Birds Plus a New Quilt Top Almost

 I found this pile of unmade blocks when making an attempt to clean up my closet in the sewing room.  They were all ready to sew together so 70 blocks later, I have enough for a couple of quilt tops big enough for cots.  They actually look better in a picture than in person!!  In person, this looked very busy and some of the blocks were really pretty and I wanted a better set for them.

This is the Alexander Henry fabric that I used to make these blocks.  I thought it was particularly unattractive and only good for stack and whack type blocks.  

I decided to use this set which I recently spotted on Pinterest for a totally different kind of quilt.  I had never used the plain blocks surrounding the outside before.  I finally found some dark green hand dyed fabric in my stash which reminded me that I needed to dye some more of this color as this was the last of it!

Here are the blocks laid out with the nice beige fabric in between.  I will be  using the green triangles around the outside.  It will measure a good 72 inches long by about 41 inches wide.  You can see it uses 32 blocks with this set which gives me enough for two tops.  I will have 6 blocks left over (and I will  pick my favorites) and will use these for potholders probably!  They are six inch blocks so that will be a good size potholder.

It's almost done!  Then to start on another one which will have to have different color triangles as I don't have enough of the dark green -- maybe red!

The weather down here has been unusually dreadful -- many days with clouds and rain in a row -- much like Rochester in the fall -- ugh.  It does give me the opportunity to see some of my birds without the tourists interfering!!  Here are a couple of Oystercatchers which are one of my favorites and pretty absent most times down at Ft. Fisher

This shows three ibis all in different stages of growth!  They are all the same species with the more solid beige one being the youngest and the middle one being an adult.

There  have been several Great Egrets hanging out down there as well as several of the Snowy Egrets.

Here a Snowy Egret is strutting his stuff.  I think it must be getting to mating season.  There were also many gulls and a Great Blue Heron in the shallows.