Birds of Paradise Stack and Whack -- the End

For your viewing enjoyment,  60 of the 74 blocks that I made from the Birds of Paradise fabric.  These were by far my favorite of all the stack and whacks I have done.  Now to just figure out how I want to set them!!  Many decisions including size, set and whether to use the matching posie blocks, of which I have 104!!  I suspect there is more than one quilt here!!

Part 2!

Part 3!

As I am still confined to the downstairs and doing all my sewing sitting on a bed with the sewing machine in my lap, I sent dear husband up to the sewing room to find my plastic bag full of house parts.  Three trips later and many plastic bags later, he still couldn't find them! He did find a bag of kaleidoscope triangles from a project where I had overachieved the cutting!!  So there will be some kaleidoscope quilts to be made til the pieces run out -- there are fewer blue pieces than the lighter background pieces.  This is a common set of this pattern but I hadn't done one myself before.

I also found a few bags of strips so will sew those together as well.  Wed I go back to the surgeon and maybe will get this cast off and something else put on but don't know.

Sitting outside, I always have my camera to capture some bird pictures.  Today, it was damselflies.  Although I a having some difficulty with identification, I think this is a female Ebony Jewelwing as that was the only one in the book with the white wingtips.   I took about 100 pictures to finally get this one as it is very difficult to get a pic of a small skinny dragonfly sitting on an azalea!

And surprisingly, I saw another damselfly on our Japanese Cherry a few minutes later but it didn't pose quite as nicely and didn't show me his wings.  I believe it is a  male Ebony Jewelwing.  Is romance in the air?

A Visit to Montezuma Wildlife Refuge

I had arranged to sell my last two remaining Singer 301 sewing machines to a friend in the Syracuse area.  As she ended up in the hospital, her husband and I arranged a mid-point meeting place which was right near the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge which I had wanted to visit this summer.  This was the perfect excuse and a nice day besides!  This is the perfect setting for a Goldfinch, in among the Scotch Thistle.

I did see some Caspian Terns like last year but not as many.  There were some Gadwalls, Mallards, Canada Geese, Laughing Gulls, Great Blues and one lone Great Egret and I believe a Blue Winged Teal female.  Unfortunately, everything was too far away for good pictures.  There were some great Goldfinches but just as I was about to take pictures, a huge tractor with a mower came by and cut down all the thistle!!  

I did see a few of the Black Swallowtails and several other butterflies that were moving just too fast.  This one had its wings flapping constantly so I increased the speed to 1/1200 of a second to get the picture!
I liked it sitting on the Scotch Thistle as this was my favorite flower as a child!

I also spotted this Red Admiral off in the distance.

This was the coolest find.  I saw a lot of dragonflies but none of them were landing so impossible to photograph. This is a Halloween Pennant Dragonfly which looked like a butterfly from a distance.  I took this from my car window quite a distance away.  I know I haven't seen one of these before.

There were a lot of these beautiful Marsh Mallows all in pink.  They look an awful like our perennial hibiscus.

Of course lots of Queen Anne's Lace which was my least favorite flower as a child although I can't imagine why!

There is very little water now in this normally marshy Refuge. They drained it a couple of years ago to clean it up and have yet to fill it back up again. I am sure there will be more birds when that happens.

This is one of the few ponded areas  which lies outside of the long nature loop.   It is pretty though and has a high observation deck.  

More Fort Fisher Butterflies and a New Dragonfly

This is the very Common Buckeye butterfly.  I saw a lot of these the last time I walked down at Ft. Fisher but they were impossible to photograph.  Today I was a bit more successful.

 I couldn't resist the Gulf Fritillary even though they are as common as the Monarchs were up north.  They were fighting for position on all the painted daisies but they pose so nicely for me.

This is a somewhat bedraggled Northern Cloudywing which isn't a particularly pretty butterfly to begin with.  There were a couple of other dullish butterflies that just wouldn't sit still or were so obscured by the background that I couldn't snap their pictures.

I think this is an Orange Sulfur.  It was darker than the Cloudy Sulfurs that I see so much around the house.

I believe this is a Seaside Dragonlet dragonfly.  I saw this at my walk at Carolina Beach Lake yesterday.  The weather has been stunningly beautiful -- more pleasant than I would expect for this time of year!  It was just about two years ago that we had 23 inches of rain in 4 days!!

I saw these two wildflowers at Carolina Beach Lake and thought they were really pretty -- especially the pink one which was growing very close to the water.

This was one of the bunches of Painted Daisies that grow along the path at Ft. Fisher attracting the butterflies!

I will get back to sewing but can't stand to be inside when the weather is so beautiful and I can get a little exercise and take some pictures at the same time.  Of course time is spent sitting on the beach as well on my porch watching the beach!!  I put in a good sized order to Hancocks for Kaffe Fassett fabrics yesterday as well so will have to use some of that up quickly!

Dragonflies and Damselflies +

Yesterday was the perfect day to take my first walk to Carolina Beach Lake.  I was pretty sure it was too early to see any birds plus the Lake is very high right now (must have been a lot of rain as it is very green down here).  So instead of birds, I will concentrate on butterflies and dragonflies for a bit.  I have always been amazed by the sheer number of dragon or damselflies that I see when sitting on the porch so it's time to identify them thanks to my lovely Stokes Beginner's Guide to Dragonflies which has the most common varieties.  This is an Eastern Amberwing that was sitting on some algae in the pond.  I used my small point and shoot to take this picture.  I thought the background looked like a picture of a coastal swamp.  The biggest problem with the small camera is that I find it very difficult to see the image whereas it seems so easy with my slr.

This is a Common Spreadwing which was also on the algae.  I wasn't sure I even would get this shot.  These flies are very flitty!!

 Lastly, these next two shots are of  a dragonfly called the Black Saddlebags.  Took me a bit to identify this as I thought that very dark area on the wings was the body but it is the "saddlebag".  In the afternoon light, the wings looked blue but this morning they looked clear as this dragonfly hangs around a lot on the end of a twig in our neighbor's yard.  I know I have seen some other varieties as well but in flight they are impossible to photograph.  

 A sideview of the above Saddlebags.

My tufted domestic duck was down by the lake and a new domestic visitor was there as well -- this brown and white duck.  I am not sure whether this is a cross of a mallard and domestic duck or another variety of plain domestic duck.  Will have to do a little research.  Even the mallards were out of the water today and I didn't see any males at all.

This is the view from my porch using the telephoto on my small camera.  Think I will be able to get some pictures that I couldn't before.  It is so bright down here, I get suntanned sitting in the shade on my porch so even a poorer lens lets in enough light to get some good shots.  

My youngest daughter, her husband and my granddaughter are flying in tonight from the West Coast and my other daughter is coming from Charlotte  so my next blog will be dedicated to them!!

A Sisterly Visit

Well here are the Baker sisters.  My sister Gail also has a blog which you can see on the left hand column of my blog.  She came up for a visit and to see the Ricky Tims Quilt Seminar which was held here last week.  During the past year and a half she has become an avid quilter and fabric stroker!  My goal was to keep her busy and away from the clutter and dust which is my house!  I think I succeeded!  As soon as she got off the plane, I took her to the movies with friends.  The next day, we headed south to Letchworth Park where hopefully we would have some picture taking opportunities and there might be some birds (there really wasn't).  This picture was taken looking over the Genesee River by a nice passerby.   You will note we both have cameras around our necks but I had two, hence the picture.  It is rare to see us without said cameras.

This is looking down the gorge at the river.  It has been very dry around here.

These are one of the three sets of falls in Letchworth Park.  It was a gorgeous day out!

This is an Eyed Brown butterfly, one that I haven't seen before.

This picture and the following picture are of the Eastern Pondhawk dragonfly which is pretty common in these parts.  Fun to play with the camera to get the pictures.

After this excursion (and no food I might add -- my sister thrives on neglect), we took the long way home through Batavia where I lived before moving to Rochester.  Managed to drive around in circles for about a half an hour before heading home but I did see the old house although it is barely recognizable! 

RAFA, Serendipity Update, Birds and Dragonfly!

This latest Serendipity quilt is almost completed and is a very mellow  merging of lots of neutral beiges, pale greens and pale blues.  Hopefully it will look nice in the blue bedroom at the beach.  It photographs darker than it is.

The two quilts are actually made from the same pattern.  Mary Louise will be teaching it at the local quilt shop.

This was a shirt that Julia had which was stained and she had asked someone to try and dye it for her.  She was more than pleased with the beautiful result.  Looks like someone did snow or ice dyeing to get this affect --  nice...

This was a quilt that was done in the Jan Krentz class that I didn't take.  I did buy the book that this quilt is in though on my Kindle!

Well, there were lots of goldfinches at Joe's feeder today.  You can see the males to the right and in the back and the female off to the left.

Here is one of the male House Finches that frequents the feeder as well.  There were a number of females but they are kind of boring in color!

This is a dragonfly that I haven't been able to identify but you would think it would be easy with these white patches on the wing tips!!  It was sitting on our beach umbrella set up in the back yard.

And last but not least, the first of our roses ready to burst open.  The roses up here in western NY have been fabulous this year -- our neighbor's yard is aglow with color!