Beth's Blog

Finally a Wild Whooping Crane!

2012-01-31T08:00:00.001-05:00

This is a Whooping Crane, one of the 500 left in existence, 400 of which are in the wild. You can see the labels on her legs if you double click on the picture. She is 1601, a young female who first was taught the migration route last year by following an ultralite aircraft from Wisconsin. Her one leg has a red, green and white band and her other leg and black and white band. She now vacations with the Sandhill Cranes in Florida. My sister's sighting was the first since she left Wisconsin and the Operation Migration people were very happy. We have gone by the area where we saw her before but she was much too far away. On Saturday, she cooperated by flying over to a closer area while we were there (although still quite a distance away on the far side of a pond). She was in the company of several Sandhill Cranes as well as one very fat Greylag Goose!

This is looking at the back of the head with her red marking very much like the Sandhill Crane. It is difficult to see that it is red with the lighting.

I just thought this was a pretty decent picture of her.

Here she is with one of the Sandhill Cranes. The Whooping Cranes besides their obvious white as opposed to grey feathers are quite a bit larger in adulthood than the Sandhill Cranes.

Just another picture from the side.

Here were the three of them all lined up, the Greylag Goose, the Whooping Crane and one of the Sandhill Cranes.

What is the Difference Between a Common Gallinule, a Purple Gallinule and an American Coot?

2012-01-30T08:10:00.006-05:00

Finally, I have seen a Purple Gallinule. After the morning ride to Paynes Prairie, we took an afternoon drive to Leesburg Florida's Venetian Gardens City Park to see the Purple Gallinules. Bill said we would have a 99% chance of seeing them and we did! There were also a number of Common Gallinules (also known as the Common Moorhen) and American Coots. So I thought I would put a collage together of the three of them who are obviously closely related. The big one is the Purple Gallinule. The ones in the upper right are the American Coots (this picture was from NC) and on the bottom is the Common Gallinule who is dark like the Purple Gallinule but doesn't have his striking coloration which even in low light was a brilliant blue/purple.

Here you can see the bright blue and aqua plumage as well as the coloration on the beak of the Purple Gallinule.

Here was another Purple Gallinule under the bridge. If you look closely, you will see that he has one injured leg. They have big feet like the Moorhens and the Coots.

Here you can see the big feet!

A couple of the Gallinules were eating a dead fish on the side of the creek.

This is one of the Common Gallinules which has much duller colors for sure!

Sand Hill Cranes, Alligators and Kestrels

2012-01-29T08:05:00.008-05:00

Thursday morning bright and early, we headed off with Gail and Bill's small bird group to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park so that I could finally get to see Sand Hill Cranes which sometimes frequent the park in the thousands (but not that day). There has been a rather severe drought in this area and much of the preserve didn't have its usual water levels including a dried creek bed. However, there were several of the cranes very close to the path at one point so I took quite a number of pictures!! They are a magnificent very large bird! We had hoped that there would be a random Whooping Crane in the bunch but that was not to be.

This is a closeup where you can see the head with his bright red top!

Just hanging out!

Walking away.

A large flock or Sand Hills flew over and this encouraged the ones in the field to rise up and fly off as well making all sorts of noise as they did it. Here there is some synchronized flying!

This is a Northern Harrier hawk which we saw quite a bit of. There was so much light that even though he was really distant, I could get a relatively decent shot!

There were an incredible number of large alligators in what little water there was. This is the grandpa of the alligators out to sun himself.

It looked like you could walk over the water just on the backs of the alligators.

The Ibis don't seem be be bothered by their fearsome presence nearby!

This is a bird which is quite common down here but not one I had seen before -- an American Kestrel. Bill pointed him out to me.

This Preserve is famous also for its herds of buffalo, wild cattle and wild horses. Alas, all we found was the skat (some quite fresh) that they had left on the path (although I am not sure I want to meet a wild buffalo face to face when walking). The trail was 1 1/2 miles totally in length so it was a good 3 mile walk for the day. The weather has been gorgeous for doing things outdoors -- not too hot and not too cold!!

On the way back home (after a great lunch at the 43st Deli), Gail and Bill stopped by a place in their community which is frequented by Red Headed Woodpeckers. This one is just outside its hole. He posed for quite a few pictures.

In contrast to the above picture, one of the first birds we saw at Paynes Prairie was a Red Bellied Woodpecker which also has a red head like the one above but which whose plumage otherwise is much different! It took me forever to see this bird as it helps if you are looking at the right pole! There are a lot of this bird at Gail and Bill's bird feeder each morning. I can remember them at our feeder in NY as well.

Avocets, Monkey Squirrels, Marbled Godwits and the Three Bears Pillow Closet

2012-01-28T07:56:00.002-05:00

No postings for a week as I have been on a whirlwind of activity here in central Florida visiting my sister and her dear husband. They live in one of those retirement communities for active seniors and boy are they active!!! I fall into bed at night and go instantly to sleep!!

This is one of the frequent visitors to their bird feeders. Bill refers to it as a deluxe sport model rat as it eats all the sunflower seeds in the feeders if given the chance. But it is really a Sherman's Fox Squirrel. It is a variation of the more common Fox Squirrel which is larger than your garden variety grey squirrel. Their faces are black but I think they are a very different shape as well. They are nicknamed Monkey Squirrels which I think is a very apt description as they really do look like monkeys when they are in action using their front paws a great deal. I just love watching them!

Here she is in the front yard eating from another feeder. They have super long tails.

We headed off to Cedar Key on the northern Gulf Coast on Wednesday to take a boat ride and see some more of our beloved shorebirds. Before we went on the ride, we took a walk around the Shell Mound area and spotted these birds way way off in the distance. They were so far away that we had to wait until we got home to positively identify them. They were American Avocets -- tall with a distinctive white stripe across they black part of their wings. You will have to double click on the image to really see them! There were also Marbled Godwits but the pictures are only good enough to identify them from their coloring and distinctive two toned bills!

The Black Skimmers were the most common of the birds on the little sandbar that held the Avocets and the Godwits. A boat came by and they all flew up in the air. Skimmers are one of my favorites!

We just made the boat ride (they actually brought it back in so we could board it) and went on a tour of all the little islands. We saw dolphins and lots of birds. This was a Horned Grebe which was my second sighting of this bird -- again it was pretty far away. Gail (whose blog is on my bloglist on the left hand side) got a great picture of a dolphin which hopefully she will post!

This Great Blue Heron was just taking off from the beach. He was surrounded by the legions of Cormorants that we saw that day!

I love pelicans and particularly got a kick out of these pelicans who were clearly disturbed by the hundreds of cormorants that had just taken off because of the approaching boat! This was the closest I have gotten to these magnificent large birds!!

My sister very seriously announced to me my first night here that if I didn't like any of the FOUR pillows on the queen sized bed, she had a further selection to chose from -- then she opened up half the closet in the bedroom where there were eight more different sized pillows (thus my Three Bears characterization)!! I just started laughing as I couldn't imagine assigning space in a closet to all those pillows plus the seriousness with which she offered my choices to me. I still giggle when I think about it! You would never find space enough in my closets to have these nice neat stacks!

Final Serendipity Quilt

2012-01-22T17:29:00.000-05:00

Finally getting to the end of the fabric I brought down to the beach house to work on Serendipity quilts. This is the last piece and the repeat is about 27 inches so there will be a larger quilt and certainly a more subdued one as you can see from this palette. I am currently thinking of greens (do have those) and some very muted tans, browns and rusty red. There may be a flash of muted purple in there as well.

Tomorrow I head off on a long drive to Florida to visit my sister. She has a full week planned of quilt shops and birds and just hanging out with her and her lovely husband! She did make the mistake of asking me to bring stuff for show and tell.... We will also be hitting a quilt shop that is going out of business -- I tend to find my best fabrics for these radial symmetry kind of quilts in places like that -- sometimes the ugly big prints just work the best!

As soon as I return, guests will be arriving from home so all quilting on my part will be off the table for awhile! Most of today was spent trying to pick up a bit and packing for the trip!

I Had a Great Name for this Quilt but I Forgot It!

2012-01-20T20:35:00.002-05:00

This is the first block of this next quilt. There has been a lot of experimenting to get colors I wanted. It is a variation of one of the blocks in the Sara Nephew Doubledipity book.

The second block is done and beginnings of the third block. I ended up with five variations on the block by the end and then the challenge of combining them into something that didn't look random.

This is block number 2 which just has different colors than one or two.

This is the third block which is a further variation on the variation! It is up to 90 pieces for the block which is about 16 inches across.

This is the fourth block. Do you see something amiss? Luckily I saw that I had sewed one of the diamonds upside down before I put the whole thing together. It wasn't until I was looking through the pictures that I noticed it!

Moving right along and trying to decide on final placement before finishing the coloring of the fourth and fifth blocks. The orange and blue ones are rather bright so I tried to tone those down a bit!!

Here I tried out black in the background and had the bright red background hexagon blocks in the four corners. I had really thought I would have black in this quilt but it wasn't to be -- too stark. I had also tried a very wide variety of colors in the background triangles before deciding on the leftovers from some other triangles I had cut for the center blocks. They had the reverse coloration of the ones in the block.

This is the final configuration of the quilt. As I have mentioned, I don't have a good way to photo anything big here as my design walls are 4 ft x 4 ft. There are dark blue strips to be done down the sides and then a great border fabric I had in my stash down here. I haven't sewn the strips together yet. Before adding the final borders it is about 55 x 85 inches.

I have the beginnings of a fourth quilt top -- it has a totally different palette and I really don't have any of the fabrics it needs so it may only get started down here. I have tons of the fabrics that would go with it at home and I don't want to buy more....

Secret Beach Pictures

2012-01-14T13:36:00.000-05:00

Hard to believe, but yesterday was one of the first days where the tide was low and there were birds to be found down on my secret beach, so named because it has a public entrance but is effectively hidden so you kind have to know about it! It butts up to the Ft. Fisher beaches and for some reason is covered with sandstone and seaweed at low tide. It is now almost unwalkable at high tide because Hurricane Irene this year washed away a lot of beach.

These are one of my favorite beach birds -- the Ruddy Turnstones with their bright orange legs. There were a lot of them on the beach.

There were a lot of the common Willest as well. I keep hoping for a more interesting sandpiper!

All the Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones and Willets were in a feeding frenzy today.

Of course all my Buffleheads were offshore in two rather large groupings. I had hoped to get a better picture of the Black Scoters but they weren't there. Instead there was one Surf Scoter but I couldn't get a good enough picture to post, only good enough to identify. I think I have seen all the different varieties of Scoter now although I haven't seen the White Winged one down here, only in Rochester. I think the Surf Scoter was the unidentified brown bird from the day before as well.

I am determined to get borders done on existing tops before I launch into a full scale attempt to design and finish the next Serendipity quilt. This was my first attempt at borders for the first quilt. The outside fabric was just too busy and didn't work although the color was good. It was just too medium a value.

I finally decided on using the dark green that is in the quilt. Luckily I think I have enough of it. It is just a solid but helps to frame it. I have just enough of the other two (the red and the pink) to make the skinny inside borders -- the red being a little wider. Not only will I be using fabric I brought down, but I literally won't have any scraps left after doing these quilts. The quilt police will probably get me for adding seams in my borders though.

Ducks and Quilts

2012-01-12T19:00:00.000-05:00

Hard to show the whole quilt because of the lack of decent design walls but have added some borders to the last Serendipity quilt. I added medium blue strips to either side and then a thin strip of the darker blue and then a slightly wider strip of a navy blue and then a four inch strip of the fabric I made last year. I think it calms it down a bit and frames it. I will use the navy blue for the binding as well and probably in the corners.

These are the background hexagons for the next Serendipity quilt. I have decided to use a version of the block I used for the last quilt as it is the most complex of the blocks in the two books and therefore has the most design possibility.

They are hard to see but in among the Buffleheads, there are Black Scoters (with a bright orange lump on their bills). There were both males and females. There is also a mysery brown duck with is to the right kind of in the middle. These ducks were way out this afternoon!
It wasn't until I got home that I could identify the Scoters. If you click on this, you can probably spot them in the middle back.

You can see a little bit more of the Black Scoter males and females here. The males have that orange lump while the females just have a whitish head and a brown body. The ducks with the striking white are of course Buffleheads.

Two Down, Two to Go.....

2012-01-10T19:22:00.000-05:00

Well, except for the final borders, this quilt top is done and has already been on my Facebook page! It took about a week to do -- although I only worked on it a couple of hours each day. I may have to call it Upstairs/Downstairs as that is what I have been watching while working on it! I am almost done the five years of dvds.

Here I have added borders of the medium blue to the two sides.

Probably I will add a darker blue thin border and then use the stripped fabric as the final border but not totally convinced yet...

This is the fabric for the next quilt I will be working on. I haven't decided which block/blocks to use but it will be another of the serendipity quilts. Hopefully I can find a block that is as versatile as the one for the last quilt. If not, I will use that block again but will do something different with it. I am currently thinking I will use some different colors in each of the blocks with just a couple of colors being a constant to pull it together. We shall see
.

Here are the first of the star insides and the fabrics I have pulled to work with it. Most important is to make sure I have at least one pretty light fabric and one fabric that reads dark. Photographing is a good way to determine if you have enough contrast. Changing it to black/white works even better.

Black will be added to the mixture of colors for this one.

There were a couple of female Scaups down at the lake this afternoon. They looked small but look more like Greater Scaups than the Lessers so maybe they are young. I had the Coots with which to compare them.

The Auditioning Process

2012-01-08T19:56:00.000-05:00

Major progress is being made on the serendipity quilt and here are the different blocks that make up the quilt. There are basically three different variations of the same pattern -- only the colors are different. Above are some of the fabrics that may end up filling in the little triangle spaces around the small hexagons.

This is a display of all of the interlocking hexagon blocks that will be used between the large stars in the "background". I have arranged them so that the predominantly blue ones are on the left and the ones with more overall warm colors are on the right.

Just in case you are curious, this is the fabric from which all the hexagons and star blocks were made. I had a little over two yards -- as the repeat was about 12 inches, I only used two yards which makes 10 stars and 35 hexagons. So I will have 5 hexagons left over at the end. This is all based on a 3 1/2 inch triangle (or 3 1/4 inch star).

Well, here I have finished all the blocks and am laying out my first guess as to where to place the "background" hexagon blocks. I have put the darker blue ones on the outside and the brighter reddish/orange ones around the center two stars.

Here I decided to try out the dark blue around the outside hexagons and the pale yellow around the brighter colored hexagons in the middle. Just didn't do it for me!

Here I decided to replace the inner most yellow triangles with orange, just leaving the points yellow. I also thought it might be interesting to have bowtie like places so the extra yellow triangles. Still have that dark blue on the outside but am not liking it -- but do like the orange in the middle and the dark blue hexagon blocks here and the brighter ones now making up the corners -- much better.

Ah, found the medium blue that I bought the other day and tried it out on the outside blocks -- bingo!
I will add a strip of this to either side and then put on the border.

This is the top half of the quilt with all the final colorations. The triangular areas at the top will also have the medium blue. You can see the stripey fabric that I created with leftover 1 1/2 strips last time I was down here -- that will be in the border I think... Now to sew it all together!

The weather is again warm and sunny and the parking lot was full almost at the lake today. Here is a pair of Lesser Scaups -- male in front and the female behind him. They were hanging out with two Red Headed Ducks and the Coots.

The Red Heads were hanging out with the Coots again today.

It was late in the afternoon when I left Carolina Beach Lake and I couldn't resist taking a picture looking out over the lake toward where the sun would eventually set!

Continued....

2012-01-06T19:51:00.000-05:00

Had to include a picture of the youngest member of my extended family -- my granddaughter Amelia who lives across the country from me. She will be three in March but is serious about her painting here. The tshirt is one of the ones I dyed for her last year. I can't believe how big she is getting -- thank goodness for Gmail video chats as I got to see her going through many stages although she is a bit shy now.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the Coots today as they were in so close and in the sun as well!

There were two Red Headed Ducks and one Lesser Scaup also hanging out with the Coots. My Wood Duck hasn't appeared for some time and the Horned Grebe hasn't been back either although I still see the Pied Billed Grebes and the other usual suspects each day.

Progress continues on the second of the Serendipity quilts. I have now made the blue bordered blocks the outside blocks instead of the inside blocks. I will vary the colors a bit on the inside blocks.

These are the blocks that are used in the background to join all the star blocks. This was great fabric to really showcase the radial symmetry.

You can begin to see the quilt coming together. I have finished all the outside blocks and two of the four inside blocks and about half of the "interlocking" hexagon blocks. I am testing out a navy blue for the background to the hexgons along the edge of the quilt and am thinking a pale yellow for the background on the inside hexagons which then give the illusion of larger star blocks in the middle and makes it more of a medallion style set. At least I haven't run out of fabrics so can successfully do the border once I figure out what it needs to be I would like the quilt to be a little larger I think as it is only about 50 inches wide now and just how many single bed quilts do I need!

I have resisted Thousands of Bolts.com for awhile but they had a yearend sale and I just couldn't resist getting some of this great fabric which I love!! Just had to share it. Don't know what I will do with it -- maybe a backing on something but I loved it -- this is about a fat quarter size picture.

Winter and the Buffleheads Finally Arrived!

2012-01-03T19:13:00.000-05:00

This ended up being the best picture of the Buffleheads who I saw for the first time this afternoon at my "secret beach". Warren had called me from his walk to tell me there was a large mixed flock of ducks down near Ft. Fisher so I hopped in the car with my camera and sure enough -- Buffleheads and Scaups.

The male Buffleheads are much more graphic looking with a large amount of stark white on their heads and chests while the females have smaller markings. What I didn't realize was that there heads on top have that irridescent green that so many of the ducks have.

You can see the striking white on the males here. They were out quite a distance.

On this picture, you can see the irridescence on the heads of the male Buffleheads.

This is the first of the center blocks finished on the new "serendipity" quilt. It took quite a bit longer than the blocks in the last quilt and I realized why after counting the pieces -- this block has 72 pieces whereas the other only had 48! It is surprisingly easyt to make though even will all the little points.

This is the first of the outside blocks. I am beginning to question my fabric choices because of what color I am going to use as a background that will match both of the blocks and show...hmmm..

I finally turned on the heat this morning so I wouldn't have to listen to a complaining cold husband! I did take my walk today and had to wear a winter coat for the first time but it was tolerable -- didn't need a hat or gloves but not any other walkers today! There were Canada geese though as well as Scaups and Buffleheads (which I had never seen at the lake before). I think all the ducks were trying to get out of the wind.

A Grebe of a Different Color!

2012-01-02T18:53:00.000-05:00

My regular grebe buddies were there today (three of the Pied Eyed Grebes) as well as the mallards and domestic ducks. However, as I was coming around the last turn, I saw what looked like another grebe to me but it had lighter patches on it and a longer bill. I was facing into the sun but tried to get a pretty good picture so I could see if the sun was just playing tricks. I looked it up when I got home and it is a Horned Grebe (the reddish brown on the neck and the white patches that extend all the way back)! I don't think I have seen one of those before at least not down by Carolina Lake so that was exciting.

My Red Headed Duck was back among the Coots and there was a sleeping Scaup as well (although it might have been a female Redhead but it wouldn't raise its head so I could see it well).

I did sew a bit this morning (my daughter has been visiting for a couple of days) as I wanted to test my fabric choices for the center blocks for the newest Serendipity quilt. This is half of the block although the wedges are not sewn together yet. I am making the center four blocks differently than the six surrounding blocks. I had to revisit the fabric shop to get some more of the darker blue in this block. I think I am really going to like this although I will have to be careful not to use too much blue. I do need a fair bit to offset the very bright warm colors that I am using though.

The Next Serendipity Quilt is Beginning!

2011-12-30T20:18:00.000-05:00

Well, I have cut out two more of the Serendipity quilts. This one uses a fish fabric of which I had bought quite a bit -- used it for the backing for one of those nine quilts I machine quilted. I thought it would be a good one for this type of quilt. I am using a different pattern from the book for this one -- called Brilliant Sky. I am going to use the same block for the whole quilt but am going to vary the background colors to give the illusion of two different blocks.

I have found that these 12 inch repeats work extremely well for the quilts. I have noted in doing the regular "stack and whack" type quilts that if the repeat is bigger, you can usually make the block bigger but making big blocks with 12 inch repeats doesn't work as well.

These are the matching hexagons. Think this will be a cool one!!

This is kind of a boring picture as I don't have a "before" picture. For some reason, the color on the bottom half of our south facing side faded terribly while the top stayed the same color as the front. Luckily, they left cans of paint for all the rooms in the house as well as the outside when they finished building the house! As the weather is supposed to be gorgeous for the next few days, Warren took the opportunity to get the bottom painted and it looks great again!

He also put up some netting on our third floor porch as one of our kitties either jumped or fell from that floor a few days ago, scaring us to death! He evidently made an intermediate stop on top of our van which broke his fall of 30 feet and he is none the worse for wear (although there are now scratch marks on Warren's prized van). We found him almost immediately sitting on the lee side of the house -- he hates the wind and it was a windy night!

Almost Finished!

2011-12-28T18:34:00.001-05:00

Well, the top is all sewn together finally and I am really quite pleased with it! I found some fabric that was very close in value and color to the greyed blue green that is the background for the stars so that I could finish the skinny triangles on the top and bottom. I am also going to add a strip of it to either side as well. A quilt like this deserves a fancier border so I will have to think about that for awhile! I don't have much left of any of the fabrics that make up the blocks so would have to find something very similar. You will have to forgive the wonky picture as I don't have a large design wall down here so I had to improvise a bit to get a decent picture as it is 4 feet by 6 feet. The block is the Flag block from Sara Nephew's Doubledipity book which I really love!! I did do a different layout than those in the book -- most of those had nine blocks instead of the ten I did. I also changed the background color to white for some of the central background blocks to make it a little more interesting.

This shows the top a little better so you can see how it is finished off.

My favorite duck hasn't been at the Lake lately (I told Lisa she scared it away) but today there were three Greater (I think) Scaups hanging out with the Coots.

You can see the two males and the one female in front. I am not convinced that one or two of the Scaups aren't a Lesser Scaup as one seemed to have more head definition than the others but it might just be the angle.

Time to start a new quilt. This one will be much brighter colors -- the whole rainbow in fact! I have chosen the block that is on the cover of the Doubledipity book which is called Brilliant Sky. I may be a bit more adventurous with this one and make blocks with different color rows.

I also decided how to finish off the Colin Firth quilt. I wanted to do something with the outer edges and think I have decided what to do so will test out that hypothesis as well! I may even attempt quilting that while I am down here. I probably will wait until I get home to quilt the above quilt as I don't have much in the way of backings down here, although Thousands of Bolts might help me there!

Happy Holidays to all My Blogger Friends!

2011-12-25T14:31:00.000-05:00

This is our Christmas tree this year and Santa seemed to recognize it as such so I have a couple of new toys to play with (a net book and some tv transmitting earphones). The earphones will be great for listening to the tv when I am running full speed ahead with the sewing machine. I am more of a listener than a tv watcher anyway and my hearing is not what it used to be!

I am doing dual duty keeping Lisa's kitties company downstairs as well as continuing to work on my Serendipity quilt which is good fun. I am watching eight years of Upstairs/Downstairs while I am doing it too (thanks Priscilla).

I stacked a new repeat fabric last night so I will be ready to start on another version soon. It will probably be a bit more scrappy as I get a bit more adventurous with the blocks.

In Process....

2011-12-21T14:11:00.000-05:00

For a change, I decided to test out the pattern I was using before cutting every piece of fabric I had! The center is the repeating pattern, and then four additional fabrics are required to complete the block. At this point I haven't put anything together and am trying to decide if I like the fabrics (I didn't) and trying to decide what to do for the additional diamonds between the green stripes. I have a very limited assortment of fabrics here from home but am trying to use what I have.

This was another of the centers to test again whether I liked the fabrics (uh uh).

A closeup of a piece of the block showing the red (and fussy cut repeating triangle). No no....

Ah ha! This is the first block up above but I inverted the diamonds in the middle and substituted a new fabric for the red one at the tips -- it is a little duller and has some green in it. I then added a pinkish batik and decided it was okay. There is a lot of pink in some of the other blocks and it reads as background even though it is a little brighter because there is so much activity in it. (I was afraid that the stars themselves were going to look like background.)

Here are some of the other stars starting to form. I have had this fabric for probably 10 years and actually had it in several colorways as it is perfect for "stack and whack" applications as it has so much variety and color in it and relatively large shapes (the repeat is about 12 inches so only requires 2 yards to get the appropriate amount of hexagons!

These are the original pieces I auditioned for the star points. I will probably make them blocks at some point but the contrast in them isn't good so you kind of lose the effect unless you look closely. I did fussy cut these though!!

This was a bilaterally symmetrical print -- the kind that Paula Nadelstern always features in the middle of her fantastic blocks. This is a closeup of one of the previous blocks.

Believe it or not, the leaves have been going quickly and I have finished one quarter of the border already and this is how it will look on the quilt. I may still add some flowers but we shall see.

Of course, we all know who he is but I got him in the sun again and then upped the saturation up a bit so you can see his fantastic color. I am definitely thinking he is going to find himself in a quilt relatively soon along with some of his fellow travelers.

More Ducks...Some Nicer Pictures (I Hope)

2011-12-17T18:28:00.000-05:00

It was cloudy and chilly this afternoon and the Red Headed Duck was hanging out with the mallards. This is the first time I have seen one of these out of the water. He wasn't shy at all and was quite close so you can see all his different colors.

A side view as he was heading for the water.

Finally got the sun shining on my favorite duck. This was yesterday although he was there today as well hanging with the mallards and domestic ducks.

You can really see the iridescence in this closeup. They have about every color in the rainbow.

I have been working on the border for the Baltimore Album (although truthfully it had been so nice outside I was spending most of my time on the porch watching dolphins and reading). I may actually get it done in a reasonable amount of time but have to get my applique skills back a bit more!

Time to start on one of the Serendipity quilts (from Sara Nephew's book of the same name). These are a fancy version of the hexagon radially symmetrical blocks. The weather is supposed to be cool again tomorrow so I may just stay inside and get some work done!

After One Day of Winter, Spring Returns

2011-12-15T19:04:00.014-05:00

The light was right today and the Northern Shoveler was there again and I was able to get several really good closeups even though he was about halfway across the lake. They are a very striking duck with their iridescent heads and stark white chests and those really funny cupped bills.

Today he was hanging out with all the Coots as you can see.

Back again today, we all know who he is.

I don't have a good surface to show the whole quilt top but this is a Baltimore Album quilt I started 25 years ago -- I used to applique the blocks on my frequent plane trips from Rochester to Wash DC on business - it's bad when the stewardesses start recognizing you! It languished for years as blocks which finally got sewn together last year and then were waiting for a border of some kind. Well today was the day. I got the darn thing drafted finally yesterday, cut all the strips I needed on the bias and sewed them onto the border fabric.

This is the unturned bias strip onto which I will applique approximately 500 leaves!! I really wanted to work on this as I needed a good hand project for tv viewing in the evenings with my dear husband. I have never liked to sit without doing something with my hands. I may add a few flowers into the border as well and haven't finished the corners yet. And I have sewn the binding on the nine quilts I machine quilted while I was down here. There was one heck of a lot of work in this top so I want to get it finished. I will hand quilt it as well -- it is the old cotton sateen that quilts like butter so that will be fun and hopefully will get done before our next GVQC quilt show in a year and a half. I plan on putting a family genealogy on the reverse side -- I can track back parts of the family for hundreds of years so it will be a bit of a challenge to draft as well!!

Nice Surprises at Carolina Lake Yesterday!!

2011-12-14T18:36:00.053-05:00

Well, since my Wood Duck Who Thinks He is a Mallard was again at Carolina Beach Lake yesterday, I decided to concentrate on closeups of his head. Unfortunately, he never seems to be there when the light is good and a flash doesn't seem to help much. I won't bore you with the 50 other shots I took! They have changed Blogger so that if you click once on any of the images, it will give you a strip of all the images in that blog all blown up!

The birds are beginning to show up for their migration (guess the weather was getting colder up north) and here are three male bluebirds crowding on the post across the street.

While reading the paper out on the porch this morning, we looked down and there were a male and a female House Finch on our palm tree eating those berries. This is a rather unusual view of a finch!

I walked around the Lake clockwise instead of my usual counter clockwise and thought that the Lake was strangely vacant of all bird life (except for the usual Coots, Mallards and Domestic Ducks)!!

However, just as I was getting back to the car, I spotted two ducks that I thought were mallards and it was hard to differentiate as I was looking into the setting sun. It was lovely to discover that one of the Northern Shovelers was back with what I thought was his mate. It turned out to be a Red Headed Duck upon closer inspection! So migration must be beginning finally! I saw the Shovelers a few days last January. They are another very attractive duck with their funny looking large bill.

Here is the Red Headed Duck.

Most of the time I was watching them, they were swimming together which why initially I thought they were a pair.

Okay, just one more closeup of my favorite duck! I noticed today that their red eyes sometimes turn almostly completely tan and then revert back -- don't know whether he was getting sleepy or not. The males of the Wood Ducks are very colorful while the females are very, very drab (like the female mallards).

Project Progress...

2011-12-13T18:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I did finish two dresses for my 33 month old granddaughter! I am hoping that they are not too bright. I also ordered long sleeved tshirts to put underneath them so that they can be worn in the winter as well. They do look a bit long for an almost three year old but she can grow into them!

This is dress number 2. These were fun to make and ended up with entirely different fabric than what I had originally intended and packed!! They are called scrap bag dresses as they take small amounts of a variety of fabrics. I used three fat quarters of the flower print and one fat quarter for each of the other two ruffles. The lining was also a fat quarter.

Okay, so now is decision time. This is version 1 of Colin Deconstructed. He starts whole in the upper left and then gets deconstructed.

This is version 2 where he is finished in the bottom right and gets deconstructed up to the upper left. Aesthetically, I seem to favor this version and it will allow me to add two more blocks with color in them. I think your eye automatically for almost everything starts in the upper left so it needs something to draw it away from that corner. The full Colin is the focal point (and color will be if I add it) so it gives you motivation to move your eyes down and cover the whole thing. Am I just imagining things or do you all agree?

I am relatively pleased with how things turned out as I think he is identifiable even in the one where there is only 5 pieces of fabric.

It's So Warm, the Birds Must Be Heading North Again!

2011-12-07T18:36:00.001-05:00

Well, I thought even the Coots had left today but they had just moved -- the count is up to close to 100 now.

All I have been seeing are the Mallards and the one Pied Billed Grebe who has stayed behind.

So I am reduced to taking pictures of sparkling Mallard heads.

I must say that the Grebe must be getting used to me as he didn't object as much as usual to my taking his picture -- he was wary but didn't dive under water and skitter across half the lake like he usually does! I thought this was a pretty good picture that gives you some idea of more detail. He has his winter plummage.

Well, he is looking at me but hasn't left yet. The lake is very full and will be fuller tomorrow after tonight's rain -- I think the birds like it a little shallower so I hope they let the water out like they did last winter.

Christmas is Coming

2011-12-04T18:27:00.001-05:00

We dolled up the front of the beach house with some colorful Christmas lights. During this season, the island we live on is called "The Island of Lights" as they have Christmas lights strung for about five miles along the beach road as well as surrounding Carolina Beach Lake where some of the displays are pretty pretty intricate. Kure Beach features seashore motifs while Carolina Beach has all the traditional Christmas motifs. It really is Christmas-y despite the 60 and 70 degree temps and no snow.

I finally finished machine quilting the last of the nine quilts I brought down here. This is a simple nine patch combined with a snowball block and was part of our Genesee Valley Quilt Club Fall Migration a couple of years ago. I had lots and lots of leftover browns from my 289 block Dear Jane!

This is a closeup of the above quilt and you can see the feathered wreaths I free hand machine quilted in the center of the snowball blocks -- they needed something. It only took a couple of hours with my wonderful Juki machine!! I stitched in the ditch around the octagon and the light valued blocks in the nine patch. So now I just have to bind it and it will be ready to cozy up under on the sofa!

Wood Duck -- No Need to Say More

2011-12-04T16:57:00.000-05:00

It is supposed to rain the next couple of days so wanted to capture as much of my Wood Duck Who Thinks He is a Mallard as I could before he found more congenial company. They seem to be accepting him better and they were in a very different area of the lake today. This is just a collage of the pictures I took (only a small fraction sad to say!). I think he needs a lady friend to keep him company.

My Continuing Afternoon Walks at Carolina Beach Lake

2011-12-03T18:41:00.003-05:00

Well, to my Rochester and other northern friends, this is not an uncommon sight but down here I haven't seen any of these Canada Geese -- not even flying over in their familiar V's. There were five at the lake the other day and I remember only seeing a couple last year.

I took this picture just because the light was shining off this male mallard's head. They really are a pretty duck but just too darn common! You can tell there hasn't been a lot of variety lately!!

Yes, the most common of the gulls down here -- a Ring Billed Gull. This one is a younger one I think as he was a bit more speckled than the mature ones are. Usually the gulls stay away from this lake.

And amazingly, amongst the mallards on the lake was the lone Wood Duck again. He follows the mallards around and here was taking the rear position with the flock.

With his female mallard friend, crossing the walk after the whole flock decided to get out of the water.

In amongst all of the mallards -- he is smaller.

He stops for a nibble -- you can see his different colored feathers the best in the picture -- I used my flash as it was quite late in the day and not very good light and they are sooo beautiful.

An Ode to My Sewing Machine...

2011-12-02T18:41:00.001-05:00

No poetry from me but glances at the latest two quilts that I have machine quilted on my new Juki which I love. I can't remember which book this quilt came from but it is just two different values of 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch rectangles.

You can see the stitching here which was just loopy-loops as it was bright and cheerful. It has a great fish print on the back in blues and oranges like the front. You can also see the block here which is the two light colored rectangles in the middle, then blue rectangles added at either end and then two sets of dark and light rectangles are sewn together and attached at the sides. Each square has 8 rectangles.

This is the last of the one block wonders that I did using an absolutely hideous print. I am not sure this final product is a lot better and is my least favorite of the three I have quilted down here. I just did overall stipple quilting with light colored thread. The back is red as is the binding. Guess it will be a Christmas quilt.

This is the final iteration of the Colin block. I have found I have enough fabric (whew) down here to do a variation of the quilt that I accidentally created when doing the collage of progress several blogs ago! It will be called (I think) Deconstructing Colin. This is the block with Colin Firth's autograph.

And this is the Juki TL-2010Q which I have used exclusively to do the machine quilting on the 9 quilts I brought down here with me. It has an intelligent needle down (goes up when you use the automatic thread cutter -- banging the foot petal) and stays down the rest of the time (although you can adjust it up if you want). It also has the knee lift like the Bernina. The tension is perfect for both machine quilting and for putting on binding. The only thing I haven't succeeded at is the automatic threader which I haven't successfully engaged yet! The speed of stitching is very very easy to control. So just a satisfied customer. I had to buy mine online (from Texas) as there were no local dealers but it worked out just fine -- it got here in about two days and has a five year warranty from the dealer. It came with several accessories -- two quilting feet and an even feed foot. You can tell I really like this machine and sadly it will probably replace my Featherweight for piecing! I am still pretty much overall a Bernina fan though and love my old mechanical 830 and my newer 170.

The Wood Duck Who Thought He Was a Mallard...

2011-11-21T19:20:00.000-05:00

Well, there was an unusually large group of mallards at Carolina Beach Lake today and imagine my surprise when I looked closely at the bunch and there was one of those beautiful Wood Ducks right in the middle. Now the mallards knew he wasn't a mallard and weren't crazy about him hanging around with them but the Wood Duck seemed to think he had found friends. Like last year, of course I took many many pictures, only a couple of which I will share.

He was hanging around and really let me get pretty close! You can see the white spots on his chest here. It was getting toward the end of the day because of a late start (more about that below.)

He didn't want to swim. There were a lot of mallards today as well as the usual Coots and domestic ducks.

And one lone Pied Billed Grebe who I spotted pretty close to shore. His partner wasn't there today.

The sun began to set just as I was leaving. They have the Christmas lights up all around the lake ready to be lit after Thanksgiving. It is so colorful around here from Thanksgiving to Christmas with colorful lights lining the main street of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach.

The reason I was late for my walk is that I had been contacted by email by a reporter for the Wilmington Star News who was writing a wrap up article about the end of filming of Arthur Newman, Golf Pro with Colin Firth and Emily Blunt. She wanted to talk to me about meeting Colin and my thoughts and she called just as I was heading out the door. I don't know if she will include anything in the article or not but I got to thank her personally for helping me on my quest to meet him.

Back to Bird Pictures!! Colin Has Left Wilmington...

2011-11-19T16:10:00.000-05:00

Alfred Newman, Golf Pro and One Tree Hill have both ceased filming in Wilmington. There is a Patricia Cornwell mystery that will start filming for Hallmark during the next month and Ironman 3 is opening offices as well for an anticipated year of filming. Do you think we will spot Robert Downey Jr. around?

However, I am back to taking pictures of my natural friends for now! This hawk was sitting on the electric pole by the house this afternoon and paused long enough for me to take his picture. He was chased away by a Mockingbird of all things! I think it is an immature Merlin as it was relatively small. It could be an immature Cooper's Hawk or Red Shouldered Hawk -- hopefully someone has an answer!!

This of course is a Cormorant but he was swimming in the fresh water at Carolina Beach Lake. The lake is very full these days and the Coot population is now up to about 60-75. They were all grouping out in the middle of the lake yesterday -- I think they like the colder air.

I spent yesterday driving around Wilmington looking for a permanent residence and found several that look promising. I do love the area and look forward to being here year round!

The Complete Wilmington Experience and -- Meeting Colin Again...

2011-11-15T18:15:00.000-05:00

Well, if you look closely above Colin's shoulder, you will see that I succeeded in getting his signature for his quilt!!!

I have my friend Debi to thank for this, in fact two Debi's as that is his assistant's name as well. I had read in the paper this morning that they were filming yesterday in downtown Wilmington for both One Tree Hill's final episode of the series and Arthur Newman, Golf Pro. I figured there was a chance that one or the other would still be filming and I could show Debi a bit of the process.

Now you have to understand that my friend Debi is the most outgoing gutsy person you will ever meet. We saw film crews but didn't know what they were filming. Debi opened her window and found out which and then we hunted for a parking place. She found another crew member and asked where specifically we might find them filming and they told us. We found a parking place literally almost in front of the place. Unfortunately, they were only filming inside today.

I spotted Colin's assistant sitting in the SUV that he gets carted around in but told Debi I wasn't going to approach her for fear she would think I was a stalker. I did have my quilt block in my hand though as I had put it in the car several days ago, just in case... Well, Debi just says nonsense and marches over to the car and tells Debbie (Colin's assistant) that her very shy friend didn't want to bother her again. His assistant waved to me and we talked a bit and she remembered me (I knew she would). Well, I couldn't believe it but she got out of the car and went into the building where Colin and Emily were filming and as he came out, she motioned him over (he was in costume of pjs and the ugliest bathrobe you have ever seen). He was obviously in a huge hurry to get to the next set but he graciously signed my block!!! So Debi and I both got to be up close and personal again with Colin and saw Emily from about three feet away! Can you believe it!! This all happened in about a five minutes I might add. We then ate lunch outside in a nice little restaurant and were instant celebrities with the staff because of the autograph!! What utter fun...

Earlier in the day, Debi wanted to go fishing in Kure Beach so Warren finally got out his rod and set us up on the pier and then deserted us!! This was Debi's first fish -- a Blue fish which she threw back. She had about three different men helping her with the reel, one even crawling on the pier to get her hooks when they got stuck under the pier. I told her she would never be a widow for long as she is definitely an old guy magnet!!

This is Debi's second fish -- a Pin fish. This became bait for one of Debi's new male friends.

Several of our fishing helpers. The Grackles were relentless also, grabbing the bait right out of the bag (shrimp).

This was an unusual place for our friendly neighborhood ibis -- atop the electric pole next to the house. We have three that visit almost every day in the yard.

A sunset last night looking back toward the forever wild area two blocks behind the house. It was actually quite warm and humid today but has cooled down already. Tomorrow is Debi's last day here and I will be very sad to see her leave for home.

Despite Two Cats, Colin is Moving Along

2011-11-13T18:18:00.001-05:00

Well, the above is the progress on the Colin block. I am using my own hand dyed fabrics for this. You can see the five different values. I think it is beginning to look like him. George and Chener both kept climbing up in the middle of the piece -- I think they love the plastic. I am truly amazed that the fusing is going so well as the greys I am using (my hand dyeds) are really on a print cloth instead of a firmer fabric (like Melody Johnson recommends). I haven't had good luck with the looser weave before but this time, it is working like a charm and the Wonder Under is doing its job with no problem!! I am beginning to think this collage of the stages might make an interesting quilt in itself!! Hmmmm.... maybe I will change the plan.... Now I know Colin is leaving the area soon, but wouldn't it be nice to get this autographed?

This and the picture below are of the latest of the one block wonders that I have finished down here. I am working on the last one right now and then have two smaller tops to finish. One will be perfect as a lap robe for the cooler evenings we have been having -- hate to turn on the heat just yet as I had ac on yesterday!

Well, can't get the text to go next to the pictures for some reason! I was pretty sure this was a starling when I took its picture this afternoon but he was all by himself. I think the winter plumage is actually pretty!

The first bluebird (a female) I have seen. Seems the birds come to visit when a cold front comes in!

Coots, Coots and More Coots

2011-11-12T19:02:00.000-05:00

There has been very little bird activity on Carolina Beach Lake lately so I have taken to counting Coots. Each week it is increasing as is up to about 30 now. Two of the shots on the far left here show the peculiar way that these birds get in and out of the water. They literally walk across it for maybe 20 or 30 feet before they either take off or land. It is quite funny! I am sure there will be well over 100 by mid-winter. There have been an occasional grebe but mostly just the Coots and the assorted domestic ducks and mallards.

The turtles are piling up on the side of the pond. There were several more swimming over to join the crowd. They are very shy though and will immediately head for the water at the sight of people. The weather was nice and warm today.

There have been an increasing number of mallards almost every day but I haven't seen one Canada Goose either in the air or in the water! Amazing...

Some Leftover Colin Pictures

2011-11-11T19:10:00.002-05:00

This is one of the pictures I took of Colin and Emily Blunt from Brunswick St. in Wilmington. This was a beautiful sunny day and I was across the street. They were rehearsing the scene before they moved into the house. You literally couldn't see the house at all for all the equipment.

A nice picture of Emily Blunt chatting with Colin between takes.

I didn't take this picture but found it on Facebook today so I don't know who did take it but thought it was absolutely the cutest ever!! This was taken on the day Colin was shooting in Raleigh with Anne Heche and Emily Blunt. I sure wish my picture was this cute. She is about the same age as my granddaughter. There were a lot of pictures online from the Raleigh day of shooting. What a nice man!

The Colin Block - The Process

2011-11-10T19:22:00.001-05:00

Warren has headed to Lisa's for a few days so I thought I would take this time to move forward on the Colin quilt -- seemed quite fitting somehow. George, of course, has different ideas and climbs on whatever table I choose for working. Even if I wait until he is asleep, he hears that paper crinkling and he bounds for the the middle of my project. Next step is locking him out of the room!!

Anyway, I thought I would share my process here.

1. My first steps are choosing the photo, converting it to black and white (to see if there is enough contrast for interest) and then posterizing it (most photo programs will do this). I chose five levels of value for the Colin block. You can see it peeking out from under George.

2. My next step is to blow up the picture to the final size that I want. I use free poster software to do this or take it to Staples if it is small enough.

3. I then outline by tracing over all the different areas using a piece of clear plastic (tablecloth thickness).

4. I then number all of the different sections. These last two steps are done with black permanent marker.

5. After I have numbers assigned to all the sections, I take a piece of paper and make columns of the number. This will provide a map for three things -- a. whether I have traced it onto the fusible or not, b. is it a background or foreground (ie do I have to leave extra bit around the edge if a background piece) and c. what value is the piece (1 - 5).

6. Turn your piece of plastic with its numbers upside down and trace onto the paper side of fusible all the separate pieces, leaving space between each one.

7. Rough cut around each of the fusible pieces, leaving extra for those called background but also leave a little on the foreground pieces.

8. Group all the pieces for each value with its corresponding piece of fabric and fuse the fusible onto the fabric. Then trim all the foreground pieces to the tracing line. Leave 1/8 to 1/4 inch around the background pieces.

9. Apply the fabric pieces to a piece of background fabric. Use your plastic outline as the template for where the pieces will go. Easiest to do this by pinning the plastic to the top of the background fabric (right side up again), lifting up the plastic as you place the pieces. Apply the pieces back to front, ie, place the background pieces down first and keep layering, ironing as you need to as you go along.

10. After you have the pieces all fused, then use matching thread and satin stitch each piece down using thread that closely matches the piece you are applying. Some of the background pieces won't require any thread as there will be foreground pieces covering all the edges.

Now if George will just leave me alone long enough to get this map done and the tracing onto the fusible completed. Once I have it set up, the rest is easy. As I plan to make several of these blocks using different fabrics, I will get a lot of repeat use out of this.

George has been ever present since Warren has been gone. Above he is "relaxing" on the porch. Here he is helping me straighten up the latest quilt I have machine quilted. I literally pick him up and put him down several times and finally just have to close the door with him outside!!

USS North Carolina, WWII Battleship, Wilmington NC

2011-10-26T21:00:00.001-04:00

This is the Battleship USS North Carolina which has graced the Wilmington skyline for just over 50 years. It was literally brought there with contributions from the school children of North Carolina after being scheduled for scrap.

It was considered the "showboat" of the Navy fleet in its time and saw battle in the Pacific.

This is taken from the boardwalk in downtown Wilmington. You need to take the bridge across the Cape Fear to do the tour.

Here are the rest of the troop, Ed, Ann and Warren. Ed and Ann are my youngest daughter's inlaws and super nice people. Ed was in the Navy during the Viet Nam era and just self-published a book on his experiences on Amazon (Ed's book).

We were surprised at how long it took us to go through the whole ship (up and down many steps which were more like ladders than steps!). Ed was on a much smaller battleship when he served and was amazed at how much space there was (look awfully small to me for 2000 men). After seeing the mechanicals, I told Warren that is where he should have served if he had been in the service. He said that is where he would have volunteered except for the requirement for four years rather than the two if you were drafted. That was a surprise to me.

Ann is set up to shoot one of the anti-aircraft guns.

Ed and Warren posing in front of one of the BIG guns...

Will you look at the chain holding the second anchor. Each link must weigh hundreds of pounds.

Warren thought I was going overboard at one point as I tripped over a rope and did a nosedive right to the edge. I think my big butt would have kept me from going completely under.... I have been giving my dear husband far far too many scares lately -- poor man.

There were lots of birds to see from the ship as well -- pictures of which I posted yesterday!!

All in all, a very nice day and a very nice visit with Ed and Ann. We are lucky our youngest married into such a nice family!!

Some Miscellaneous Birds and Butterflies

2011-10-26T20:45:00.006-04:00

Your standard garden variety Monarch but I thought particularly nice sitting on the Painted Daisy down at Ft. Fisher.

Like the above, a nice Gulf Fritillary which I have seen quite a few of lately. This must be the north end of its range.

The Northern Mockingbirds may be the Florida state bird, but they are everywhere here. This one wanted to pose for me.

A Semi-Palmated Plover that I saw on the mud flats by the USS North Carolina which we toured (more tomorrow). Oops, my sister tells me I mis-identified -- it is a kildeer -- should have known!!

A particularly nice looking Great Egret from the USS North Carolina on the Cape Fear River.

Not a great picture, but with another one, enough to identify a beautiful Red Tailed Hawk being chased by a crow. Hard to get this picture.

This was a oyster boat returning and he had a lot of friends following him! This was taken on the Cape Fear River at Carolina Beach State Park.

Last but not least, I loved this image of the Great Egret against the background of Downtown Wilmington -- what a city of contrasts.

More Arthur Newman, Golf Pro Set in Downtown Wilmington

2011-10-25T20:41:00.000-04:00

These are from the day I met Colin Firth. I was amazed at the amount of equipment that they had. The entire street was filled with trucks and even two identical cars that they were using in the "shoot". There were probably 50 crew members as well.

One of the Mercedes convertibles on the set. The other one was being used for some driving scenes as it went up and down the side street several times. I am looking forward to seeing this scene in the movie.

You can't even see the little house where they are shooting for all the reflectors they have set up. It is a small cute house on the corner of the street. Again, you can see all the crew and commotion. I am not sure I will ever look at a movie the same way again!

Colin and Emily seem to be relaxing and chatting between scenes here. That big light was used later on to simulate sunshine outside the house (while the action was going on inside). She is really pretty and of course he is just gorgeous! The weather was perfect this day although got a little cooler after the sun went down -- I was there a long time!!

Back to Usual - Sigh...

2011-10-22T08:46:00.011-04:00

Well, other people have earthworms show up in their driveway after a heavy rain -- not me though. I came out the other morning and these small snails (which looked like marine snails to me) were all over the street and driveway. They didn't look like the ordinary land snails that I see in the garden so I took their picture and then tried to identify them.

Many hours of online searches and an email to my Audubon guy didn't get me any closer. I sent the photos to Warren and in less than five minutes he had found it!! I couldn't believe it!!

It is a Decollate snail and was imported to keep down the population of regular old brown garden snails and slugs which it likes to eat. So it is invasive but not harmful. It can only exist in the more temperate zones although it buries itself when the weather gets cold.

While I was off trying to meet Colin, Warren was taking his regular beach walk and came upon this very unusual specimen. It is the remains of a very old clam shell but the inside is just coated with golden Calcite crystals. Warren found several similar to his online for sale on Ebay and various other places. It is quite heavy and looks like something you would buy in the store -- amazing find. Usually you find them in fossil digs. Irene must have whipped up some things from down below.

Warren talked to the ranger the next day and he was very excited about Warren's find and wanted to include it in their museum down at the park. Warren thinks he may donate it. People came back into the museum (who had been leaving) to see Warren's find.

This is another picture of the snail with his long extended grey body. It looks like the tip at the other end is broken off but guess they rub them off. This one was on the street.

Colin and I

2011-10-21T08:46:00.000-04:00

Needless to say, it doesn't get any better than this! A grinning fool with Colin Firth and his arm around her!!

I had no intention of going to the shoot again in Wilmington yesterday but was up in the area (after going to two quilt shops ostensibly to get thread but really to check them out). However, I knew it was the last day of shooting that I knew about so I went. I could get very close and was taking some pictures. Colin's assistant came over and told me that if I waited until the shoot was over, she would bring him over and introduce him if they had time but she didn't guarantee it as they had to go to another location.

I waited and waited and waited. They were supposed to have been done by 5 as they had another location to go to. At 7:15, they finally wrapped. She had told me a couple of times along the way just to wait. Anyway, she brought him over and I asked if I could take his picture and he suggested that we have it taken together and asked his assistant if she would take the picture which she did. We fiddled a bit about where would be best, he put his arm around me and poof (swoon). I look so goofy in the picture but with eye candy like him standing next to you, there is no way to look good anyway.

What a singularly lovely man. He was heading out to another location and his assistant said they would be shooting all night there (and he had been at this location since early morning). I can't believe the endurance and patience.

Finally......We Digress.....Colin Firth in Arthur Newman, Golf Pro

2011-10-19T16:49:00.002-04:00

Well, thanks to getting my "heads up" on where they would be filming around Wilmington, I decided to see if they would be there as scheduled today (it rained pretty hard and they have rain days for outside scenes). I must have timed it just right (they said anytime from 6 in the morning until 9 at night on the sheet I had. I got there about 1:30 in the afternoon and they were obviously just filming the scene and it included Emily Blunt and Colin Firth. I sat in my car across the street and aimed my camera out the back window! I honestly felt like the paparazzi. There was absolutely no one paying any attention to the filming. Colin disappeared as soon as the scene was ended. He was on his phone anytime he wasn't in the scene.

Emily and Colin talking with the crew in the foreground. There is a Mercedes convertible that is also part of the scene. This was shot on Market Street in Wilmington.

You can see the overhead microphone and the guy with the camera down below. There are soooo many people involved and so much equipment for even simple scenes, it is amazing.

Just like the movies, Scene X, Take X on his little digital sign.

Not quite a full smile here but unmistakable jawline and hairline. These were the best I could do from such a distance!

The sun finally did come out. Here you can see Colin discussing something with one of the crew or producer?

I must say that Colin in person looks nothing like the Colin on the screen. I can understand why people don't recognize him on the street. He is quite tall and very thin and still very attractive but different than his screen persona. I can honestly say that I would not recognize him if I saw him walking down the street. When I first started taking the pictures, I wasn't sure if it was even him!! It definitely is though -- his walk is a giveaway.

So it looks like I won't meet him in person to say thanks so maybe a fan letter after all!! Still one more day of filming in the streets (tomorrow). Can't wait to see the film now!!

Duck Soup....

2011-10-19T13:00:00.032-04:00

Got a big kick out of all the ducks hanging out together giving you a good view of all the mallard and black duck varieties -- left to right, Pekin (domestic white) duck, female mallard, an Indian running duck (domestic non-flying duck), an American Black Duck, a White Crested (domestic) duck and then a male mallard. A few minutes later, an American Coot swam by as well.

These are the first of the American Coots on the scene! There were three altogether today but in another couple of months there will be a huge flock on the lake. You could tell the lake was being pumped out again. It is either because of the algae bloom or a fear that the tropical system heading our way will cause flooding here again.

These were really far away but I think they are White Winged Scoters from the white patches on their face but I could be wrong here.

I think this is a female Blue Winged Teal but could be very wrong here. In another picture, there is a distinctive light blue wing patch. Hopefully I will get pictures closer as time goes on. Let me know if I am really off base here!

There was one other duck which I think might be a Lesser Scaup from the shape of the head (and the fact I have seen lots of those here). Last winter, I think I saw almost every domestic duck native to the area, even some of the more unusual ones.

Cloudless Sulphur - Yes, Another Butterfly Blog

2011-10-18T11:38:00.000-04:00

Warren brought down our annual hibiscus plants when he came from home last week. The elusive sulphurs LOVE hibiscus evidently as you could just about touch them and they lingered so long getting pollen, I thought they were dead! So this enabled finally a closeup. This is called a Cloudless Sulphur and is one of the most common butterflies down here.

They were still too fast for me to get them wing open as they don't sit with their wings open like many butterflies. This was the best I managed.

Just two more shots!

Yellowbelly Sliders and Pied-Billed Grebes

2011-10-17T18:36:00.001-04:00

Carolina Beach Lake just never disappoints me! Each day I go down for my walk, there are different things to observe even though I am always sure there will be nothing! Today was another beautiful day down here and as the weather is supposed to deteriorate tomorrow, went for my walk a little earlier than usual. I was very surprised to see these two Pied-Billed Grebes swimming and diving on the south side of the lake. It's like the birds all know to have a different species each day and hopefully as winter comes closer, there will be more resident birds like the Coots.

Looking over to where the Great Egret was the other day, I thought I spotted some rather large turtles but they were pretty distant. Sure enough, looks like there are three here, each at least a foot long if not longer so among the largest of their species. I am assuming that these are the same kind that are in the following picture -- the Yellowbelly Slider which is not particular about its habitat!

Still more turtles on one of the side ponds at Carolina Beach Lake. You can see the yellow belly and the stripes on the neck. As I got a little closer, they headed for the water!

This is another shot of the two grebes (yes, I am getting desperate!).

Yesterday, I walked down to my "secret beach" which clearly has seen the effects of Hurricane Irene and some of the other tropical systems that have dumped on us. The steps down to the sand have been replaced -- there used to be about 3 steps which would sometimes be covered by sand -- now there are at least nine steps and you can see that the condos down there are really exposed. I still love the exposed sandstone beach though and can't wait for the winter waterfowl to come and dig in the seaweed covered sandstone.

This is a closeup of the seaweed which looks like wonderful soft grass.

Later this week, I will continue my quest for Colin Firth. Thanks to some industrious digging, I know where he might possibly be filming on Wednesday and Thursday -- I know they are filming in these locations, just don't know whether Colin Firth is in these scenes. Now my old challenge motivation is kicking in!
(When working, bosses learned that if they framed a task as a challenge, I would get pretty persistent and almost always succeed despite the obstacles that were thrown in front of me.)

Birds and Butterflies but No Colin....

2011-10-15T18:56:00.000-04:00

This is the beach at Ft. Fisher -- the very same one that Colin Firth was walking on the day before. Today a wedding was taking place (last month we watched them doing an HBO show). It is a wonderful beach that stretches for miles with no people. This island (Pleasure Island) is spectacular in that there are two state parks bookending the two towns of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. The Cape Fear River is on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. It was a peninsula until the Army Corps of Engineers made a cut across in the 30's (Snow's Cut). So it isn't a sand bar like the Outer Banks are and thus not as much a victim of the vicissitudes of nature.

This is a Gulf Fritillary which I had seen in Florida. I had seen them flying around the house but finally got a picture down at Ft. Fisher. They are certainly a beautiful bright butterfly. This is the northernmost part of their range.

This is a Buckeye (I am assuming a Common). You can see the big round circles on the wings.

At the other end of the island is Carolina Beach State Park which is a wonderful wildlife refuge filled with walking trails, a campground, picnic grounds and a marina. Warren and I took the Flytrap walk (but didn't see any of the many carnivorous plants native to the area) and then went and sat on a bench by the river. This Ruddy Turnstone was doing what he does best, turning stones for food!

The Ruddy Turnstone practically ran over my feet -- he seemed to have no fear at all. I love their bright orange feet. He did manage to get a crab while we were watching.

Arthur Newman, Golf Pro....

2011-10-14T10:02:00.001-04:00

The title above is the name of the movie that Colin Firth (The King's Speech), Emily Blunt (Young Victoria) and Anne Heche (Men In Trees) are filming in and about Wilmington NC. They are supposed to be around the area filming for the next month. Unfortunately, I missed my very best opportunity to see Colin Firth in person yesterday. He was in the water down at Ft. Fisher which is about a mile down the road from my house and where I had seen an HBO series being filmed about a month ago.

Last night I knew (from the local newspaper) that they would be filming down the road in the other direction right next to Carolina Beach Lake where I go almost every day for a walk (when not at Ft. Fisher and my secret beach). They were supposed to film from 8 pm to 5 am and had the main road closed for about four blocks. They were doing a chase scene (with Emily Blunt and not Colin Firth - darn). I took several shots of the setting up. Considering I didn't use a flash and it was dark out, they aren't too bad. When they were actually rehearsing and shooting scenes, we all had to back up quite a way down the street. Before then, we were right there watching them set up cameras and lights.

The guy with the khaki pants and shirt is obviously a VIP as he was dishing out orders and I saw him in the newspaper pictures from the Ft. Fisher shoot. It was fun to hang out for a couple of hours with the other locals and watch what was going on. I stayed until 10 and watched the rehearsal of the "chase" scene with all the phony police cars. They are filming again tonight so don't know whether I will go down again or not. So far I haven't seen a picture of Colin Firth in the local newspapers either!

Couldn't resist taking a picture of this tree stump covered with mushrooms. It always surprises me to see such a profusion down here as there is so much sunshine and I always think of mushrooms in dank moist places (it is moist!). This was at Carolina Beach Lake park.

This is a picture of the lake at night.

Where Have All the Ibis Gone.....

2011-10-07T18:06:00.000-04:00

Usually down here I see Ibis wandering down the street almost every day. This year I hadn 't spotted any at all. As I am usually here a little later, maybe they just haven't settled down yet. I was pleasantly surprised when I took my walk down at Carolina Beach Lake to see a small flock of them calmly (not their usual scissoring motions) walking around the lake. There were seven altogether with one being a rather large immature one (you can see the tan feathers still).

This is the immature ibis! Southeastern North Carolina is really the northernmost end of the range of this bird. Hoping that the migration picks up and we start seeing the ducks and other waterfowl before too long.

My black duck remains in among the assorted domestic and mallard ducks.

I just liked the juxtaposition of this female Boat Tailed Grackle against the lake and the reflected brilliant blue sky. For some reason, there is a rather huge algae bloom on the lake which I have never seen before.

And last but not least, this is the finished one block wonder whose individual blocks were shown in yesterday's blog! It is plenty big enough for one of the twin beds.

Catch Up on Quilting Activities

2011-10-06T16:00:00.000-04:00

During the rainy days we had last week, I got to finish machine quilting several of the quilts I had brought down for the beds. This is the first of the quilts where I practiced a bit with my new Juki. There is a lot of free hand quilting in the striped fabric but you can't see any of it! I also quilted in the ditch around everything. I love the speed of this machine as well as the perfect attachment of binding.

This is the second of the quilts to be finished also sitting on the king sized bed. I stitched in the ditch up and down and then on the diagonals and called it quits. It could stand with a little more but nothing shows anyway and there is enough to hold it together!

This is one of the blocks in the first of the one block wonders to get done. If you double click you can see I am doing quilting in the "motif". I did this in each of the hexagonal blocks and it did take a bit of time -- first having to determine what I would quilt around and then what was the most efficient way to do it. Another feature of my Juki that I love is the thread cutting -- no more spending hours cutting all the loose threads on the back of the quilt while I am sewing the binding down! I am almost finished with sewing the binding down on this one.

Another of the motifs.

If you look closely, you can see the spiral pattern I quilted in the border. I did a really bad job of putting on the borders (too big) which is too bad as this is turning out to be a pretty quilt. There is no way I would take it undone though! This was el cheapo Cranston fabric from Walmart that I bought years ago. It did make a nice quilt though!

This is the quilt I am now working on. The hexagons are smaller in this quilt so I am "stitching in the ditch" around each one and then will just do one round of quilting on the inside of each block which should be relatively fast. It will be nice and perky for the beach house. This was again one of those hideous (what was I thinking) fabrics I bought many years ago on a flatfold table in a discount fabric shop no longer in existence!

This is a picture of the new toy with my set up. I am using an old wooden sewing table with a FW card table behind it to hold some of the weight of the quilt. I have a luggage rack on the left hand side for the same reason. It isn't bothering my shoulder so mustn't be too high.

No day would be complete without some butterfly pictures. This is some sort of skipper or duskywingI would guess -- less than an inch across on a dandelion in our very long grass!

Another one of the small butterflies -- lots of these hanging out -- maybe a checkerspot? Very bedraggled.

This is a sulphur and there are always a ton of these flying around. I have seen some of the other common butterflies from my third floor site but none have remained long enough for good pictures. This one is taken with a telephoto from my third floor porch and is in the next door neighbor's flowers! So hopefully a little fuzziness is forgiven!

White Crested Duck - Huh?

2011-10-02T19:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, it actually is a different kind of domestic duck although this one was in the wild. I had seen him the other day but thought it was an immature white (or Pekin) duck but seems it is a separate duck originally bred in Great Britain or Holland but found with different breeders here in the US. So ta da, the White Crested Duck! You will note one of the interbreeds behind him -- a white and brown colored duck. All of the domestic ducks originated from the common mallard so you see them together often and they interbreed frequently.

Over in one of the swampy areas at Carolina Beach Lake, a Great Egret was feasting on dragonflies I suspect as well as some small fish.

If you look closely, you can see the lump in his neck, which is some recently swallowed critter -- pretty good sized.

This is the first time I have seen the fountains up and running at Carolina Beach Lake. It was a gorgeous day and very very comfortable for walking. While I was there, I checked out the two motels where Colin Firth will supposedly be filming (I hope) in a couple of weeks -- an easy walk from the lake.

Audubon Nature Tour on the Cape Fear and Black Rivers

2011-09-28T19:32:00.000-04:00

It was a perfect day for taking the planned Audubon Nature Cruise. This is the first ecosystem we came upon which are former rice plantations (yes, there once was real Carolina rice which was supposed to be very fine). In order to properly transport the lovely rice, they dredged the Cape Fear River which caused the Atlantic to intrude upstream and thus killed the rice industry!! Cypress swamps had been chopped down to create these rice fields. The water was very high today because of the recent rain we have had and the high tide. We did see egrets (snowy and great) and great blue herons and ospreys but off in a distance.

This was the railroad bridge that had to be lifted to let us up the Cape Fear River. Unfortunately, there was no one there to lift it for about an hour (budget cuts) so we got an extra tour of the Brunswick River (which really isn't navigable most of the time). The Brunswick is home to very large gars (fish) which are the preferred food of the local alligators (although we didn't see any). So we had an extra hour on our tour which was nice. There were no other boats or people or residences anywhere.

As we ventured up river, the landscape changed to one of cypress swamp. The cypress have been cleared in the past so most of the cypress now are no more than 100 years old although there were some that were older.

On the way back down the Black River (black because of the tannin in the water from all the decaying organic materials), the tide had gone down a bit and you can see the roots of the cypress trees and further down, you could see the "knees" as well sticking up in the water.

When we reached the furthest afield part of the cruise, our Audubon guide Andy did a wonderful demonstration/lecture on the ecosystems in the area. He had lots of live specimens of the various bugs and small amphibians you might find as part of the food chain. This was a potted purple pitcher plant. The Wilmington area is known for its variety of carnivorous plants. He explained that this is because of the nutrient poor acid soil in the region. This area is the only area in the world where the Venus Flytrap is indigenous.

I would recommend this trip to anyone who wants to get a feel for what the natural world in SE North Carolina is like -- it changes your perspective when gazing out car windows and makes you thankful that this area hasn't been destroyed like much of the swampland in the Northeast (my old home in Philadelphia comes to mind). And Gail, supposedly there are lots of Red Cockaded Woodpeckers down here.....

Carolina Beach Lake

2011-09-27T17:37:00.000-04:00

Well, the weather finally cleared after many many days of clouds and rain so it was time to take a walk. Last year I walked in the afternoons down at the fresh water lake in Carolina Beach which had been drained. For a month I saw a spectacular array of birds (January). Having driven by several times, I hadn't seen any birds but I took my camera anyway and was pleasantly surprised! Even though a little warm still, it was nice to see the sunshine!

This was a tricolored heron which was fishing on the south side of the lake. I have seen this species before down here. They are about halfway between the Great Blue and the Little Blue in size and more colorful (orange on the neck and lots of spots on the chest).

This was an American Black Duck which was frolicking with the white domestic ducks (Pekin) and the mallards. They share a range with the mallards and do interbreed with them as do the domestic ducks. You do get some very odd combinations of feathers with this interbreeding. This swimming was taking place in a large puddle rather than the lake. This lake has a habit of overflowing anytime there is a lot of rain (which there has been this last week) and the pumps were going like crazy to take down the lake level.

You can see the beautiful day here. The lake is really quite small but it has a nice paved walk and is home to many different kinds of fresh and salt water birds in the winter.

I loved the reflection of the reeds in the water.

Tomorrow is my 4 hour nature tour of the Black River. Hopefully the weather will hold and I will get some nice pictures!

I have managed to finish two (7 to go) of the quilts I brought down to machine quilt and so the king sized bed will be prepared for winter! I am working on one of the "One Block Wonders" now -- I have four to finish. I am freehand quilting around each of the motifs within the hexagon on this quilt -- looking okay so far!

Just another view of the tricolor heron. He allowed me to get pretty close!

Tour of EUE/Screen Gems Studio in Wilmiwood

2011-09-25T11:42:00.001-04:00

Bad enough that I live on an island called "Pleasure Island" which always sounds like a bad porn movie to me, but the movie studio here in Wilmington is referred to as Wilmiwood by the crew. Here is the link to their website: EUE/Screen Gems Studio

Here I am standing outside one of the studio sets that we (my daughter and I) toured on Saturday. (I am not quite as round as the picture implies though). I was amazed at the number of people there for the tour, almost all from out of town and as I found out later, HUGE fans of the main series they have been filming there for nine years -- One Tree Hill on CW. Because of CW regulations, we weren't allowed to take pictures on the sets. It was great fun to do the tour and listen to the very perky young tour guides describing some of the back stories and describing the process itself. I was not aware of how much product placement there was in shows now! Sponsors pay to see their products by name. They told one story of Sunkist paying for product placement but they included sooo much in the series that Sunkist mgmt. had to tell them to do less!!! They also only use internationally recognizable brands as rabid fans like to recreate the effect and many of the movies or shows are international. They told of one man from Europe who chastised them for using Harris Teeter products (a SE US food store chain) as he had to fly from Europe to get the products!

The EUE/Screen Gems Studio is the biggest studio outside of LA in the US. It has a water tank in one of the studios that is big enough for two submarines to be submerged! That one is the third largest in the world. There are ten buildings where they can create sets. They do a large number of movies and were home also to Dawson's Creek which ran for many years on CW. An incredible number of stars have come to Wilmington to film as we saw on a trailer that they showed us in the screening room which is used to watch the daily takes. I just had NO idea!!

We also took a look inside at some houses as I really want to fully relocate down here to North Carolina! Now is a good time to buy for sure. Our agent said that foreclosures and short sales have killed the market down here. So we shall see what the future holds. Some day my dear husband may actually come down here to join me!!

Autumnal Equinox Today

2011-09-23T20:42:00.000-04:00

This is the combination of the two zig zag quilts that I had originally intended as single bed quilts. I decided that I needed a king sized quilt more and used a technique of combining the two quilts that I had seen on Melody Johnson's blog (see the side of mine to click on it).

Basically you sew a very narrow strip to the front and back on one of the halves. Then you sew the front strip to the second half of the quilt top. You can just sew the back strip at the same time but I prefer sewing it down by hand. It really leaves a very nice finish (IMHO) and I may use this more often. I have done quilt tops piecemeal before but like this technique much better. You are basically butting the edges of the batting and quilt top and backing with little strips on the front and back of the quilt. So now I have a quilt that measures 86 x 114 and will be plenty big enough for our king sized bed. It was the first quilt I have machine quilted with the Juki and I love the way the machine handles. It was especially wonderful for attaching the binding around the outside -- I don't know but it seems to just sew straighter. So now lots and lots of hand stitching to get that binding on! I am working on machine quilting the next strippy quilt -- all quilt in the ditch on this one but on the diagonal on a very large quilt.

This is a closeup of the front where I combined the two quilt tops. You can see the narrow strip in the middle.

Our weather has been overcast and cloudy for the past week which is unusual down here. The local weather forecasters said there were interesting levels of clouds moving at different speeds because of the combination of all the weird fronts here. Here you can see at least three levels with the big puffy clouds in the middle. Well, I have to entertain myself somehow! Despite the dire predictions, it didn't rain today and we even had some sun. The rain literally hopped over Wilmington!

Tomorrow off to the Screen Gems studio tour and then to see a couple of houses!

Walking at Ft. Fisher

2011-09-15T11:38:00.029-04:00

One of our favorite places to stroll is along the walk at Ft. Fisher historical site about a mile down the road from the beach house. In the winter, I frequently see birds so of course I took my camera today when I went walking with my friend Vicki. Ft. Fisher was the last of the Confederate seaside forts to fall during the Civil War and there is a museum there as well as remnants of the battlements. It sits on a narrow strip of land between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic.

What a surprise to find that a film crew was there setting up for shooting something. We took our walk and then saw a woman sitting and holding some costume parts. I asked her what they were filming and she said an HBO series (with lots and lots of foul language she added)!! I found out that the show is called Eastbound and Down and sounds like the language puts a whole new low for language on tv. I of course commented that I was waiting for Colin Firth and she said she was too!!!

We decided they were setting up for a night shoot as there were lots of lights. They were putting a small boat into the water. The costume was a very red, white and blue drum majorette like costume if anyone has any idea what series this might be!

This tent with an American flag on top was set up on the public beach!! As I had planned a tour of the studio for later this month, quite a treat to see them filming right down the road from me -- now if only Colin Firth were there......

A Word About the People that Brought You This Blogger...

2011-09-14T17:46:00.000-04:00

Baker's Cat Eyed Snake - Aruba

As noted in my introduction, I am attracted to natural objects because of my father who was a well known naturalist in his time. My nephew, who is very much like his grandfather in his aptitude for esoteric research, found a scientific paper on the internet that we think my father didn't even know about! To back up, my father was born in 1889 and attended the University of Michigan where he obtained his Ph.D. in zoology, specializing in invertebrates specifically land snails. His mentor was a man by the name of Dr. Alexander G. Ruthven who later became president of the university and for whom the natural history museum at Michigan is named.

Evidently my father went on a field trip to Aruba in 1922 and came back with snakes. I remember him telling stories of bringing back a suitcase full of live snakes from Mexico about 1912 and terrifying the Customs officials but guess they let him bring them back. So this trip was more of the same. My father loved to tell these stories when we were younger, always laughing at these as he told them. Seems that one of the snakes that he brought back from Aruba was a new species and Ruthven named it in his honor in 1936. It still remains today as a separate species and is pictured above. I can't believe my father would not have mentioned this if he had known! My daughter jokingly said that some familes have a family crest but we have a family snake.

It should also be noted that my father named close to 300 species of snails and one of the last new species he named was my mother's name (Bernadine) right before they married! So I have some invertebrates in my pedigree -- thanks John for unearthing this esoteric factoid! The link is The Article.

Beautiful Beach Breezes!

2011-09-08T20:19:00.001-04:00

It's a little hard to spot, but there are actually two rainbows in this picture taken while it was still raining over the water. Except for these thunderstorms wandering through with the remnants of Lee, the weather down here has been perfect!! Let's just hope it stays that way!

I treated myself and ordered a Juki 2010Q which is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I justified this to myself by saying that I wouldn't send out my "utility" quilts to be quilted which should pay for the machine which was a pretty good deal! I have the nine tops down here all basted and ready to be quilted so as soon as my much awaited guest (my very best friend from high school) heads on to her next destination, I will start working my way through all these!! After all, winter is coming and we do need to sleep under something warm down here! Lisa is also bringing down my remaining quilting paraphernalia that I had to leave at her house when I picked up her kitties. Then there is no excuse!! I am planning to make a couple of quilts using Sara Nephew's Serendipity Quilts and Doubledipity. These are complex hexagonal patterns using as their base "stack and whack" type techniques but adding a whole lot more. I have so many old fabrics that lend themselves to these techniques and with some luck I brought along enough of the right fabrics to go with these base fabrics.

Otherwise, sitting on the porch watching the pelicans dive bombing for fish and reading my stash of beach books has occupied my days. I do like to read books before I see movies so I have recently read The Help (excellent) and am now reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. Then I can see the movies!! After these, I will sneak in some Jane Austen (my dessert). It is nice to have a Kindle and always have 40 or 50 books to read -- most of them free!!

Relaxing Days at the Beach

2011-09-05T10:20:00.001-04:00

This summer brought more than its fair share of drama at the beach house. We had the transformer right outside the house hit by lightening which took out our elevator as well as other electrical devices in the house. Of course in a one week period later we had a tornado near by as well as an earthquake and then of course Irene. It took quite a while for the new elevator parts to arrive and for Jamie the elevator guy to install them. I took this picture of what the inside of the elevator looked like without the elevator!! Besides replacing the circuit boards, he tuned things up so now it is quieter, added an extra safety measure and rests on the second floor when not in use (important for if and when we have a hurricane surge which waters down the first floor -- at least the electronics in the elevator will be saved)! So everything is up and functioning and I am completely unpacked finally. The weather has been just beautiful here so no quilting has happened yet!! I am beginning to get itchy though. I definitely miss my dear husband as well -- who would have thought!

I have been in charge of Lisa's two kitties while she is in New Orleans of all places (she is very wet!). They like sleeping together on the only piece of furniture which shows their fur -- I have since put a blanket down.

I haven't had much opportunity for picture taking but couldn't resist this dragonfly (or damselfly??) on my neighbor's bush. He was not easy to get!!

The most excitement recently for me is that Colin Firth is coming to Wilmington to make a movie next month. This is a posterized version of him that I was using as the basis for my next quilt. I would love to be able to use my own photo instead of this one. My plan is to do an Andy Warhol kind of interpretation doing this portrait multiple times in all different colors and different types of fabrics and then add in different movie quotes. This will not be one of the complex pieced quilts but will rely on fusing as it isn't intended as art, only as fun!! (Let the mocking begin...) If you have seen my blog in the past, you will know that he jumped to the top of my list of favorite actors of all time after I saw The King's Speech last January. I am hoping that somehow, some way I will be able to see him in person just to say thanks. It must be good kharma that just as I was getting ready to do this quilt that he will appear nearby. In preparation, I am going to do the Screen Gems studio tour (locally they call Wilmington NC the Hollywood of the East). Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill as well as some Matlocks were filmed there. I was surprised at the number of movies also filmed here -- independents. So if anyone has any ideas about how I can meet him (or wants to join me on the hunt), please let me know!! I can offer a Firth Film Festival as I have many dvds of CF's movies down here with me (I have a lot of non CF DVDs for entertainment as well)!! I also have a couple of extra sewing machines and tables so you could quilt as well!

The Trip South and the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia

2011-09-01T17:49:00.000-04:00

Well, finally got on the road on Monday to head to Charlotte to pick up my daughter's two kitties. I am officially in charge of them for the next ten days down at the beach! I took two days to get to Charlotte. The weather was gorgeous. Without so much as glancing at a map, I let the GPS guide me and the second day it took me off the main route onto Route 19. After about an hour of driving, I saw signs for the New River Gorge Bridge. I had remembered someone visiting there so thought it was worth a stopover. As Rt 19 goes over the bridge, there was not much of a detour to get to the Visitor's Center and to take a short hike to see some views of the bridge. I couldn't resist as the sky was so blue, the temps were cool and there was a lovely breeze. These were the flowers that greeted me at the Visitor's Center. Don't know what they are but they were beautiful and lush.

This was the view from the top of the hill behind the Visitor's Center. The bridge is the fifth highest in the world and the second highest in the US (it was the highest before the new bridge around Hoover Dam which wasn't finished when I was there). It rises over 800 feet in the air. It is surrounded by National Forest.

I saw a path heading down the side of the gorge with lots and lots of steps so asked someone about it. I think she took one look at me and figured I wouldn't make it!!! I decided I would climb down til my legs gave out and spotted a viewing point. It turned out to be as far as the trail went and I only stopped twice on the way back up (it was about equivalent to about 10 flights of stairs I would guess -- I didn't count). So it was my exercise for the day. I did want a view of the river itself which you couldn't see from the top. You can see the closer view of the steel bridge here.

This was the view down the Gorge. It was a beautiful day. I reached Lisa's at a reasonable hour and we headed out for dinner and then spent the evening chatting. I managed to sleep in the next morning. Sleep has been eluding me lately and last night was no exception.

We still don't have the elevator fixed from our lightening strike so I have had to haul groceries up two steep sets of stairs. Hurricane Irene left us unscathed thankfully. You could see that the electricity had been off for a very short time but that was it along with a little sand in the driveway. I live a block from the beach but there is no building between me and that beach so we didn't know what to expect.

I have taken it slowly but have managed to at least unpack the interior of the car although things will stay in the hallway until the elevator gets repaired -- I use it like a dumb waiter as I do like the exercise of going up and down those stairs. The weather is fantastic down here and I sat outside on the porch with a lovely breeze blowing most of the day while I awaited the five loads of laundry from our last guests to be done!!

Last Day at Marcia's for Awhile

2011-08-24T19:51:00.000-04:00

Don't know anything about mushrooms but had to snap a picture of these (and there were a lot more) growing in a pile of mulch in our neighbor's yard. We used to have tons of mushrooms in our yard of all sorts of variety but they really don't come back to exactly the same place year after year.

Marcia finished the quilting on this beautiful quilt in her jet trails series. Loved the colors in this one.

It was a great day and good to reconnect with another art quilting friend who happened to be there as well as Priscilla. I managed to pin baste 5 full sized quilts yesterday on Marcia's big tables so was very happy about my progress. Now I will put them into one of those big bags, vacuum out the air and take them to the beach. It will be awhile before I get back to visit with Marcia and Priscilla but they promised to keep their blogs up to date so I wouldn't miss out on anything!

This picture was taken by Scott Veal and was of a waterspout that turned into a tornado just down the way from my beach house (our renters watched from our porch) last Thursday!! Of course a month ago we were hit by lightening. After the tornado, I knew a hurricane would be coming.....

Of course, my plans had to be rather drastically altered because of the Irene so all of you wish me luck!! I am heading first to Charlotte rather than the beach (and next week instead of this one), pick up my daughter's two kitties which I will then drive down to the beach. Hopefully all will still be standing and in livable condition. Our house is a block from the beach with nothing between us and the water. We had to pay someone to come in and close all our hurricane shutters (thankfully we purchased them last year and had them installed). The storm was poised for a direct hit (as of Tues morning) but looks like we will get less impact now (although winds estimated to be 60-70 currently). I was down there last year for 50 mph winds and I don't want to repeat that experience any time soon! Dear husband will be holding the fort up here in Western NY.

I turned over ten comfort quilts which I completed to Marcia to turn in at our monthly GVQC meeting so that clears up some of the clutter. Getting the other seven real quilts pin basted has organized things a bit more. I will machine quilt them down at the beach where they will eventually live. I now have a few more days to get things together to keep me busy! I did manage to get to Borders and get audio tapes for 40% off for the ride down -- it makes it so much easier when you are by yourself!

Patricia's Summer Quilt Show

2011-08-20T13:43:00.000-04:00

Well, today was the official unveiling of the Serengetti Lion quilt which I decided to have hung at Patricia's summer quilt show. I wanted to have it done for the GVQC show but it took a long time for the machine quilting.

It was in a great place so that you could stand back and see it and I got some very nice comments. Judging by what people were staring at, the mouth area of the male lion is the focal point!

I thought this was such a nice little quilt which an excellent use of those Laurel Birch fabrics that I love all fussy cut. It was by Gratia Pfromm.

This was a beautiful little kalaidoscope by Cindy Merrow. Loved the colors in it.

This was a nice variation on the traditional Drunkard's Path by Audrey Andrus.

Icicles by Lynn Hayes. This was a beautiful use of batiks.

This was an original pattern done by Lynn Wigstone-Birch as a divorce quilt.

Of course, no day would be complete without the requisite butterfly although I did get one request that I pass on some butterflies in my blog!! This is the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on the Butterfly Bush in my neighbor's yard. This is her underside.

I have been madly madly machine quilting and putting binding on comfort quilts the last week. I will have 13 done by Monday hopefully, 10 of which will get donated, 2 gifted and one for good measure to be kept for a miscellaneous baby someone is sure to have! I still have 9 regular sized tops to machine quilt, 7 of which also need to be basted as well.

There were a lot of other nice quilts in the show but it was hard to get back far enough to photo many of these. I definitely got some ideas!

Butterflies are Sure Difficult to Identify!

2011-08-11T20:00:00.000-04:00

Well, after much conjecture, I think I can safely say that this is a female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. It looks almost identical to a western variety of swallowtail. The male isn't as colorful and that is what most of the illustrations I found pictured.

This is a side view of the above butterfly.

This, I believe, is a Black Swallowtail but it looks a bit like the Spicebush Swallowtail as well. Two swallowtails in one day!! They are the prettiest of our local butterflies I think.

I also spotted the Monarch again today but it was too fast for me. There were several of the milky white butterflies as well. The weather has finally cooled down to very pleasant which affords me the opportunity to sit outside, read and watch for new species.

Trying to get things ready to do in NC, I have gotten together almost all my unfinished quilts, found or made backs and cut batting. It is a daunting task to finish all these which include:
5 disappearing four patches, 5 disappearing nine-patches (these nine are comfort quilts to be donated), 4 one block wonders (at least double bed sized), 2 random unfinished tops, and the three quilts I made from the strips. I know that there are at least three other tops stashed somewhere as well as my basket quilt and my Baltimore Album which needs an appliqued border. So, what does one do? I think this one will buy myself a midarm as soon as I hit NC so that I can machine quilt these suckers quickly!! Several of them are destined for beds down there anyway.

These are the beautiful flowers that my dear husband got me for my birthday this week. I love orchids, Birds of Paradise and orchids so these were all included. I do love my birthday flowers each year. They are always all the exotic varieties that I love!

August RAFA Meeting - Lots of Class Pieces and a Slow Photographer

2011-08-04T20:18:00.000-04:00

A number of people at RAFA this week brought in the pieces that they had created in the mono printing demonstration/mini-workshop that I did last month. I got a lot of positive feedback and a few who said they would be doing more of this. This was one of Patty's pieces.

Joyce is a nationally known wearable artist and she had already taken her mono printed fabrics and put them together into a new vest.

Janet must have brought in six or seven pieces to share. This was from her recent week long class with Katie Pasquini-Mausopust. The students painted canvases, cut into the various canvas pieces and then recombined with commercial fabrics. Janet's were stunning. She is incredibly prolific as well as a very intuitive designer.

Priscilla also took this class and had a couple of pieces but she moved much too quickly for this photographer. Hers were beautiful and she loved the class!

Two of the people in the meeting had also tried the ice cube and powdered MX dye technique illustrated in the most recent Quilting Arts magazine. This is the results of Elaine's efforts -- a stunning piece. I was a little concerned about this article when I saw it as I feel so strongly that you should always use a mask when working with the powdered dyes and sprinkling over a large surface is just asking for trouble but the results were spectacular. People often think that wearing a mask is just for the overly cautious and don't. I am not a cautious person for the most part but this and wearing a chemical mask when working with Chlorox are two of my hot buttons. I would think that using a very high concentration of liquid dyes would work just as well.

The Butterfly Bush is in Bloom and the Butterflies are Back!

2011-07-30T19:00:00.000-04:00

Warren's garden is really beautiful this year. It seems to like all the sunshine we have had and the petunias and marigolds are extremely full and add lots of color to the yard.

This was one of the new additions to the garden this year -- a perennial hibiscus with blossoms that are at least 9 inches across. We have them in this vibrant fuchsia and also a lovely light pink.

This is a side view of a White Viceroy butterfly -- one I had seen before but hadn't gotten a picture.

This is the back view of the above Viceroy. You can see the blue on the edges on the back and his prominent white stripes.

This is actually a Monarch and I believe it is the first one I have gotten a picture of!! I have seen the Painted Ladies and lots of Gulf Fritteries. This is the side view.

This was definitely a very hard picture to get as most of the time this butterfly had his wings folded up. I must have just clicked in the split second he opened them up in this shot. All the butterflies are sitting on my neighbor's butterfly bushes.

This is a butterfly called a Skipper (I don't know which one yet as there are a lot of skipper varieties) but they are fast moving and only
about an inch long.

When George Lets Me, I Do Some Piecing....

2011-07-28T19:05:00.001-04:00

George was actually behaving in this shot and giving me a few inches to work. The minute DH leaves the house, George bounds up to the sewing room and won't stop pestering me until I pick him up and put him on my shoulder where he purrs and rubs and literally puts his paws around my neck. He will keep this up for half an hour and won't hear of being put down. Eventually he retires to a place near the sewing machine, cleans up and then goes to sleep. The second Warren opens the door downstairs, he wakes up and heads out of the room -- very fickle.

This is the first of the quilt tops I made from the strips that I cut. I decided that I would make a quilt for the beach house instead of comfort quilts with this bunch as I liked the colors and it was taking a bit more labor than I like to put into quilts to give away (like the disappearing 9-patches). It is actually 72 inches by 81 inches so will fit on a queen sized bed or smaller.

This is the second top made out of the same pile of strips. Basically five 2 1/2 strips were sewn together and then cut diagonally which produces two different types of triangles. So each 10 1/2 inch square produces 2 of each type to triangle. You can usually get 4 squares from each strip but not always. I had a bunch that only got the three squares so I cut up the rest into 4 1/2 inch wide strips and that is what is between the triangles in this top which is going very fast as opposed to the top one. This is about 1/4 of the finished size. There will be the white strip in the middle gradating out to the dark yellow orange on either side. It is a very graphic looking quilt and I should have enough blocks to make a couple which I can use in the room with the twin beds. I do like to have nice quilts on all the beds ---- and there are a lot of beds in the beach house (7 at last count!).

The above is a collage of several fabrics I did with the leftover dyes. I did add navy blue into the mix as well as I like mixing intense blue and navy blue with both fuchsia and yellow -- gives a little more variety to the surface. Each piece is 1/4 of a 2 yard piece.

I also did an additional couple of long sleeved tshirts using just the navy and intense blue dyes. I do like those two dyes mixed together. IMHO, navy blue is a pretty "clear" color as is intense blue.

I think I may be done dyeing for a bit but still have a few tshirts left sitting sadly white so they may find themselves immersed before monthend.

I have to start thinking about what projects I am going to be taking down to NC. As design is the most time consuming in the pictoral quilts that I do, that may be the direction I go in. I will have to take some sewing to do as I rarely go through a week without sewing.

Still Using Up the Leftover Dyes...

2011-07-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

It is amazing how long these dyes are lasting. I basically made a quart ea. of 3 colors -- blue, yellow and fuchsia in a 10% (only 6% for the fuchsia) solution for the monoprinting demo 10 days ago. (Note: I use 10% solutions as it makes the math so easy for determining depth of shade -- 10 ml of solution will contain 1 gm of dye powder) In the past, it has become obvious that the higher concentrations do stay unbonded with the water a lot longer -- maybe because of the dye to water ratio. Anyway, I have now done (in addition to what was used in class) 8 t-shirts, 6 yards of wide cotton knit and four yards of my Egyptian cotton. I still have half a quart of the yellow and fuchsia left and about 1 1/2 cups of the blue. Wow! And the best part is that I really like the colors that these three dyes produce together (sun yellow, intense blue and fuchsia). They are all the brighter of the pure dye colors (turquoise is probably the brightest though and I haven't used any of that this time).

This particular combination is not one of Carol Soderlund's trios of colors that she uses in her Dye Mixing class (which I highly recommend to anyone who has a serious interest in controlled dyeing) but I did do many other combinations after I left the class to see what I could come up with - and this was one that I really liked. I found that using fuchsia and turquoise together in low water immersion in anything but very low concentrations yielded too much separation of color as fuchsia is the fastest bonding and turquoise the slowest. Maybe I will scan in some of my other results and do a blog on that....

My technique for the last bunch of dyeing is a little different from what I usually do. I have pre-soaked all the fabric or t-shirts in a warm soda ash solution (dyeing in my basement and even in the summer, this is a necessity). I then use those plastic tubs used for washing dishes that you find at the dollar store and put two tshirts or four yards of fabrics spread out very evenly across the bottom of each. I then make up cup solutions of about 2% solutions (I know that 20 ml of dye solution will yield 2 gms of dye which will dye 100 gms of fabric to a depth of shade of 2% or medium and then I just add water up to the cup level) of each of the colors (or whichever of the colors I am using) and then I kind of pour them all over, one at a time, smashing the fabric after each addition so that I maximize the distribution of the dye immediately. I have been really going very, very light on the fuchsia even in its reduced concentration probably never using even a 1% solution as it overpowers very quickly. The fabrics aren't sitting in big puddles and I figured I would use the timing for dye painting (4-8 hours) rather than the usual low water immersion time (1 hour). So far, I have been spectacularly pleased with the results. Some are almost as nice as my snow dyed fabrics. With consistent 90 degree temps around here, we won't be seeing much of that for a while! I may play a bit with salt dyeing though and try something a little different -- we shall see.... Turquoise, however, is the best for this!

This was my very favorite of the fabrics I dyed although I don't think the subtlety can be seen in this image of the two yard piece. It will be enough for a tshirt for me!

Last but not least are the socks. I am getting smarter and dyeing them in batches so that I have many of the same colorway so that matching and losing socks is not such a problem!! They will match my t-shirts as well. These brightly colored socks even get a laugh from my daughters (after the eye roll of course).

Scraps and More Scraps....

2011-07-14T19:10:00.001-04:00

Well, although I didn't like this configuration the other day, it grew on me today with this orientation. Amazingly I am using up a lot of those strips.

This is basically the same as above, only the orientation is different. These two are utilizing the top and bottom from the four way cut on the strips.

This is the zig zag that I showed the other day only utilizing all the blocks that I had done. I thought it might be interesting to use different colors between the scrappy fabrics and found this whole assortment of yellows.

I have been using up some of the leftover dyes from the monoprinting day on my neverending supply of tshirts from KMart! I basically just made up enough sun yellow and intense blue to make a 3 % solution on the tshirt. Then I decided to squirt a little of the fuchsia but only about a 1% solution of that. I had soda soaked these tshirts and left them wet and just put on about 3 cups of dyes altogether.

This was just a mixture of the blue and yellow dyes in the 3% solution. These dyes were a few days old at this point but I liked the lighter colors I got. I did four tshirts altogether. Still having tons of dye, socks will be next.

I have also found quite a few dye "dogs" that I am going to discharge soon!

This is a small (24" x 24") piece that was started in the Cynthia Corbin class I took a year ago in June at the NC Consortium show. I had never been quite sure what to do with the four blocks but decided to put them together today. They are totally pieced and improvisational and use my hand dyes -- I only took a few fabrics to the class. Not perfect, but done!

This is a wall quilt that Marcia is entering into a quilt show and had to get quick pictures of! This was originally a three panel piece, but she added a fourth panel and made it one piece.

Priscilla was getting this piece ready for showing at Quilting by the Lake which starts on Sunday of this week. Because of their highly restrictive rules, I don't even go to see what they are doing anymore -- they have forbidden photos anywhere but don't get me started....

Lots of Lilies - Pittsford Garden Tour

2011-07-12T12:58:00.015-04:00

Well this is a collage of many of the different kinds of day lilies that I photographed on the tour. The weather could not have been nicer although there was so much sunshine a few of the shots were just plain overexposed!

As you can see, there was a very wide variety of day lilies which are some of my favorite flowers and I am sure there is a second lily quilt in here somewhere!

I thought this was one of the more unusual colors. Just looks like someone took a watercolor brush to it! These lilies were mostly in one of the participant's gardens although almost every one of the 9 gardens had one or two varieties.

I particularly liked the orange and yellow varieties of this double lily.

I loved the lines on these leaves. At another house, they had the same type but it had green, purple and pink veins. Unfortunately the lighting wasn't good enough for a great picture of those.

Two of the gardens had small ponds with water lilies, another of my favorites.

This was an acantha which I was not familiar with but really liked!

I think I finally have the space problem licked (until Blogger engineers in their infinite wisdom install another update without telling anyone and without any testing....). I use Chrome but this time with the Updated Blogger Editor (check on Settings in Blogger) and I always put a carriage return after I do the text next to the picture. If you don't add this carriage return, things become all flummoxed again. This one went rather smoothly! Also you have to remember to add all your pictures at once using the Upload feature on pictures but deselect all the pictures you don't want immediately. I add the pictures to the blog one at a time after they have been uploaded and it has gone smoothly.... I will have to see if I can do this in IE8 as well....I found that I could use the "new editor" with IE8 while the old editor does not work at all with that version of Explorer.

Stripping....

2011-07-11T12:33:00.001-04:00

Many of you may remember that I cut mounds and mounds of 2 1/2 inch strips from scraps I had accumulated from various and sundry projects over the years. Anything that was the full width of the fabric was game! I decided Friday at Marcia's was the place to try some different configurations to find a scrap quilt that I liked. I decided I would work with 10 inch blocks which meant sewing five strips together into a set. In most cases I just had one or two strips of the same color. This configuration works well if you can make a whole bunch of strips sets. You make the components by dividing the strip into 10 1/2 in segments and then chopping those segments up by diagonally cutting. You get two different kinds of pieces resulting. I had first cut them just diagonally once but didn't like them at all and couldn't seem to do anything interesting with them.

This is one of the iterations using the 1/4 blocks that would be on the top and bottom of the strips.

This uses the top and bottom 1/4 square triangles sewn together along the longest seam. The blocks are surrounded by black triangles on the right and white on the left (hard to see).

Here is another iteration. This became my favorite. It uses the side 1/4 block cuts. It is hard to see but there is white triangles between the pieces on the right and of course black on the left. I thought perhaps I would try some other colors as well. I will be able to put together the strips and then do a quilt as you go technique to put together the final pieces. These will all be donated eventually as comfort quilts although I may make a couple of the beach house.

I didn't like this iteration at all as I thought it made the white triangles look too dominant.

This is the latest version of Priscilla's second leaf piece. You will note that she has added some "after the fact" coloring to some of the fabrics -- this definitely takes courage! She has begun the machine quilting and it is looking quite dazzling.

Marcia, on the other hand, was taking her pieces off the wall so frequently to sew them together that I didn't get a picture yet of her latest jet trails!

July RAFA Meeting

2011-07-10T11:38:00.011-04:00

This was a piece done improvisationally by Sharon. She just started with an idea and built on it. This will be a graduation gift (when finally done.)

This is a piece that Glynnis created using the technique that Diane had talked about at an earlier meeting. It is basically a collage technique using one piece of fabric. Glynnis used her own hand dyeds and it is really a nice piece.

This is another of Liz's Halloween jackets. She seemed to think she had enough fabric for several more!!

This was a jacket that Liz made using her snow dyed fabric. She only used black when creating this piece.

Caris shared another of her elegant jackets with a lot of fancy stitching on it.

This is a piece that Caren is using for her new landscape class that she will be teaching soon.

Well, I don't know about many of you out there but I have been having big problems with the editor on Blogger these days!! When my computer crashed a few weeks ago under the weight of several viruses, the vendor uploaded the newest version of Internet Explorer. Well, Blogger doesn't work with that so I upload Google's Chrome which I figured should work just fine. Wrong.... The spacing has continued to be a problem and takes lots of fiddling to get anything approaching nice. Many people have to use an alignment tool in their Internet Explorer to get the pictures and text to align. So this morning I discovered that there was a new editor which Blogger recommends you use. I played for over an hour with it and found that although there were some neat features (like uploading multiple pictures at one time and be able to move them around), the spacing problem was even worse than with the old editor!. Sometimes the text would appear next to the pictures and sometimes below and nothing I do will change it. So back to the old editor for me. I even tried different templates!

Monoprinting with Thickened MX Fiber Reactive Dyes at RAFA

2011-07-07T15:49:00.009-04:00

Part of our day long monthly meetings is a short program to expose members to some process or technique with which they may not be familiar. These are not intended to be full blown classes but are usually longer than just a demo. Different members of the group are called upon to share a sample of what they may be teaching professionally or just something they like to do. This ranges through all types of surface design as well as felting or working with beads or even finger weaving.

The above is purple brushed on new heavy weight plastic on the left and purple smeared onto a sheet of the play foam for kids as well as some stamping with painted blocks.

Today I volunteered to do something related to dye painting and chose something relatively simple which was monoprinting. In various classes I have been in, we have done an assortment of techniques and I tried to share as much as time would allow.

Here, someone dropped some colors onto the foam or plastic, put the fabric on top of and then brayered the fabric causing the dye to spread out. I love the effects you get doing this.

I asked everyone to bring pfd fabric that was prepared by soaking in soda ash water (1/2 cup soda ash to 1 gal of water) and then drying on a line. I suggested fat quarters. I also asked they bring small cups for their dyes and foam brushes and white trash bags for transport and for their workspace. A brayer or roller foam brush was optional. I also sold some prepared fabric for those who were new to dyeing (we had two in the class that had never used MX dyes before) and several that were pretty expert.

I provided 2 ft x 2 ft masonite boards (I get the 4 x 8 ones cut down at Lowes and they are cheap). I also provided some heavy plastic pieces (about fat quarter's worth) and pieces of skinny foam (the kinds kids use and which I get in 3 ft x 5 ft pieces at Joanns). In addition, I had one large sheet of acrylic as well as several small pieces of that and foam. I also made up liquid dyes (sun yellow, fuchsia and intense blue) and print paste (1 cup powder to 3 cups water). I had some miscellaneous sticks and whisks for stirring. I used squeeze bottles for the dyes as that was the most effective for mixing it with the print paste with 10 people. I used up almost all the print paste I brought (6 cups) but had lots of dye left over (I made a quart of 10% solution for the three colors).

The techniques included:

1. slathering with brushes or sprinkling dyes on either plastic, masonite, foam or acrylic until you got colors and a pattern you liked. Then place the fabric on the surface and use a brayer to insure nice even coverage. As the surfaces are used more and more, there is less puddling of the dyes. Of course you can do the same piece over and over again too.

2. slathering dyes on a small piece of foam and then using some sort of pointed object to put lines on the foam and then using it as you would a rubber stamp on the fabric. I also had various different kinds of tile group spreaders with different patterns to use.

Unfortunately, it was a very humid day so the print paste was not as thick as I would have liked. I would do it thicker the next time. People in the class were incredibly creative including one person who brought a toy truck in and use it to march across the surface.

Here someone painted colors onto the foam and then ran the toy truck all over the surface and then printed the fabric!!

Here Donna is working on a piece.

Joyce decided to do some direct dyeing by painting directly onto the fabric. Joyce had done monoprinting before but not with fabric and really enjoyed it.

Here Val took some already dyed fabric and monoprinted on top.

Julie brought in a tshirt that had been ruined by some stains. She splashed some thickened dyes onto a piece of plastic and then pressed the tshirt onto it to give this Jackson Pollack like result. She was thrilled as the stains no longer showed and the tshirt was retrieved!

Most of the Machine Quilting is FINALLY Done -- Lions Emerge

2011-07-01T17:20:00.004-04:00

Well, I finally finished most of the machine quilting on the whole piece. It has taken more time than any other quilt that I have ever made and I am not totally satisfied with it. I still want to do a little more dense stitching in some places to add a little more definition but I am not going to go crazy. I may also add a bit more of the light green along the top but this cropped version doesn't look bad even cutting off some of the male lion's head, so may not after all.

This is a little bit of a closeup so you can see the stitching a bit better. Oops, see a thread that needs to be cut. Trimming the threads on the back took three hours the other night and now there is a bunch more to do! And I only have one more Midsomer Murders dvd to watch.. Oh dear....

This was a bug in the garden and right off hand can't identify him but looks like it should be pretty easy with a little detective work - six legs so he must be an insect.

Now I just have to do some work to get all three of my projects fully complete.

Next Thursday, I am doing a demonstration at RAFA and leading a small group in doing some monoprinting with thickened MX dyes so have to get prepared for that. Bought some new dyes for the first time in a long time this week and prep'ed the fabric today. So maybe there will be some dyeing to report on soon! The nice thing about the techniques is that they are just as applicable for paints!

Stolen Pictures....

2011-06-21T10:01:00.003-04:00

I was prancing around yesterday modelling my almost done new turquoise jacket (part of our turquoise jacket challenge a year ago) and Priscilla took these nice pictures. She told me I could share them. Here is the back of the jacket. At the bottom is some of my hand dyed salt fabrics and a piece of my marbled fabric. The diagonal piece of flowered fabric was my inspiration and I am sad I only have a little bit left (a Westminster Philip Jacobs print).

This is the front and unfortunately you can see very little of the sleeves which have a piece of hand embroidered Laotian (I believe) fabric centered in the middle. The upper diagonal piece is also a salt dyed piece and the stripey piece in the middle that matches so well is an Alex Henry (I love this fabric and bought all they had on sale at Joanns in this as well as a couple of other colorways. I still have some purple leaf beads to put on the largish turquoise area on the front.

This is the other side of the front and I think Priscilla did a great job of getting all the different views of the jacket. It goes great with jeans too!

A Little Progress.....

2011-06-20T18:36:00.003-04:00

Well, this bog coat is almost done. I added a small band on the front and wish I had made it a little wider now although I like the comfort of the smaller band. I self faced the sleeves and the bottom and it is nice a comfy for summer. The fabric is a mix of silk and cotton done by Jeanne Beck.

Well, I have begun the quilting on the lions (even further along now than this picture shows) but am doing a lot of quilting so it is going to take some time fo finish and then it will have to be blocked significantly I am afraid! If you double click, you can see the beginning (maybe!) I am now working on the lion cub and doing some more textural quilting.

Jeanne S was here today and was working on this piece. This was just one of the many iterations. I do love her work!

This is almost the end of the second leaf piece Priscilla has been working on. She did change it from how it appears here to add a little red into some of the background areas.