Blocks and Birds

I lead off with this block as I had to do it 3 times to get it right!!  I had designed all the blocks in EQ8 and in a couple of cases I got the measurements slightly askew.  That was the reason for the first redo.  The second mistake was actually reading the directions wrong over and over again which resulted in it being an inch smaller than it was supposed to be!

This is the current status of all the blocks I have done.  I dedicate 2 hours each day to sewing but making these blocks has been an excuse not to finish 3 donation quilts as well as the Passacaglia which I finally finished appliqueing onto some background fabric.  All of these projects require basting which is my most hated activity!

I finished these two today.  The top one was all Flying Geese so I found a couple of sources on the internet for measurements for doing the shortcut Flying Geese method!  I used the one that made "oversize blocks" and then trimmed then down to the perfect size.  This method doesn't waste triangles and you make four at a time.  Sure made it easier!

The second block was probably the hardest one i have done.  It required templates and had lots and lots of "Y" seams but it all worked out in the end.  Not my favorite to do however.  The next bunch I has a lot that use a 5 x 5 grid which is difficult measurents when you are working with a 6 inch block.  In many cases I just diagrammed a 5 inch block and put a 1/2 border around it.

I was very surprised when I went down to the Ft Fisher dock and spotted the rocks just filled with birds!  It was high tide and late in the afternoon so the light was not good for pictures -- usually I don't see anything at high tide, especially with the everpresent people but they must have been tired as the birds just stayed.  They were most Short-billed Dowitchers but you can see a couple of Marbled Godwits which finally woke up!

There was a Ruddy Turnstone in this group.

Even though it wasn't obvious, there were probably Dunlins and Long-billed Dowitchers somewhere in this mass of birds.  

I try to get to Carolina Beach Lake as often as I can but the birds have been sparse although people have seen a Roseate Spoonbill there some days.  I did see this nice Snowy Egret fishing one day.  Because of the fierce tropical storm we had a couple of weeks ago, they have practically drained the leg to prevent inevitable flooding.  Fortunately, we had more noise than rain as the wind was ferocious.

 

DJ Quilt Almost Finished and a Few Birds for Your Viewing Pleasure!

Well, birds first!  This is a Clapper Rail which is an  infrequent visitor and very shy.  He hid out awhile and then came back out.

This is an Eastern Phoebe, a frequent visitor to my daughter's back yard fence.

This is a Forster's Tern and there were a lot of them visiting down at Ft. Fisher.

This is a Kildeer which is a frequent visitor down here!

Another shot of the Clapper Rail.

This was  my second audition.  The first which is what I thought I would use was inserting a white piece before this darker piece but I just didn't like the look

Auditioning borders and this was the final decision.

It's all together except for the binding which I am in  the process of sewing down now.  I am very happy with sewing it in quarters despite the fact that this was a very difficult quilt to do this with because of stitching close to the edge.  I made a few mistakes and it is a little wonky in places but overall the picture doesn't do it justice!  I used a dark brown batik for the binding and hopefully, I will get it in the mail by the end of this week.  This will be the last picture!


 

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.
 

Catching Up!

This is truly a miscellaneous blog with bits of what I have done during the past month.  This is a late afternoon picture looking over the Cape Fear River with lots of color in the sky.  

My biggest accompishment has been the basting, machine quilting and binding of 18 quilts!  9 of those were for the Neonatal unit at our local hospital, 3 are for Habitat for Humanity and the rest will go to the Sweet Charity group except for one which I will send to a cousin.  

My oldest daughter and I made our annual pilgrimage to Huntington Beach State Park down in S. Carolina but we were a little late this year and there were a lot of people as it was the weekend.  We didn't see too many birds but did spot our Wood Storks all off in a tree  This was a nice Great Egret and there were many of those.

We also spotted several Semi-palmated Plovers. 

They were joined by several Semi-palmated Sandpipers.

I took a drive around Greenfield Lake here in Wilmington a couple of weeks ago and the leaves are just beginning to turn there.

A very late afternoon trip down to the Air Force housing produced quite a herd of deer who didn't seem to care that they had visitors!

I also added to the quilts I had made this summer with these two baby quilts made from fabrics I had previously cut up.

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I have had this piece of Michael Miller fabric for years.  There were two yards and a total of 3 repeats in the length.  I have stared at it the last couple of years wondering what to do with it and finally decided to do a stack and whack even though I didn't have the repeats lengthwise.  There was a partial repeat across the fabric so I used that and decided to do a "posy" stack and whack .

I finally decided to use a full panel and surround it with the posies so that I would get to see the full panel which I really liked a lot -- the reason I couldn't just give this fabric away.  My plan at present is to surround the panel with a two inch green border and then surround the posies with varying shades of green and yellow.  Looking at the picture now, I am thinking some white might make its way in somewhere..  Currently the panel is 24 inches high and 26 inches wide and each of the little posies is 5 1/2 inches.  I will be using my hand dyed "solids" for the borders.  I may rearrange the posy blocks a bit as well.  We shall see how it develops.  My quilts generally tell me what to do not the reverse!

On the bottom is the green I am thinking will be a good border.

These three fabrics will surround the little posies (I think!).  They look better in person.

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.

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.