch of the way and I was glad to be done and deliver them to Julianne.  And much to my horror I found out today two of the blocks in the grey/yellow one are upside down.  Little blocks, but still!  Grrrrrr.

Two more tops to finish up tomorrow morning and you can be sure I'll be looking at them very closely!

PS  I asked The Tramp what to name this post and he said, "Fred."  So there we are.  :-)

Wonderful

Isn't it wonderful how big they are getting!

And this is too wonderfully funny!

So wonderful to have a sunbeam to bask in.  I confess, I basked in the sunshine this morning too.  A bad night's sleep capped with an early morning dose of migraine medication meant I was snoring on the sofa by 9am feeling lovely and warm in the sun.

On the weekend, we first of all went to a wonderful Tony Bennett concert at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC).  Basically....he's a little old man with an aging voice, a huge personality, even huger talent, and he can still blow an audience right out of the concert hall.  He even sang one song with no mike, just to prove he can.  And the audience loved every minute of it.  The Tramp and I very much included.

I also set up my wonderful new Bernina Record on the SewEzi table and rocked out a quilt top.

I need to order a 1/4" foot but for this top the regular foot was quite good enough.

I even got a whole lot of leader and ender pieces done on Bonnie Hunter's Blue Ridge Beauty quilt.  The Juki has an automatic thread cutter so I never think to use my leaders and enders!  No point really.

This is the top, minus borders.  I followed the Missouri Star Quilt Company's Double-Sliced Layer Cake video tutorial and it whips up very quickly.  The fabric is Seascapes, by Deb Strain.  I love it!

Not wonderful is that my car is in the shop waiting for a new transmission.  :-(  Poor Red.  But this means I'm stuck at home and can concentrate on sewing and vacuuming.  (always the vacuuming!)  So I'm getting back into the swing of things with quilt tops for Patchwork Memories.  I always like working on the purple ones.  :-)

The other wonderful new thing is a new zoom lens (70-300mm) for my "fancy" camera.  My wonderful Tramp has been watching for one and suddenly one popped up on Craigslist for a very good price.  Not that I understand all the ins and outs of the camera yet, but I had a quick photo session (132 photos! Ack!) while the light was still good.  So cool.

I've also been messing about a bit in Photoshop.  First thing I did was to blow up the kingfisher photo and found out it is indeed a female.

Madness is a mixed flock of over 50 pine siskins and finches.  They are eating us out of house and home!  :-)

The male flicker was eyeing up the madness at the feeders and decided to stay in the tree.

The new banner photo and these below were taken with the Pentax and the new lens.

I need to learn how to get good action shots though.

It's wonderfully addicting!   Consider yourself warned.  :-)

Providential?

Goodness I hope not.  Yesterday evening I finished knitting the dishcloth that I just had to make and this morning we discovered the dishwasher had died in the night....again....and leaked on the floor this time too.  Sigh.  I had even started on a second cloth.  Maybe I'm jinxing myself.   Heh.  The pink kitchen scrubby in the photo is the one I keep in The Sandbox to clean off my teflon pressing sheet.  More bad dishwashing juju?  lol

I washed and dried The Viking's quilt.  The soft colors don't photograph well in here, but ED assured me she really liked the vintage look.  Now to get it up to New Jersey.  Oops.  After I make a label!

The weather forecast is finally settling down.  Last night, what someone called "the 1000 mile super-storm" blew through.  We were very fortunate to just loose a few small branches, there were tornadoes elsewhere.  :-(

Comfort food has been the rule this week.  The Tramp really likes the chili from The Pioneer Woman's cookbook.

But we disagree on the amount of "heat" in the chili.  So this time I made it as usual, with the wussy McCormick stuff, took out my share of chili and tossed in some "real" chili powder for him.

Worked like a charm.  :-)

At least it looks like January in this photo, doesn't it.  This was the warm and strange calm before the storm.  Daffodils are blooming and pretty pink trees (redbud?) are blooming everywhere.   Even the turtles were out of the pond sunning themselves today.  In January?  It's all very odd.

Some dog TV this morning after the storm.

It was still very breezy.

The geese wouldn't pose nicely for me but I thought the colors in the water were a nice effect.

Between Ngaire and I this is what my kitchen counter looks like lately.  Chocolate milk to wash all my pills down and peanut butter for hers.  I hate swallowing big pills, but what are you going to do?  That's the way they make 'em.

While I'm at the counter working my way through the pills, Charlie, the rascal, is over there in his cage making pill-swallowing noises.  I never knew I was such a noisy swallower!

It's too funny.  He also sneezes, coughs and blows his nose.   Less clearly than the swallowing but he's consistent, so I know he's "parroting" me.  :-)

Here they are watching me vacuum the living room.  Yep.  That's why the stairs are always black.  Sigh.

Oh excuse me.  Is my vacuuming boring you?

That's Maisy's stair.  She especially likes it in the morning when the sun shines on that spot.

After a quickie stair vacuuming, I put the machines away.....and they're back!  (grumble)

Tuesday at doll club I worked a bit on Soledad.  Selena offered to repaint her eyes for me.  It's a little more glam than I'd do myself,  but she did a wonderful job and I wouldn't change a thing.   Selena loves to make over American Girl dolls and has quite a following.  I learn a lot from all my doll club friends.

The next step was to wrap the wires with fabric.

With a bead on the tip.

I decided Soledad was going to be dull, especially with the glamour makeover, so I'm going to use this brighter fabric for her "skirt" and tail flukes.

And of course bought and borrowed (thanks Mom!) some bright red and yellow beads to add to the effect.

Yesterday I prepped 68 t-shirts and tomorrow I have to start on another set.  In between t-shirt quilts I really want to go play with those beads!!  :-)