Tuesday Treasury (Patagonia, AZ)

I decided to start posting my Etsy Treasuries again.  I enjoy window shopping online and I like sharing what I find especially in Etsy.

The birds are starting to return to the Preserve.  We are seeing more activity and the Birders are reporting more sightings.  

Says Phoebe

No more sightings of the lion, but he did leave a paw print a couple of nights ago.  He was just letting us know he is still around.  I'm not sure if the lion is a he or she.  I'm too lazy to type he or she each time.  Knowing my luck, the lion will turn out to be a female.

Rufous Crowned Sparrow?

I don't know my Sparrows, so I'll leave this to my birding friends.  So many of them tend to look alike...

Sparrow

This Canyon Towhee has been spending a lot of time under our motorhome.  He is a brave little guy.  He comes within a few feet of the cats.  He runs out when they are not looking to eat some of the seeds on our mat.

Canyon Towhee

He is not very quiet between his running and crunching seeds either.  As soon as one of the cats sees him, he runs back under the motorhome.  Sort of reminds me of the Road Runner and Wiley E. Coyote.  All he needs to do is exit with a Meep! Meep!

Tuesday Treasury
In honor of all the tea drinkers around the world including Arlene's quilting friends from Harriet Truman's Loose Threads Mysteries and me!  Time to steep a pot of tea, curl up in a favorite chair, and read a good cozy mystery...or quilt.  Hey, I'm not picky!   By the way, here's Arlene Sachitano's link to her blog.  Happy Tea...Happy Reading....Happy Quilting

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!

Featured Treasuries (Patagonia, AZ)

On the Cutting Board

We are down to our last week as volunteers for the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve.  We are training our replacements/friends/quilter this week.  Yep, more quilt talk!  WooHoo!

While waiting for our friends to arrive, I spent some time digging through my stash and found some great finds for my next mug rugs. Okay, so you are only seeing the backsides of the fabric.  Once they are cut out, I will post another picture.  I'm hoping to start sewing the other mug rugs together later this week.

More mug rugs

Nature Photos

I have learned one major characteristic about Javelinas.  When it comes to food, they have a very short-attention span....

Hey!  I smell Human.  Guys, you smell Human?

Sniff!  No Human.  Bad sniffer!

Food!  Nom nom nom!

Bewick's Wren

Say's Phoebe

Tuesday Treasuries

Great news! I am featured in two treasuries!  Thank you for featuring my quilts in your beautiful treasuries!  If you view, like, or share these treasuries, you will be thanking these two wonderful curators for adding my quilts.

~by PebbleCreekCandles

~by Bachigs

Visitors Are a Coming! (Patagonia, AZ)

Today, we are waiting for Dan's sister, Kristy and her husband, Dick to arrive.  It'll be so nice to see them again.  Kristy is an excellent quilter.  Her quilts are amazing!  Yep, looking forward to some quilt talk.

Say's Phoebe

Of course, that is not all we will do.  We have most of today off thanks to a couple of volunteers coming in today.  We plan to take Kristy and Dick for a walk through the Preserve.  I hope we have some good wildlife sightings.  There have been no sighting of Coatimundi lately, but that can change.  Mr. Owl is starting to show himself a little more.  The Javalina have been sighted everyday usually eating the watercress at the creek.  They are such health nuts always looking after their girlish figure.

Spotted Towhee

Shhhh! Squirrel is trying to sleep...

ZZzzzzzzzzZZzzzzzz

zzzz...uh?

How's this for a cute pose?  I'm too cute for my fur!

On The Cutting Board

All right!  Two more mug rugs are ready to assemble, but I'll wait a couple of days so I can visit and talk quilts.  In the meantime, I have one more Cupid to embroider.  That will keep me busy in the evenings.

The End is Near (Patagonia, AZ)

It is the end of January...so soon?  If we were leaving on schedule, we would only have 2 weeks left on the Preserve.  Yep, we have been here 2 1/2 months, but we decided to spend one more month here (leaving 11 Mar).  I have to admit that I will be ready to move on.

Water Cress growing in the creek

With 6 more weeks, I should be able to get a lot more wildlife and nature photos.  I hope you are not getting tired of them.  The Preserve should be getting new feathered visitors as the weather warms up.  We are certainly seeing more Coatimundi and Javalina around the creek.

I feel like my photo taking has improved this winter since I was able to go out almost every day.  Of course, the wildlife subjects have been quite a challenge and I do believe I have learned a lot on how to be sneaky and sit still.  For the last couple of weeks, I have been taking photos in RAW format instead of JPEG.

My camera can take both formats at the same time.  Can you see a difference? Or is it just me?

JPEG

RAW

I finally got a photo of the Belted Kingfisher, but I am not happy with them.  I will keep chasing that bird up and down the creek until I am happy with my photo or I run out of time.  If you look closer at the top photo, you will see 2 fish in its bill.  Pretty good catch out of a shallow stream and on one swoop.

a 2 for 1 swoop

Videos by Dan

Dan has uploaded a few videos of the wildlife on the Preserve.  They are fun to watch!  If you would like to see them, click on the link above.

Tuesday Treasury

This treasury is dedicated to wolves.  I hope to see one in the wild someday.

Color My World with water colors!

Freebie Page
I added a new My Memories Scrapbook freebie and a tutorial for making your own Valentine's Day cards on the Freebie Page.