Quilts and Inspirations

Not very exciting, but this ring billed gull (the most common here and in Florida too) just stood next to me and begged me to take his picture on my walk down to Fort Fisher.




Fort Fisher is just a mile south of where I am and there are always a lot of birds off shore. Most of them are way off shore, unfortunately, but you can identify them with binoculars (I get my Christmas binoculars this weekend --yeh).
I continue to try to sew nights but George inevitably plops in the middle of whatever I am doing and halts progress -- as you can see here I was attempting to rotary cut some squares from the yellow fabric. He proceeded to fall asleep after purring continuously and he knows I can't move a purring kitty.

The following three pictures describe the "disappearing 4-patch" cutting and assembling. This one is the four patch with matching fabrics in the opposing corners. I have discovered the a lot of contrast works best.
My beginning squares were each 6 1/2 inches. I measured over 1 3/4 inches from the center seam and made the cuts.

You can see that all you do is then twist those rectangular units around and then sew back together as a nine-patch. It is very fast.

I have taken to just throwing these squares together as they really don't match. I think maybe a border will help a little.

Here is another that looks a little less random! I have 12 done now with 18 to go but after today I should have another five completed so that will mean only 13 to go! The piles don't seem to get any smaller though....

My walk today began with a rainbow out over the ocean down by Fort Fisher.

I believe this is a Surf Scoter which is a type of duck. Lots of ducks down here! He was way out so the picture is not too good. There were a lot of male and female Buffleheads diving today as well.

There is no way you can tell from this picture as the birds were much too far away, but these are Northern Gannets which I had seen before but hadn't identified until a woman with binoculars allowed me to look through them. Beautiful large white birds. I had taken this pic the day before from my third floor porch. They must have been at least 1/2 mile away. I had thought at the time they must be ibis but they were diving so I filed the pictures away.

This is the view looking back to Fort Fisher from the beach and the extensive growth of Live Oaks with their twisted trunks.