Not So Wordless Wednesday (Rockport, TX)

It has been awhile since I have posted a Not So Wordless Wednesday.

We visited the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge this week.  Our favorite sighting was of this little guy searching for food in the tall grass.

 He kept his eye on us while calmly going about his business to find his lunch.  I was using my 500mm lens so we were not too close to him.  At least I got some good close-ups of him because the birds were all too far away for good photos as you will see when you scroll down.

People are always telling me that raccoons are mean and nasty critters.  They say they attack their pets as well.  I often wonder about the situation that causes the raccoon to act that way since I have never seen one act that way.  I can see one being mean if it is cornered or feels threatened by someone's pet.  Our daughter was bitten by a raccoon once, but it wasn't his fault.  No, I blame our next door neighbors for telling their kids and our daughter that it was okay to hand feed a wild animal especially a raccoon that carries rabies.  The raccoon bit our daughter's fingers instead of the dog food.  The raccoon got away so she had to take rabies shots.  Lucky for her, they were using the new vaccination with less shots.

Now, these guys I would not want to find in my backyard!  Can you see his teeth?  I was quite happy to have a fence between us and the alligators.

I believe this is an American Kestrel.  I wish he had landed a little closer.  He was nothing more than a flash of color while hunting across the fields.

I really needed a professional telescope lens to get some good close-ups.

Eh!...so I just cropped these down to a decent size so you can tell it is a bird and not a bug!

On The Cutting Board

I finished eight Happy Campers and one snowman mug rug.  I plan to list them in the next few days.  

I know one thing.  I am ready to work on something that doesn't include red and aqua in it.  

I started on four new turkey mug rugs.  I'll finish two within the next two weeks for a customer.  The other two will get done eventually.

I want to start working on my Hawaiian turtle block again.  I can't wait to see how this block will look once it is finished.  Well, I better get started on those two turkeys!

Happy Quilting!

Sunshine and Blue Skies (Corpus Christie, TX)

And it feels sooo good!  It has warmed up to jacket weather.  The sun is out.  Beautiful blue skies with fluffy white clouds.  The smell of saltwater and the sounds of many birds calling to each other.  Who could ask for more?  Sigh!  This is wonderful!

Padre Island

During the bad weather, we did a little exploring of the coastal area.  We drove from Padre Island to Mustang Island to Aransas Pass to Rockport and of course, around Corpus Christie.  I did  not take many photos. We are moving to Rockport on Wednesday.  We plan to stay for a month so I will probably fill up my next post with more harbor scenes and bird photos

Rockport

I have been sleeping in because...well, why not?...the motorhome's cold and the mornings have been dark and dreary.  But, not this time.  For once, the sun was peeking through the curtains and there was no sound of rain or wind..hmmm...time to check it out.  It is a good thing we got up early because Dan would not have seen this gorgeous sunrise.  As soon as he showed it to me, I was dressed and out the door!

Sunrise over Mustang Island

There are large groups of jackrabbits hanging around both campgrounds.  They stay close to the rigs for shelter, so it is not unusual to look out our window to see 4 to 5 rabbits sitting nearby.

The Naval Base campground is split in two.  Both areas are located near the bay.  We have a nice view of the bay from our windows.  From the boat launch/dock area, we can see the bridge to Padre Island and Mustang Island.  

We have been making up for two months of lost outdoor time in the last five days. The cats are outside at least once a day.  They start begging to go out around 10 am.  In the afternoons, they pretend they have not been outside and start begging again.  What a bunch of smarty-cats!

We have been going for walks twice a day.  There are several docks and jettys to explore along with walking between the two campgrounds.  We spend quite a bit of time looking for birds as well as enjoying the views.  I kept missing some great photos ops so I had to start carrying my camera on our walks.

Here are a few of the coastal birds we have been seeing on our walks.  I never tire of watching the Great Blue Herons and the Great White Egrets.

Great Blue Heron

This little guy was not nervous around me while I took his photos.  He was too busy hunting.

Plenty of Brown Pelicans flying around this area.  We have seen White Pelicans, but they have not been in a good area for me to get photos of them.

In-sync Pelicans ~ 1-and-2-and-3.....

During one of our first walks, Dan spotted these guys near the marsh area.  We were able to get a little closer before they started looking nervous.

This one was close to the road so I was able to get a good close-up of him.  This is our first sighting of this kind of Heron.

Black-crowned Night Heron

Okay, one more photo before I go....

Lesser Yellowlegs fishing for dinner

Travel day tomorrow so I need to start prepping for moving then it is time for some sewing.

Happy Quilting!

Crazy For Cats (Corpus Christi, TX)

We moved to Corpus Christi NAS last week.  We have a nice view of the bay, but the weather has not been the best for scenic photos or even to see from our site.  We thought we would start seeing more sunshine, but the cold front followed us, so we have been staying snug and dry while wind and rain whipped around our motorhome.

Here are a few photos from Medina Lake...

Hmm, I wonder how high I can climb this strange looking tree

We miss all the entertainment the deer were giving us.  This one was enjoying the extra attention of me taking her pictures.

That looks like a camera.  How do I look?

I should do the wind-blown look...

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!

We took our friend to Bandera a.k.a the Cowboy Capital of the World while she was visiting us at Medina Lake campground.  We did not spend too much walking around since we arrived late and it was getting dark, but I did get some photos of this beautiful building.  While we were taking photos, Dan noticed the Nativity scene had a Texas theme.

This manger scene included a longhorn, a sheep, a pig, a stag, a cactus, three cowboys, and an armadillo.  I love it!

a view of the clock tower

We also had a crazy Cardinal attacking his image on our windows almost every morning.  One time, he went totally beserk on our car's mirror.  I'm surprised he did not damage his beak as hard as he was hitting it.
I tried several times to get the Cardinal's photo with the cats, but either the Cardinal or one of the cats would not cooperate by waiting for me to pull out my camera.

Max  waiting for the Cardinal

Finally, I got smart and left my camera sitting on the bed.  I really wanted a photo of one of the cats being nose-to-beak with the bird.  This one of Hitch came out the best.

hello pretty bird

On our last day, a Roadrunner showed up in the field across from our site.  I could not get too close since he was hunting between two occupied sites.

 It is considered rude to walk into someone's site without asking permission, so I took these with my 500mm lens from the road and did a lot of cropping for close-ups.

On The Cutting Board

There is no denying my love for cats.  Actually, I love all animals, but cats are my favorite...if you haven't figured that out yet.  So, this is a perfect name for this quilt:  Crazy For Cats.  

I wasn't happy with how small this one came out and I wanted to add length.  I started out by adding just a pink panel at the bottom with plans to applique more cats, but for some reason that did not look good.  I thought about trimming the bottom border and adding it to the top with more cats.  I decided against that because the cats on the top would take away from the main cat in the center.  No matter how I positioned the cats, it looked like an afterthought.  Time to do some ripping!

Squirrel's trying to sleep while I work on the quilt

I finally decided to continue the block pattern into the panel and added only two of the three cats on the bottom. Once I framed it with a solid black border, the quilt seemed to come together.  I'm a lot happier with the results.
Oh! and I had another good idea...I finally got smart and bought some clothesline for hanging up my quilts for photos.  Of course, that only works on calm days...or when I have two places to tie the line up high enough for a quilt.  Anyway, I'm hoping this will make it easier to take photos of a quilt.  I should have thought of doing this a long time ago.

Having finished the Crazy For Cats top, I decided to pull out a UFO.  I started this quilt quite awhile ago.  I don't know why I stopped working on this one since I love the way it looks and feels.  I think I stowed it one time during our travels and forgot all about it.  At last, I have pulled  it out again and I have added cats to this top as well. 

Hopefully, I will be able to finish both quilts within the next couple of months.

In the meantime, I have several quilt kits calling my name and I would like to get them sewn into tops soon.

Happy Quilting!

2015 Happy New Year! (Lakehills, TX)

We traveled through Boerne, TX (pronounced Bernie) on our way to Medina Lake. I think I gave myself a sore neck trying to see all the Main Street sights. The one that really caught my eye was St. Peters.  

The building is gorgeous and I had to go back for photos.

After I took some photos, we drove around the backside.  The front is old, but the area in the back has been added on in recent years.  I thought they had done a wonderful job of blending the old with the new.

 

Here's a photo of where Medina Lake should be.  The water is all but gone.  Now it is filled in with trees and vegetation.  There were cattle grazing on the far side below the old water level.

We found out that rattling plastic bags brings the deer out of the woods.  Dan shook the bag twice and they came running!  Two decided they were not going to take a chance of missing out on some goodies and ate out of Dan's hands.  He had to throw the food to the others.

One more thing...we did not feed them near our motorhome.  We learned that lesson from our neighbor.  He is still getting deer loitering around his site and it has been almost a week since he fed them!

Oh!  I almost forgot to tell you what I found at the Fredericksburg Trade Days.  Trade Days is basically a Flea Market/Artists Booths plus food and it is huge.  You can find just about anything there.  I loved looking at the old buildings being used for some of the shops as well as some of the antiques for sale like old wringer washers and even old bed springs.  I bet this is an upcycle artist's dream come true.

 We spent a lot of time roaming around, but it was seeing these 2 vintage trailers that I found most interesting.  Both trailers are a Serra Scotty.  Check out the wheel well design.  Very different.  It is too bad they were not open.  It would have been interesting to see inside of both of them.

 This Shabby Chic pink one is extra cute with the outside staging.  The swan made from an old tire is cute and I really love the old pink bike!

I am thinking about a new mug rug in this vintage trailer style.  I'm not sure how I will be able to incorporate the wheel well design.  Something new to work on!

On The Cutting Board

I'm trying very hard to whittle down my fabric pile.  I started by cutting up the fabric for the Layer Cake Recipe pattern.  I was going to sew it together before starting another, but it seemed easier to do more cutting.

So....I started cutting for the Crazy 8 pattern.  The two piles on the left were already done from a previous cutting frenzy for scrappy quilts.  Now, I have four more theme-related quilts ready to sew together.  But...wait!....there's more!....

I have been wanting to use the pink and black cat fabric for quite some time.  Once I started cutting, I could not stop there.  I wanted to applique a big cat in the center, so that is done.  The quilt is coming out small - only 36 x 36.  I need to add borders and I would like to add some length to it.  I might need to get a little creative with the leftover fabric since there isn't a lot left.

I have been working on some more red and aqua (R&A) Happy Campers.  I recently came across one of my R&A trailers in Pinterest.  I'm surprised how many times it has been Pinned!  342 times!  If you do not follow Pinterest, This is like Facebook Sharing.  I guess it is safe to say that it is the most popular color combination.  None of the other Happy Campers have been pinned as often

Now, I need to setup the sewing machine and get some sewing done.  I also need to finish embroidering the edges on all the Happy Campers!  Oh no, the cats want out...hmmm, maybe they will decide it is too cold to stay outside and I can get back to sewing....
Happy Quilting!