Just Another Day (Patagonia, AZ)

Just another lovely day on the Preserve.  No feelings of doom or the end of the world.  I had forgotten all about it until I opened up Facebook.  Well, I'm not going to sit around and wait for it.  I have things to do, places to go, and birds to see.

This Great Blue Heron has been spending quite a bit of time in the Sonoita Creek lately.  He was so busy catching his lunch that he came within 20 ft of me.  

My legs started to cramp up and I had to move before they fell asleep which would have caused me to fall into the cold water.  That would have been a miserable walk home.

  

I stood up as slow as possible and to my surprise, he just walked down the creek away from me.

 

Says Phoebe was sitting near the center when I came back.  He had nothing to say about today....

but Marvin the Martian did...

On The Cutting Board

I changed my mind on making a scrappy binding.  Most my pastel scraps are smaller than 5 inches.  That would have taken forever to sew together 192 inches of binding.  Not to mention all the seams in the binding would not have looked so good.  I found some long-forgotten peach marbled fabric in one of my containers.  An exact match and more than enough to make the binding.  I'll spend the weekend finishing up this quilt.

 

I finished Ms. Belle Cow.  The coloring in this photo is not the best.  I'll have to take this over again before I add her to my Esty shop.

This is my first mug rug.  Now that I know I can design my own with clipart, I will be making more. 

If you are wondering about her spots, I used the crayon technique.  I outlined her spots with permanent fabric marker.  Colored in the spots with a black crayon.  Covered the area with muslin and placed a hot iron on top to melt the crayon into the fabric.  I had to wash some pencil markings out and the crayon did not bleed or fade.  Pretty cool technique! 

 Oh, I also finished the snowmen's scarfs with fringes.  I'm off to look for a matching border and backing...
Happy Quilting!

Bluebird on My Shoulder (Patagonia, AZ)

We did not get the snow that was in the forecast for last weekend.  Instead we got some much needed rain and yet, it was still too cold to go for walks.  I kept myself busy with projects instead of walking.

Monday turned into a gorgeous day plus the Preserve was closed so Dan and I went for a walk.  When we left, the House Finches were busy eating up all the birdseed...

 The Western Bluebirds showed up for a little while near the office...

 A good sign that the winter birds are finally returning.

Oh, and our new neighbor was resting near a game trail near the Preserve's Railroad trail.  How Dan spotted him..I have no idea.  I often look along this trail for deer, but I did not see the mountain lion.  We are suppose to haze him, but he probably did not realize that ol' eagle-eye Dan had spotted him.  We took some photos and decided to leave the sleepy cat alone since he looked like he just wanted to take a catnap.

One visitor told me that it wasn't unusual for a mountain lion to be sitting near trails and watching unsuspecting humans.  They blend in so well with the background.  Now, I give myself whiplash on my walks while looking for the lion and I still did not see him.

 I need to work on my "eagle-eye"!  I spy a big kitty!

On the Cutting Board
I have been spending quite a bit of time in the evening working on my granddaughter's quilt.  I would really like to finish it soon.  I have been hand-quilting this one for too many years.  It's time to get it done!

And in between hand-quilting, I got the machine-quilting done on this quilt.  I still need to make the binding.  I might use some pastel scraps for a multi-colored binding.

I'm also experimenting with designing some new mug rugs using different royal free cliparts.  I'm getting a lot of ideas on paper, but nothing in fabric.  I finally took the leap and here's my first try - a sneak peek of Ms. Belle Cow...

Clipart designed by Fayette Terlouw

She's almost done, so I should have a photo of a finished project for the next posting.

Happy Quilting!

Not So Wordless Wednesday (Spokane, WA)

My  father-in-law sent flowers from his garden with my husband so I wanted to get a nice photo of them.  Hitch had a few ideas of his own...

For me?  sniff...sniff

hmm, I don't know about the smell...maybe they are for eating

blah!  yea, you can keep them!

On The Cutting Board

Cleaning out one of my bins, I came across this pile of 4 inch blocks stuffed in a corner...totally forgotten....poor things.  I don't have a clue as to what I was thinking when I cut them out.  I spent most of yesterday looking through old notes hoping that I wrote something down about these squares.  Nope! No such luck.  Obviously, I did not cut enough of the white squares to make very many blocks...soooo....

 I decided to make four-squares of what little white squares I had on hand.

I made enough blocks for 4 across and 5 down which isn't going to be big enough for even a crib-size quilt.  I'll have to go back through my stash and see if I have some more white background for a big border.

 Hmmm, now I have all these 4 inch squares leftover.  Maybe I will use them as part of the border.  Oh!  Got to go!  I just thought of a great way to use them in a border.

Happy Quilting!

Off To Buggy Barn (Spokane, WA)

Okay, you caught me.  I played hooky last Tuesday.  No blog.  No message.  I hung out my sign "Gone Shopping" on the motorhome and I did not look back!  My sister-in-law Kristy invited her sister Sue and I to join her in a morning of fabric shopping out in the country.  It's a good thing she called me instead of asking in person.  I was doing a lot of jumping up and down and dancing....yea, it probably wasn't pretty.

So, we headed off to Reardan....down a country dirt road...through rolling wheat fields to a farm.  Farm?  That's what I said...farm.  Our destination - Buggy Barn!  

The quilt shop is actually in an old carriage house stuffed so full of fabrics, kits, books, and quilts that I got whiplash trying to look in all directions at once.  There were quilts on the walls, doors, and on the ceiling!  Even the bathroom walls were covered with enticing wall quilts.  Sigh!  It was heavenly! 

The Buggy Barn Quilt Shop

 

After buying a few choice items, I took some pictures of the farm.....

Quaint country drive to the house

 Buggy Barn also has an Annual Outdoor Quilt Show on August 25 & 26.  It looks like a lot of fun.

For being a small shop out in the country, they certainly were busy for a Tuesday morning.  A testimony to Buggy Barn's friendly and very helpful staff.  Not to mention, a shop packed full of so many delightful items.

New for The Cutting Board

One of the items I could not resist was a cute Bunny wall hanging called Bunny "Door" A Doodle by Leanne Anderson.  It was hanging in the bathroom.  What can I say...I had some extra time to inspect it and the more I looked at it the more I wanted to make it.  The kit came wrapped up in this little box.  What a great packaging idea.

Here's a photo of the wall hanging.  Isn't it cute?  A perfect Spring and Easter greeting for our door.

It was hard to believe that all the fabric fit inside this tiny little box with the pattern and instructions.  Of course, I still need to come up with backing, binding, and batting to finish it, but that will not be a problem.  I'm sure I have something stashed away that will work just fine. 

Check out all the cute designs in Leanne's website "The Whole Country Caboodle".

I could not resist this embroidery and quilt pattern by The Birdhouse Patchwork Designs.  Natalie Bird's designs are so adorable!

 There are sixteen embroidery designs and four quilt related patterns.

Hitch wanted to help, so I let him hold the book open.

I was able to fulfill my fabric mission too.  One item I know I did not have in my stash was enough yardage to match the Fancy Sue blocks.  The material in the blocks were donated to Project Linus and I did not have a single yard of matching fabric.  With some help from Kristy and one of the staff, I found a nice shade of rose floral fabric.  I think it will help set off the blocks rather well.

I put the blocks aside last winter.  I still need to finish a few more blocks.  Now that I have fabric for sashing, binding, and backing, there's no excuse not to finish this quilt.  Unless...I get distracted with embroidery or a bunny wall hanging or ......

Happy Quilting!