The Rug is Done and Onward to the Egret and Heron

I got my rug done from the Ruth Humphrey class despite my Bernina acting badly.  I think I may need to loosen the bobbin thread as the old 830 usually sews through anything.  I had to go over the outside row numerous times.  I am pretty pleased despite the randomness of the scraps.

You might recognize the next two pictures as I had them printed on fabric and then quilted them.  I gave those two projects recently to a silent auction supporting coastal nature efforts here in NC.  I had always wanted to take a more "Ruth McDowell" approach with them.  I volunteered to do a demo at our next art quilt group on the Ruth McDowell techniques so had to get started.

It has been a tough couple of weeks as I have had a horrible cold and no energy to do anything.  Didn't have a real meal until last night!  Husband is down with the same thing so he hasn't been nagging about "what's for dinner" like usual!

This is one of my favorites and did quite well at the auction I understand.  

 The first steps are to convert to black and white and make sure you have lots of contrast.  Then you use software to "posterize" it.  These are the two photos converted to that step.

This one posterized especially well I think if  you look at the Great Egret, you can see the delineations of white to grey.  

The next step is to trace around all the areas.  I put clear plastic on top of the image to do this.  Somehow I managed to have reversed both images but will take care of reversing them back later.  I then blew these images up to four times their current 8 1/2 x 11 size.  I used an online program to do this.  The one I used to use now charges for this.  

Now that I have these blown up images, the real work begins.  I will take tracing paper and place over the image and try to deconstruct it using straight lines.  You can use curves as well but I like to try to not copy nature entirely -- make it a little abstract!  I usually do my own thing in the backgrounds as well, sometimes creating my own (in fact usually creating my own!)

I did manage to get out of the house yesterday and ran into the small herd of deer that live in Ft. Fisher.  They nicely posed for me.  I counted eight in the herd.  A truck came in and disturbed them so here they are heading out.  

Here are six of them.  Look at the top of the tail on the one on the far left.  They all have this very dark top on their tails.  Some of them are very dark brown as well -- very striking.

There  have been Snowy Egrets down at Ft. Fisher the last couple of weeks and they are getting their summer feathers.

Posing on one of the posts!

Sunsets and Birds

First here is the sunset taken at Ft. Fisher (of course) through the Live Oaks to the west.  Biggest problem this time of year is that the sun is so far south, there are few Live Oaks to shoot through!  They were untouched by Hurricane Florence.

Lately the sunset has been loveliest over the ocean (east rather than west).  There was a lot of color this particular day.

1

If you look really closely, you can see some pelicans heading back to their roosts for the night.  There were lots and lots flying overhead just at dusk.

This was looking through the Live Oaks to the Atlantic Ocean in the background.  Lots of color!!

I did finally get to see some Oystercatchers which have been elusive this year.  It was quite late and the light wasn't great but you can see his bright red eye.

There were also quite a few Hooded Mergansers.  This is one of the females.

A Willet was also poking around looking for some food.

Quilting and Birding!

I am well into the quilting of the Blueberry Bagel quilt as it will be forever known.  I knew I was going to do a lot of quilting on this one and had envisioned early on how I would do it.  Of course I have done this before and then changed my mind.  I always test my idea out on a side of the quilt in case I change my mind and figure one area slightly different will be okay.  However, this was just right (for me).  I am doing feathers in all the pointy areas.

My only problem has been that the tension spring for the bobbin winder on my Juki is kaput so had to resort to one of those separate bobbin winders.  I had a lot of problems with loose thread on the bobbins which caused headaches when quilting but back on track now although this quilt will take some time to finish as it is large and this is a lot of quilting!!  I did finish all of the darker areas though today and started working on those light colored spots.

This and the next two are further areas of quilting -- this one and one other are along the side of the quilt  The edge is always a little tricky as you have to make sure it is taut.  I am impressed with my little phone camera which I have been using to take pictures in my sewing room these days.

This was near the corner.

I did finish the quilting on the Mystery Quilt and sewed the last of the binding on last night.  It looks pretty good if I do say so myself!!

In addition to all the machine quilting, I did take the time to head down to Ft. Fisher one day slightly after low tide and was amazed at the plethora of birds I found!  This was my best find and the first time I spotted it hiding next to the dock.  It is a Virginia Rail and they are very very elusive and don't like their picture taken.  It immediately went into hiding when it spotted me but I was very patient (there were other birds to photograph) and waited him out.  He wondered out and in from the pier and I was able to get quite a few pictures although the light was not ideal (very very bright day which makes for bright on one end and shadows that are dark on the other end of the bird).

Here is one of the times I managed to get a pic before he started running again.  He had caught a fish but a crow came swooping down and stole it.  All I have is a blur for the photograph, he was so fast.

Back to his hiding place once again.

I was watching this Snowy Egret when my eye caught the Rail on the other side.  There were quite a few Egrets hanging out that day.  Usually I see the Great Egrets (with the yellow beaks) so seeing a lot of Snowy Egrets was a little different.

There were a lot of Hooded Mergansers hanging out as well.  I didn't realize their size but they look small compared to the Gull!  They were diving for food

There were a lot of Forster's Terns diving for food as well.  This one decided to stop and rest a bit.

A majestic Great Blue Heron was hanging out as well!

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!

Deer, Totes and Birds!!

I went down to the recreation area at Ft. Fisher and there were a lot of deer hanging around.  It was very late afternoon but lightening up the photos really helped and showed how nice looking they were. 

I think a doe and a fawn from this year.  I haven't seen my bucks again but think they may have dropped their antlers by now so they may be in the crowd.  There were probably 8-10 the other day.

 There was one lone Royal Tern down at Ft. Fisher on this miserable rainy day.

I liked the pose of this Snowy Egret down at Ft. Fisher.

There was a nice flock of Horned Grebes down at Ft. Fisher.  It was very dreary and dark.

Here are three  hanging out.

Drying out his wings.  You can see the one patches on the wings.

Here are eight of the 12 or so Horned Grebes that were down there.

 I have a ton of leftover Dear Jane blocks -- most are the ones from my original DJ exchange.  I have made three quilts already from the blocks,, one king and two queens.  I also gave away about 200 for auction at quilt club.  I still have over 200 so it is time to do something with them.  I did use some as a border on one small quilt.  I have a preliminary thought but we shall see.  I also have a pillow challenge in February.

 I have been using some of my less favorite pieces of ice dyed fabrics to make totes.  These were pieces that I just folded into eighths rather than the mandalas I have been doing lately.  I cut the  pieces into basically fat quarter units so that the front and the back of the bags match.  The neat part is that the sides match also.  I think that Christmas presents are in order!  They are nice sturdy bags lined with both interfacing and fusible fleece.

I have basically two of each bag.  

An All Bird Post -- Mattamuskeet, Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge and Ft. Fisher

Each  year I head up to northern North Carolina to see the Snow Geese and Tundra Swans which winter here each year.  This year I went with my oldest daughter and we were not disappointed.  The only bad thing was the light.  The birds seemed to know where to stand so we could not get good pictures!!  These were three Tundra Swans flying over early in the morning. 

We were lucky enough to see two Bald Eagles way off in the distance in the drive across Lake Mattamuskeet. This was the female on the nest (at least my guess is that it was the female).

This is the male Bald Eagle hanging out on the tree nearest the nest.  Lisa spotted both of these birds from the road and made us stop.  They were very far away!

This was a female Kingfisher standing guard some distance away.  They are hard to capture in pictures.

Two Wigeons also visited the Bald Eagle area.

We spotted this bird in very poor light and tried to guess what it was as all it looked like was a big blue bird in the light.  With some tweaking, found it to be a Kestrel which is one of my favorite hawks.

A Great Blue Heron and two Cormorants were resting along the canal.

Driving back to the hotel from Mattamuskeet along the scenic route (the western road from the top of the lake), we found a huge field filled with Snow Geese.  It was the first we had seen this year.  Last year, I think we only saw one or two.

A closeup of some of the Snow Geese.

First thing the  next morning, we went to Pocosin National Wildlife Refuge.  Lots and lots of Tundra Swans there and a roar from Pungo Lake with all the other birds although we could not get close to the lake for some reason.  We were treated to seeing one bear cross in front of us and five River Otters including a family of four.

Just one of the River Otters swimming away.

This is a picture my daughter too of the family of River Otters.  They were very distant and the light was just after dawn.  She said they looked like they were posing for a family Christmas card!!  I agree!  Best picture either of us took from the trip.  This is the first time we have seen the otters as well!

Back home, I spotted this immature Red-shouldered Hawk down at Ft. Fisher.

 Yesterday, I went down to the pond by the aquarium as someone had spotted some Goldeneye ducks there.  I have seen these before but only one other time.  This is a picture of several of the Hooded Mergansers which frequent the pond each winter.  The males are certainly beautiful.

 These are a couple of female Buffleheads, a frequent visitor to our shores and sometimes the pond.

Right in the center of this picture is the 1st year female Common Goldeneye.  I was surprised to see how different her coloring was and had to look her up on my bird book to make sure what she was!  

There were also a couple of Ruddy Ducks there, another common visitor in the winter.