Back to My Sewing Room and Stack and Whack!

I have already made three or four quilts from this fabric and still had a bunch more so back at it again.  Think only two more will be done with this colorway but have 6 yds of another colorway which I like even better and have already cut up some pieces for some made with that!  For your future viewing.  We have no printer right now and are having a really hard time finding one in stock so any fancier art quilts are out for now as I make extensive use of the printer.  Same problem with finding a dishwasher which is on order but poor husband is doing dishes in the interim as they don't know when it will be in.

This is the fabric for the following blocks.  I have a whole bunch more of this fabric but the repeat is only 8 inches.  Haven't decided whether I will do kaleidoscope blocks or not to go along with these four patches.

This was another fabric that had a fairly small repeat and i wasn't sure it would even work but seems to.  I don't have a picture of the original fabric as it was a relatively small piece ad i used the whole thing.  I think it will make a nice springlike quilt for charity.  

This is the beginning of another made from a really boring Christmas fabric.  I am afraid all the blocks are going to be pretty much alike!

This new Blogger interface is terrible so my posts look a little wierd.  I think they decided that everyone would use their phones and designed it for that.  All my pictures are on my computer.  I sent a comment in but am sure they are just ignoring it.  Very frustrating -- if i hadn't been using it for 12 years, I would seriously consider switching to another platform.

Wouldn't be complete without some nature  pictures.  This is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

This is of course the Monarch.  They were both visiting my neighbor's Butterfly Bush.

 

Back in Kure Beach!!

Well, I am back in Kure Beach and was greeted almost the first day with 22 Ibis grazing across the street!  Here are two of them, a mature one in the background and a juvenile in the front.

Before we arrived down here, they had several days of rain and more rain and this Killdeer was making himself comfortable in one of the newly formed ponds that met me in many places.  He wasn't by himself either!!

There were quite a few Monarchs feasting on this bush down at Ft. Fisher.  There were many bushes like this but this seems to be the one that attracts the butterflies as the next day it was covered with Buckeyes!

I am continuing to see quite a number of Monarchs so am assuming that they are migrating through still.

I have been seeing lots and lots of Bluebirds down at Ft. Fisher as well Palm Warblers.

Red-bellied Woodpeckers are pretty common everywhere!

I was very surprised to see a pair of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers down at Ft. Fisher.  They were really quite far away and I didn't identify them until looking at the pictures when I got home.

Here is the pair of them who nicely posed for me!  I haven't seen this woodpecker for years and it is a first down here for me.  I have since seen them in a different place!

Birds and Butterflies

Here are two of the frequent visitors to our street.  The Ibis in front is an adult and the one behind is an older juvenile as he still has some of his brown feathers.  Almost every day between four and twelve Ibis are digging in the lawns around the house here.  
They are certainly keeping everything aerated.  Southeastern NC is about as far north as you will see these birds.

I have been making frequent walks behind the Ft. Fisher museum.  This pathway goes between a lot of Live Oaks and marshes and I frequently see bluebirds and woodpeckers there (if there are no crowds).  There was a flock of juvenile Ibis there one day and I caught this picture just as they were taking off!

The Red-headed Woodpeckers have been a fairly frequent visitor this  year and yesterday there were at least two if not more.  They are not one of the more common woodpeckers but they certainly are beautiful!

Another of the Red-headed Woodpeckers.

The Eastern Phoebes are now migrating through.  This picture was taken down by the Ft.Fisher Ferry where they congregate usually on the fence.

I caught this Phoebe on the fence down by the museum.  There were several there.

I was surprised yesterday on my walk as for the first time I saw warblers down by the museum walk -- four different kinds even so they are obviously migrating through.

This is a Pine Warbler.

This is a Palm Warbler -- you can see the  yellow under his rump.  I am always calling him by the wrong name even though I know better!  There were Yellow-Rumped Warblers there as well but I didn't get any pictures of them (and I probably have enough pictures of them anyway as they are sooo common down here).

I think this is a Magnolia Warbler which has been reported down here by others.  Someone else thought it was an immature Pine Warbler but I willl stick with immature Magnolia Warbler because of his very bright  yellow chest and the white line under his chin.  I couldn't get a view from the back.

This is a Northern Flicker I saw the other day at Greenfield Lake.  I have never seen one of these in a tree before as they are usually foraging on the ground.  From others, I understand they are migrating through now as well.

I am  not seeing the variety of butterflies I saw last year -- don't know whether it is too early or too late!  This is a very frequent visitor -- the Gulf Fritillary but in an unusual place -- sitting high on a tree.

This is a Cloudless Sulfur which is the butterfly that gives them their name.  They are all over the place down here but liked him on the purple flowers.

This is a Common Buckeye, also very very common in the grass and on the flowers down here.d

Lastly, a Phaon Crescent which is a very small butterfly that flits through the grass outside the house.

Of Mushrooms and Butterflies

Sitting outside on a beautiful summer day, my husband and I saw tufts of "smoke" coming out of the mulch next to the house.  This happened frequently and in various spots and we were at a loss to figure out what was going on.  Upon closer inspection, what looked like dead leaves were really "cup fungi" which are the most common of mushrooms.  They literally shoot out hundreds of thousands of spores.  This looks just like smoke!!  We used to have a veritable garden of mushrooms when we first moved in but over the years the lawn has taken over.  I don't ever remember these so they were probably imported with the mulch!

I continue to keep my eye on my neighbor's butterfly bush and was rewarded by a visit from a White Admiral the other day.  I have seen them before but this one did pose for me!

A really nice Spicebush Swallowtail also visited and kept his wings open enough for a picture!!

Humid days like yesterday are reserved for working on the two Lone Star quilts I made a couple of  years ago.  The first is completed and the second is almost done!!  

More Butterflies

Always at the ready with my camera while reading outside on a beautiful summer day, finally saw a really nice specimen of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  The other ones have been rather torn up!

The same as above but from the side.  Its underneath is identical to it upper view which is not the case with so many butterflies.

A beautiful Monarch also landed but was very hesitant to open up its wings.  Finally I managed to get a shot!

The Monarch looks like a lighter shade of its markings on the underside but look at that dotted body!

This is a Cabbage White taken from a great distance.  They continually flit and don't land for more than a second at a time but finally got a good enough picture to identify.  I also saw many more of the Skippers as well but they are really boring to look at!

Finally saw the first Spicebush Swallowtail  of the season even though he was a little battered on one wing.  He is definitely different on top and underneath.

This one constantly opened and closed its wings so I had to really ratchet up the speed of the photo to not get a blur.  Good thing it was a beautiful sunny day.

Butterflies and Bugs

The neighbor's butterfly bush is again in full bloom (after the harsh winter here, most of the upper branches had died).  The butterflies have returned for my entertainment.  There have been a lot of Skippers flitting around the flowers and I think this is a Fiery Skipper but  not sure as the butterfly book I use only  has a couple of varieties and doesn't show this one this far north.  I have seen lots of these down in NC.  They are quite small -- certainly no bigger than an inch.

It was good to see one of the beautiful Monarchs again this year.

The beaten up Eastern Tiger Swallowtail came for a dip yesterday as well.  He has lost all of his tails at this point!

With all the lovely flowers around, you would think this White Admiral butterfly would land somewhere other than on top of my husband's kayak sitting on our van!!  Hard to get a picture!!

My husband is repotting all our tropical hibiscus into bigger pots and they are all covered with this beetle which we found hard to identify.  Thanks to the nice people on the Entomology FB page, we found out that it was a Green Stinkbug nymph (not adult).  So now to find something that will rid our plants of these!  It is one of the new pest bugs I guess.  Down in NC, the grasshoppers love the hibiscus and we are always getting those off but they are not in the frequency of these stink bugs...

Now a Few Pictures from My Husband's Camera!

My husband is an avid kayaker and I am continually nagging him to take his camera with him to get some bird pictures for me.  This week, he went to a local creek with some friends to explore rather than his normal places and he DID take his camera to capture some pics of the fall foliage which hasn't quite reached the island yet (he was on the mainland).  Of course, it was one of our beautiful October days.

This was one of my favorite shots.

I also liked this reflecting one with the moss on the water -- looks like a quilt to me....

The turtles were sunning!

This was an unwelcome visitor -- a Copperhead snake which dear husband thought was about three inches in diameter and about six feet long -- he decided he wouldn't get too close as his feet were only six inches above the water line and wasn't sure how far a Copperhead could leap in the water...  I had just heard from one of the birders about her killing a Copperhead in her garden recently.  She said she wore snake boots when birding around in the woods.  Hmmmm.

 These next two are pictures I took at Ft. Fisher of the American Lady butterfly.  The top one is the back and the bottom one is the front and certainly looks very different!!

Just another Clouded Sulphur -- lots of those down there the other day.

This is the side view of the Long Tailed Skipper -- I do like this butterfly a lot as it is bright blue on the body on the top side.