Progress on the New Quilt, Some Ducks, Sun Dogs and Sunsets!

The sunset at Ft. Fisher a few days ago was about the best yet imho!  A few of us were clicking away and just oohing and aahing it was so gorgeous.  I will post just a few of the 150 photos I took over  period of about 20 minutes as it was everchanging.

There is definitely going to be a quilt from one of these or a combination of some of them.  the colors were so inspiring -- especially the dark blues and the bright oranges.

This was one of the best vertical views.  No wonder we were so excited!

For three days I have been down to Ft. Fisher trying to catch sight of the Harlequin Ducks which have been reported down there.  Nothing on the first day but several nice Black Scoters were there on day 2.

A real treat on that day was a Sun Dog appearing through the trees at almost dusk.  These are rainbow like cloud formations caused by the reflection off ice crystals.

Another  view where you can see the sun dog more clearly.

On Day 3, I finally saw a couple of the Harlequin Ducks.  I took many many pictures but the birds were so far out, I was afraid none would be good enough to post at all.  I was surprised that several were pretty good.  This is a male with his very distinctive spots.  You literally could barely tell what they were even through the telephoto lens!  A nice man was there with a spotting scope so we could see where the birds were!

This  is the juvenile Harlequin and is not so colorful.

Just realized I left this picture of the blog.  It really shows the colors of the Harlequin Duck and certainly shows the colors of the male Bufflehead as well!!\

Finished with the "moment of nature" and back to quilts.  This is the center of the new quilt using the mandalas.  I feel the need to frame all of these.

All the intermediate mandalas on point are done here and in place.

Auditioning the background colors for both the star points and the ultimate background.  I didn't have enough of the yellow, so dyed two yards with friends last week

The center of the quilt is all completed here nd just have to add the borders.  It is already 72 x 72!!  Looks like it will be a queen sized quilt..

It's now 84 x 84 and used up every scrap of the background yellow and the two greens.  I think I am done with mandalas for a bit except for just making some simple framed ones.  Now onto the machine quilting which I am feeling more confident about all the time. I did switch around the mandalas a bit so it would look more balanced to me.