Ah, Some Quilting Pictures and Maybe a Bird or Two...

 Just Grandpa and granddaughter Amelia making chocolate chip cookies!!

I have pictured this one before but now it is completely done except for the sleeve.  It is about 18 x 24 inches -- the smallest of my bird quilts.  I always loved this picture of a Little Green Heron.

This is a Tri-colored Heron and it is about 24 x 30.

This is a Great Egret and the biggest of the quilts at about 30 x 40.  I did less quilting in this one than the other two although the bird itself is pretty heavily textured.  The little puffiness in the rocks gives it more depth and I am very happy with this one.

All in all, I really like the artiness of my pieced birds better than taking the straight pictures and quilting them although it was a fun experiment and certainly will make it easier to cut into some of my favorite mandalas and dyed and marbled fabrics as I can make copies of them!

This is our formerly all black cat Cheney!  Last year he started turning gray on all but his head, tail and paws.  We think he might be a Black Smoke Cat but don't know.  He seems very healthy besides this strange color alteration.  Luckily he loves to be brushed so his coat really looks pretty most of the time!

Last week this storm blew in and it looked like the end of the world but it only produced some rain -- it really did look a lot more threatening!

No blog would be complete without a couple of bird pictures.  I try to get to one or two areas to see birds every day.  On a rainy day a couple of days ago, this pretty Great Blue Heron was standing on the dock in the rain!

I was driving back from one of my usual  haunts yesterday when I spotted a bird landing on a telephone pole.  I backed up and got some pictures thinking it was a Red-shouldered Hawk.  Turns out it was a Cooper's Hawk when I looked at the pictures on my computer!    His head and wing feathers were just too dark.  You can see there is no rain here now!!
I call that color blue "Carolina Blue".  I am so lucky to have all this natural beauty surrounding me down here in North Carolina!

I have finished all the machine quilting and am now doing the binding on another of the quilts I made this summer (the penguin batik one).  It will go to my daughter as a lap robe as she loves penguins and I had bought the panel with her in mind many many years ago!  Pictures to follow as soon as I get it all bound!

Christmas sewing now although the weather continues to be so beautiful, it is hard to stay inside!