Challenge Quilt Done!

I thought I was done machine quilting when I got this far but decided that you couldn't see the reeds in the foreground at the bottom without standing 2 inches away from the quilt so another day of quilting!

And here it is, trimmed to the proper size.  It had to be between 36 and 30 inches high and 24 to 30 inches wide.  I originally made it about 45 by 40 so I could trim it down when I finished the quilting and decided how much of the ocean in front to show.

The top of the challenge was the Cape Fear River which runs behind Wilmington (and me in Kure Beach even closer) and meets up with the ocean at Ft. Fisher.  There is a historic breakwater separating the two at the tip of Ft. Fisher.  I took a picture overlooking the breakwater and a striking sunset several years ago.  (There were a lot of fires west of that year and really colored the sunsets.)

The piece had to feature the Cape Fear River and that is the middle blue piece on the other side of the breakwater.

I took some liberties with the photo in constructing this quilt!  It now sits at a comfortable 36 inches by 29 inches.  I am in the processing of sewing the facing and the triangles I have to put in the corner of the back for hanging at the exhibit.  I am hoping it is not too much too different from the rest of the pieces.  I seem to be very different in my approaches with a lot more color (like my camellias that I did for the last show).

The exhibit will be at the Burgwin-Wright house in Wilmington between Feb. 23 and Mar 17 in 2024.

I happened down to Carolina Beach Lake one very cloudy day last week but was rewarded with quite a few birds -- some that I hadn't seen for awhile.  There was a flock of these Bluebirds sitting on the lines.

There were several Dunlins and they were still there the next time I went by.  Most of the time, you couldn't see their bills as they were buried in the muck!

A Kildeer and he was also hanging around the next time I went.

Not as impressive a speciies to sight, but there was a huge flock of these Starlings and I do like their winter plummage.

This is a Lesser Scaup, a bird I haven't seen at the lake in a couple of years at least!  They used to be there all winter.

I did finish another one of the QAYG quilts although not quite done in this photo.  I have enough pieces of the blue stripes to do one more and it is in my bag waiting to go to the next "Open Sew" we have.

 

Almost Finished all the Tops!

Have been busy, basting and machine quilting the many, many tops I made this past summer and I still have a few more to go!

All of these are about 40 x 60 inches.

This one is a little smaller.  I backed this one and the next one with more Kaffe fabrics -- browns which I really don't work with much down here.  I am really affected by my environment when it comes to color.

I had completely forgotten this stack and whack that I found in a baggie down here!  It was all ready to go except for figuring out a backing.

These quilts plus others shown recently were all donated to our Comfort Quilts down here - 10 altogether.  Lisa claimed one of the "stained glass" ones which she wants to use as a wall hanging.

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It's been a while since I posted bird pictures as I haven't seen as many as usual as there are lots of people!  

This is a juvenile Tri-colored Heron.  The above is one of several Ibis in a tree!

This is a Lesser Yellowlegs.  This is the first time I have seen one of these at Carolina Beach Lake (I think!).

A pretty Snowy Egret.  There have been lots of thse at the lake.

This is a Willet, a bird I usually see along the shore not at the lake!

This was the biggest surprise of all -- a Roseate Spoonbill at Carolina Beach Lake, just hanging out!!  I see them frequently down at Huntington Beach State Park in S. Carolina but never up here!  It was a real treat for one of my first days back.


 

A Few Birds to Break up the Week!

Birds have been quite scarce down here this year, probably because of the great inlux of people due to the virus and the ability to work from anywhere.  This is one of the several Great Blue Herons fishing at Carolina Beach Lake last week.  They have let out a lot of the water so there have been a lot of egrets, ibis and herons.

Two of the many ibis.

One of several Kildeer feeding in the shallows.

It was very late afternoo but someone had spotted several Snow Geese down at the above lake, so I went to see for myself.  One of them graciously posed for me not too far away.  There were previously three blue morphs also but I haven't seen them and haven't seen the Snow Geese recently.  This was the first time I had seen one here.  He must have gotten lost among al the Canada Geese!

 

Some Recent Bird Sightings!

This is a female Hooded Merganser who was with her mate down at Carolina Beach Lake.

This is her male counterpart.  They were quite a distance away.

There were several Kildeer in a small island in by the side of the lake.

A beautiful Snowy Egret!

I went over to Greenfield Lake one day last week as there was supposed to be a Wood Stork hanging out.  I didn't see him but saw a large flock of Great Egrets  It was late in the afternoon so they were really beautiful against their backgrounds.

 

Here is one sitting in the water.

There were also several Pied Billed Grebes as well as an Osprey (I didn't get a good picture of him as he was too far away).

Last but not least is an Eastern Phoebe who was sitting in a tree at my daughter's house.  Before I blew up the picture at home, I thought it was a Yellow Rumped Warbler.  

Birds have been much more scarce this year than other years as there always seems to be people walking around in my favorite sites.  Hard to believe, but there hasn't even been the usual flock of Laughing Gulls that I have always taken for granted.  Covid has increased the population down here on the island substantially this year.  

 

More Birds and a Little Quilting

The weather down here has been pretty dreadful the last couple of days but the rain stopped long enough for me to head down to the pier in Ft. Fisher and catch this beautiful Red-breasted Merganser diving for lunch.

There was a feeding frenzy that I could see from my porch this same morning.  They must have known the rain was coming.  There were lots of pelicans, gulls, and Northern Gannets.  They were diving like crazy.

This is one of the Gannets taken from way far away!!  They are a very striking bird and very visible even from great distances because they are so white with those black wing tips.  You can just barely see the tan colored head.

And finally the Coots have come to Carolina Beach Lake!!  This is the first I have seen them this year.  Everything seems to be a month later than usual.  Our trees are just changing color!!  I think this is all because of Hurricane Florence which ripped all the leaves off the trees before they were ready.  It was very odd to see all the new green leaves on trees in mid-October!!

First time I have seen a Little Blue Heron down at Carolina Beach Lake.  There have been a flock of Ibis hanging out there as well.

Although the light wasn't too great, I did spot a couple of Pied-billed Grebes down at the Lake as well.  There was an abundance of Canada Geese and Mallards one day too.  I think the Geese were the migrating kind as they don't stick around like so many do up north.

I have finally finished the binding on the other stack and whack as well as "quilt from hell".  I have been having a few issues with my sewing machine but did manage to get the machine quilting done on this one.  I had intended to do much more dense quilting in the light areas but the machine was not cooperating.  It looks better than this picture suggests.  Now to get the binding sewn down and I will have all the basted quilts done!  Now to just get the mystery quilt basted and quilted.  It may not get done depending on how well my machine behaves.

Pleasure Island Birds Return

It has been a really sparse year for birds!!  Usually by now I have seen tons of Oystercatchers and Marbled Godwits down at Ft. Fisher.  So far this year, I have only spotted one Oystercatcher at quite  a distance.  I hadn't seen anything, even the Mallards, at Carolina Beach Lake.  I suspect the horrendous hurricane and all the water has something to do with that.  The waterfall totals for this year have surpassed the record set in 1877 by almost 20 inches!!  Above are the pretty male Buffleheads which I saw at Carolina Beach Lake on a nice sunny day showing off their irredescence .

I have seen quite a few of the Royal Terns down at Ft. Fisher recently.

On a very rainy day, I spotted these Forster's Terns on the dock, both sleeping most of the time!!  One woke up for a minute.

One very sunny day, I spotted this Cooper's Hawk.  I misidentified it at first!

My husband kept saying he was seeing lots of ducks down by the gazebo at Ft. Fisher.  I told him they were probably Scoters as I have seen them every year down there.  I finally got over to see for myself and was greeted by a male and female Bluebird sitting on the roof!  Mr. Bluebird is prettier than his female counterpart.

At first all I saw were a group of female Black Scoters, but eventually two males flew in and joined the group.  I took nice closeups so I could show hubby the differences between the male and female Scoters.

The second male with his tale up!  The sun was shining off that yellow bill.

This is a female Black Scoter and there were lots of them as well as male and female Buffleheads.

We had noticed that we weren't even seeing the usual number of pelicans and that they were flying across the island in different places.  Yesterday I could no  longer say that.  There were huge numbers of them down by the rocks at Ft. Fisher with Herring Gulls and even my first Northern Gannet for the season.  They were all diving for fish which must have been schooling there!

Birds of Pleasure Island -- Another Entry!

Kure Beach where I spend my winters is on an island  It is only an island because the Army Corps of Engineers made a canal between the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape Fear River back in the 1930s.  The island is called Pleasure Island which always sounds like a bad porno movie title to me so I rarely mention it.  It is a great place to live as there is Carolina Beach State Park at one end and Ft. Fisher and wildlife refuge at the other end so lots of opportunity for wildlife pictures.  Our house is a block from the beach so I can watch dolphins from my third floor porch -- tough life I know.

The picture is of an Osprey carrying away a fish he has just caught in his talons.  Most of the rest of the pictures are of this Osprey who entertained me for a good fifteen minutes diving multiple times and coming up with good sized fish.  I think he only managed to hold onto one though and a sea gull was trying to get it away from him.  I had never seen an Osprey at Carolina Beach Lake before although they are quite common down here in the warmer weather.

I liked this picture as it shows the really ferocious looking talons he uses to catch the fish.

 Just a couple of nice side views of the Osprey.

His eyes were consistently looking downward trying to find that next fish

Here  he is in full dive mode!!  (I should mention that I took 500 pictures in 15 minutes this day with only about 50 worth keeping.  I was challenging myself with these action pictures of this Osprey.)

Another with his fish.

This was also a very handsome pair of Northern Shovelers that came closer than before (only about 75 feet away instead of three times that amount).  Here is the male.

Here is the pair with the female taking the lead.  This may become a small quilt at some point.

There were a lot of Dunlins down by the pier south of the  Ft Fisher Ferry.   

There were also a couple of Short-billed Dowagers in the group.  They were all far away in not great light so there may have been other species as well.  I suspect one was a Lesser Yellowlegs which I haven't seen at that particular location before.