What I've Been Up To

A bit of sewing...getting caught up with Randy's Sow-A-Long:  Clay's Choice.

Anvil. I think my HSTs got a bit turned from hers. I found a fat eighth of that gold background in my stash from a line called Democracy by Sandy Gervais.  Wish I had more.

And Flock of Geese.  All six-inch blocks.

A bit of sewing for the Ugly Fabric Challenge. That's a sixteen inch Churn Dash block, pencil included for scale, featuring two of the 'uglies' I received. I've already finished one quilt that I have not posted about yet. I wanted to do all my sewing before showing the finished projects. I've never made such a large Churn Dash before, it had me giggling, I confess to being easily amused!

A bit of wildlife watching...The poor deer in our area are loosing their territory to new construction and are showing up backyards panicked.

And a bit of shopping. I am still working on a Christmas gift certificate from a LQS. The Halloween charm pack was so happy I couldn't resist it.

I sure wish pattern designers would stop trying to wield power they do not possess. It drives me nuts when they think they can tell  buyers of their patterns that they cannot sell the products you make. Wrong! The buyer cannot reproduce the paper pattern but the designer cannot control what the buyer does with the end-product. The first sentence is correct, the second is not. Along the same lines, there is a LQS that claims people cannot take pictures of quilts made from patterns sold in her store because the designers will not allow it. Another silly claim. And that's the end of my rant!
Thanks for stopping by~

Unwanted Guests

Pygmy Rattlesnake

It was bound to happen. We've created the perfect environment a snake could ask for on our lanai: plants, water (pool), and food (lizards) and no predators (birds). The last part being our lanai is fully screened. Now don't get me wrong, we've had snakes before but mostly of the non-venomous bent. So it was alarming to find a twelve-inch Pygmy Rattlesnake right there.  That's not my picture, we were too anxious to get it out of the lanai to think to take one!  What a feisty snake!  It shook its tail, and reared up striking out at anything.  It was no match for the broom, ten-foot pool skimmer, and generous glasses of pool water thrown on it.  Last we saw, it was slithering off towards the woods.

This is a Corn Snake I had to chase out last fall.

Much larger than the one that bit me a few years ago.  When my daughter was still in high school I volunteered at the school's library.  Talking with the librarian one day he told me of a Boy Scout camping trip he took with his son and all the snakes they encountered but which were harmless.  So a few days later when I found a Corn Snake I got the non-so-brilliant idea to capture it and show it to my daughter.  Oy! That little twelve-inch snake reared up and managed to strike my thumb twice right down to the bone.  That necessitated a week's course of antibiotics after catching the same snake and bringing it to the emergency room (not necessary, btw---treatment is based solely on symptoms).  It looks quite fearsome with it's vivid coloring but is non-venomous.

Credit: D. Stevenson

 I've met the Eastern Mudsnake also, though usually when gardening.  We both run in opposite directions!

Credit: Sharing Insight

 The Black Racer is another common snake here in Florida. I found this guy likes to hang out in our Sago palms hunting down the lizards.  They are also easy-going and usually take off rather quickly hence their name.
Back to quilty things next time, thanks for stopping by~

Remember This?

I did a disappearing 9-patch swap a while back using red and aqua fabrics.  The participants made 100 blocks, sent them in to the organizer, and received 99 (plus one of your own) back.  I was clueless what to do with the blocks, I just knew I did not want to put them all together as a D9P quilt.  And the cutting and sewing of the blocks, well, let's just say they were a bit wonky!  Yikes!  They languished on a shelf for months until an idea was formed, I'm working on the border now and hope to show the finished top this afternoon.  here's a sneak peak.

 And look at this guy, lounging in the sun poolside! 

Jumble

 Hi all, I hope you all had a nice July Fourth ~
I totally forgot to make the top block what with my trip to Ohio in early June.  It is block 9 of the Jelly Roll Quilt Along and the bottom one is block 10.  I'm all caught up now.  For new readers, info about the Quilt Along can be found at Moose on the Porch Quilts blog.
The last block was a challenge as the directions were a little, ahem, screwed up and the clarifications a bit confusing.  All caught up now.  I took these with my daughter's camera as mine is at the Canon Repair Center.  I mailed it right before the holiday weekend and it took forever to get there.  The weekend seemed interminable.  It rained starting the Friday before through the Tuesday after.  There are literally mushrooms growing everywhere. 
                                ~          ~          ~          ~          ~          ~          ~
I thought I'd share some pictures of my trip to Ohio.

Here's my daughter and niece (in pink).  We were visiting for my niece's graduation from High School.  It looks like they planned to buy similar dresses, but it was pure coincidence.

And the quilt I gave her.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but it is sized to fit a long twin bed.  And the best part she loved it! 

My brother's cat is a Bengal.  They are half Asian Leopard Cat.  Wild looking and wild behavior!  I personally think he should have just gone to the Dog Pound and rescued a kitty but you know how brothers are, never listens to their older sisters!

I'll end with a picture from the Cleveland Zoo where we went one day.  A mother Koala asleep with the most adorable baby!  We were standing not two feet from them.  No one seemed to think they were as cute as we did!
Thanks for stopping by.

Rainy Days and Sundays

What a treat this morning, slept late (7:30) and it was raining when I got up.  A guilt-free day of skipping my hour morning walk! A few days ago  finished the Sanctuary Sampler top I was working on.  I really like the way it turned out.  One less kit in the stash!

  Because I have such a small sewing room, after projects I am forced to tidy up or else nothing can be found.

That evolved to going through my fabric stash and pulling out stuff I no longer like or the quality is questionable.  I had a lot of the latter.  This being judged by the old holding-it-up-to-the-light test.  Amazing how fabric quality has improved just in the past 6 or 7 years or so. Anyone else notice that?   In my sorting and re-arranging, I ran across this online BOM I participated in last year.

I had neglected to do the last month which consisted of the trees using templates! Ugh.  All went well albeit rather slowly.  A major distraction over the past few weeks has been a pair of American Bald Eagles in our neighborhood. 

They have generated quite the stir!  I'll leave you with my Block 4 of the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along that Konda is sponsoring.

Now I'm off to pick out fabric for  the Schnibbles for the month, Tag Along.
Thanks for stopping by!

An Annoying Quilt

Hi everyone,
Just a little sewing going on here, first up is my (Fig and Plum) block 2 in the Jelly Roll Quilt Along over at Konda's blog.
Then in keeping with my personal challenge  to start sewing the many quilt kits I've accumulated~

I started with these.  They are from  Patchwork Party 2007 Spring edition.   If you're not familiar with the concept, you visit 12 different online shops to purchase 12 different sampler blocks.  Each shop offers their own finishing kit for their own rendition of the finished quilt.  Each block makes up a 12 inch block.  The ones I purchased used Sanctuary fabric by Three Sisters.  So I got them out and what an unpleasant surprise!  I assumed that the instructions would be for using a rotary cutter to construct them.  Uh, no.  To be fair, there were templates printed on the instruction sheet, but clearly the intent was for customers to purchase a template set by Marti Michell, who designed the blocks.  This little bit of info was not shared before purchase.  I might add the templates were weird sizes not readily duplicated through simple measuring.  I hope that's clear.  Anyway, I cannot stand working with templates so I made 12 different blocks and simply tried to keep the gist of the blocks similar.

Here's a few blocks,  Rolling Pin,

Foxy Grandpa!

Chinese Block,

and Four Crowns.
Now for the setting, I got the not-so-brilliant idea to set the blocks alternating with stepping stones blocks,  and bought some more of the red tone-on-tone fabric.

Too much red!  Tried another setting using a white floral,

and thought it too plain,

added pink which makes the already cut white floral the wrong size!  Yup, had to order more of the white floral.  Thank goodness for the one online shop that still has Sanctuary fabric.

I'll leave you with this little tree frog, cute on the shrub, not so cute when attached to your leg!  Thanks for stopping by.

Fish Swimming in the Road

Really. We had a hurricane-worthy storm rain-wise early Saturday morning and throughout the day. Yikes at one point I thought our pool was going to overflow, it was that bad. This is a picture of water flooding the woods and making its way to a lake. Normally this is grass.

Here's where the road flooded from overflow from another lake and..

there were catfish swimming in the road! It was difficult getting a picture as I was on my bicycle and had no boots. Plus there was the occasional car to avoid. The fish were discovered rather quickly by hawks and osprey.

Here's a turtle I recued from the road. They can't make it up the curb.

He kept looking over his shoulder astounded at his good luck, I suppose!

And lots of armadillos displaced by the flooding.

In between pictures, lots of sewing was going on. I have just the outer borders left to add to the project I started the other day. Way too dark for pictures yesterday. Here's Cinabella keeping me company. She's a Tonkinese which is half Siamese and half Burmese. She's 15 years old.

We have a saltwater aquarium and I thought I'd share a picture of a fish that's taken up residence in a fanworm, or featherduster. The worm is none too pleased and will spin its top trying to dislodge the fish.
Thanks for visiting.

I've Been Busy...

but not with anything to do with fabric! If it's spring in Florida, then the yard-Nazis are out and about! Let me explain, we live in a community where there are those pesky deed restrictions. Everyone must maintain his yard to meet the standards. Letters go out reminding the offending people to toe the line, or else! It seems I never manage to get to the gardening before the powers-that-be do their inspections. I spent 2 days ripping out ferns which multiply like crazy here, and mulching.

And another day trimming shrubs and palm fronds. I think when they landscaped our house, this palm was the only thing left on the truck so they planted it. I don't know if you can see but the fronds have 3 inch thorns on the bottom half. Besides being painful, a stick produces a bump that takes weeks to go away.

Prior to all this flurry of outdoor activity, I did manage to do something with that stack of Victoria's Scatter Garden fat quarters.

I was going to use that fabric that went so well with this line, in the border. I do not know how people choose all the fabrics for a quilt including the borders and binding at one time. I see them in the quilt stores and am in amazement. Never works for me. I ended up using a piano key border and am pleased with the results.


An update: both chicks were okay as of yesterday afternoon. The parents roam all over looking for food, which is about anything. The chicks are required to keep up. These two look quite healthy and seem to have no problem staying with the parents. One does seem more forward than the other and is always trying to steal food intended for the other. Three years ago we had a pair nest in the same littoral area. Both chicks were doing fine for the first 6 weeks and then one of them started lagging behind as the three others moved ahead. The other chick was also like this confident one, assertive at getting enough food. Keeping my fingers crossed.