Field Trips in Fiber

Quilt for (more than) An Hour

It's done!

Hmmm, something looks funny and

what's this? Did I cut this for the binding? I don't think so. Go back and look at Judy's picture of the quilt. Oh, right! That's a border that I forgot to add!

Un sew

Sew

That's better!

This is a great project. Thanks to Judy for another great Quilt for an Hour project! I really enjoy doing these especially since so many other bloggers are working on them at the same time. I like seeing the pattern in the variety of color choices.    

Of course I also had to do some dyeing today so that I could use my new sink. I dyed several fat quarters to test my fresh dye concentrates. I also dyed a large piece in these colors to use as the backing for my QFAH.

Bird Watch

Chris took a walk this afternoon and checked on the Brown Thrasher nest. It's in a cedar tree in the neighbor's yard. (Remember that a "yard" to us is 10 acres so it really is "a walk".) He got the first photo of the Thrasher guarding the nest. She pecked him while he was taking the second photo of the new babies! He risks his life to provide me with a little entertainment!

Who's doing the happy dance?

ME!!

Why?

Because these two guys just finished installing this utility sink in my dye room in the basement! No more lugging water to the basement and rinsing fabric in the bathtub - after carrying the bucket of fabric across white carpet.Our basement is below the septic so the sink had to be installed with a pumping system (the black thing on the right) to pump the wastewater up into the sewer line. That's a very strong pump too. It can empty both sinks in less than a minute! Want to guess what I'm going to be doing this weekend?

 

I'm so happy!!!

 

Bird Watch

We checked on the 2 boxes this afternoon. The Tree Swallows are doing fine but the parents were none to happy to have us around.

The Bluebirds are back and have built this nest in just a few days. It appears to be ready for the eggs.

Bird Watch

The Tree Swallows just hatched!

The Bluebirds are back in box 1 building a new nest. I'll have photos of that in 2 days with new baby photos. 

Pets Postcard

The last postcard that I worked on today was for another swap with "pets" as a theme. I think everyone knows that we don't ahve any real pets unless you could dust bunnies as pets. I considered doing something with photos of our rent-a-dogs but I saw the Bluebirds house shopping again today so I decided to try to make a bird nest. I love layering yarns so this is how I made these cards.

I started with gray felt as a base layer and added a layer of Mistyfuse and swirled a chunky tan yarn in a rough nest shape. The area is about 5 x 7 so I could cut it back to 4 x 6. I added another layer of Mistyfuse on top of the chunky yarn.

Next I pulled out 8 more yarns on various shades of brown and tan. I cut them into 2 - 3 inch pieces and arranged them in a circular, fused them down and added a layer of Mistyfuse.

 

The hardest part turned out to be making the eggs. I wanted to use silk fibers but I could not get the fibers under control to make an egg shape. I tried a few other things but settled on some blue yarn that I wadded into oval shapes. Then I covered the piece with tan tulle, fused a backing of Peltex and quilted around the eggs and then in a rough round pattern to try to highlight the nest shape. Here's the final card. I made 12 of these. Some of these will be birthday cards too.

Recycle Postcard

This card was made for the MQResource postcard exchange. The theme is "recycle". I was really stuck for inspiration on this one. I wanted to do something that I could also use for a couple of birthday cards. Here's what I came up with - I made 20 of them!

I decided to use recycle as the requirement for the materials instead of making a statement about recycling. The background is made from a big sheet of woven selvages that I made last year. The flower fabric is from two old t-shirts of mine and the green from one of Chris' old t-shirts. I made 10 with red flowers and 10 with pink flowers. The flower center is made from that thread nest that you get from the washer when you prewash fabrics.  I've been saving those nests for a while thinking I would come up with something clever to make from them. This little project wasn't worth saving them! The rest of the box is going in the trash. No more recycling thread garbage!

Adventures in Mixed Media

I pulled out a lot of my supplies Saturday to show Margie all of the cool things she could use to make postcards. Since it was all out I decided to spend the rest of the weekend making some of the postcards and gift boxes that I needed to get done. I'm not finished but I made a great start and have my two PC swaps ready and my birthday postcards caught up! 

First, I made these 3 mixed media sheets. The first two are for gift boxes. Both of these are made with canceled stamps. I bought a baggie full of them from eBay for less than $10, including shipping. These are made on a layer of felt then a layer of Mistyfuse, cut up pieces of painted cheesecloth and silk fibers, another layer of Mistyfuse, the stamps and bits of yarn, more Mistyfuse, some Angelina and a layer of tulle. There was a lot of Mistyfuse love going on this weekend! Glad I bought a bolt of white and black.

Both of the pink/red sheets are for gift boxes. This green one is made from fortunes that I've been saving from my fortune cookies for a while. It was done with basically the same layers as the pink ones. Then I fused the sheet to a layer of Pellon Peltex and quilted it with a metallic thread. I cut it into 9 postcards making sure that I had at least 2 fortunes on each card. Here's the finished card. I think these will be good for male birthday cards.

and here's part of the big mess that I have to clean up tomorrow!

Stash Report and Other Stuff

The long weekend continues it's good streak. Yesterday we had company - a very rare event here at Casa Welsh. Our friends Mark and Margie braved I-95 to spend the afternoon with us. For me and Margie it was postcard making day! After we made a few postcards I HAD to take her to my favorite LQS. We were both rather well behaved but I believe that's a normal state for her. I bought the 3.25 yards shown in the photo. The piece on the right is for a gift box. The others were some Japanese fabric samples that Joyce and Phoebe brought back from Quilt Market. That nets against only 1/2 yard that we used making postcards.

I am finding myself with an overwhelming urge to buy fabric! I've even been shopping the on-line stores. So far I've been able to resist but I REALLY am itching for new fabric. So far the desire to make June 30 with a net out of 50 yards is winning.

The current tally:

• This week IN: 3.25
• This week OUT: .5
• YTD IN: 93.75 yards
• YTD out: 147 yards
• NET OUT: 53.25 yards (Goal 100 yards)

In other news, my article on painting fabric with metallic paints was published yesterday in Fibre&Stitch eZine.

You can purchase the issue here.  It's very exciting to be published and I found out that I actually enjoy writing. Hopefully I can come up with other topics to write about.

A great start to the weekend!

I love my boss! He called in today and told our admin that we could take the afternoon off! She didn't argue and I got a jump start on my sewing weekend. I finished my QFAH Star blocks so I am caught up on Judy's instructions. I even got my Doubles quilt top together. Based on your comments I used layout A. In the end I chose to continue with the original border plan.I can tell you that it looks much better than the photo. The outer border has more blue and brown than what shows in the photo.

This quilt is from the book Quilts on the Double. You cut out two quilts at once. It's a terrific technique and I will make others. My Mom is making the matching quilt to this one but she's been so busy killing snakes that I don't think she is done with hers!

It's time to review last week's list and make a new one! Here are last week's goals:

• Make a new batch of soap with hemp butter done! I made Hemp and Shea Butter
• Quilt Kim's quilt. I got it loaded Sunday and started the quilting and I like how it looks so far - not done
• Start Judy's Quilt for an Hour project. This will also include a trip to Quilting Adventures to take advantage of the batik sale. My QFAH will be made from bright batik fabrics and I need one more. Besides I think I deserve a present for my great week at work! LOL!  I'm up to date on this
• Finish my samples for my machine quilting class - uh, not done
• Work on my QOV project. The top is done!

Tomorrow a friend is coming to visit and learn to make fabric postcards. That should take about 10 minutes so we might have to go to the fabric shop for a while! My other goals are:

• Quilt Kim's quilt
• Make the backing for the Doubles QOV quilt, I think I have something in my stash that will work. If not, I will dye a backing once my dye studio is back together. More on that later....
• Finish my samples for my machine quilting class
• Make postcards for 2 swaps and for all of the May birthdays that I missed

That should keep me pretty busy! Chris is going fishing Sunday and has a friend coming in to fish with him Monday and then he's going to a cookout Monday afternoon (it's outdoors so I can't go). That means that I will have lots of quality sewing time!

I'm lovin' it!

I think I was supposed to get 12 blocks done today but I stopped after I put two blocks together wrong. I wanted to see how they will look with sashing so I put these up on the design wall. I wish I had the energy to stay up all night and finish piecing the blocks. I love them!

Quilting Progress

I made some progress on both of my QOV quilts! Thanks for all of the feedback on the "On the Double" quilt. It's nice to have some many people close by to help out with a different view. I talked to Mom and she does not have the two pieces that I am missing so we must not have made enough. The first thing I did was to make up more brown pieces so I could finish that one block. Mom, yours are going out in the mail tomorrow. The second thing I decided is that I do agree with the majority of the coments that those borders are not optimal but I'm going to go with them anyway. I already have them cut and it is a charity quilt - not for show. I think it will still be a pretty quilt and I will have learned another lesson. Lessons are good!

I organized the blocks in 4 different layouts. Do you have an opinion? Well, I know you have opinions! Do you want to share yours? I labeled each sample in the lower left corner.

I also made some progress on my QFAH quilt.  I'm probably about a half hour behind. I think I should have finished all of my star points tonight but I have 6 sets left to make. I did construct 1 star to make sure I had cut everything right. These star point fabrics are from a big set of hand-dyed fabrics that I bought when Lunn Studios were going out of the dyeing business. Now they design some really awesome batik fabrics. I have used these fabrics a lot and I love them. I think they are fantastic for these star points.

Typepad had given us a new and improved editing interface. I think I'm going to like ot a lot but it's going to take a little adjustment! 

Story for the day: I am terrified of snakes and had to kill one in my house about a year and a half ago. I was a mess. I called my Mama panicked (Chris was half way across the country) and drank about half a bottle of scotch before I got up the nerve to kill it. To make my humiliation worse, the snake was little. My Mom (and everyone else I know) loves to remind me of it. Today Mom killed the first snake at her new house - she has pointed out before that she killed a rattlesnake with a piece of glass once. Today she sent me this email:

Killed my first snake.  It was a black snake about 2-3 ft long.  I was planting Begonias around the light post and this soil is such you dig out a hold and replace it with good soil.  I was taking it around back to throw over the hill and noticed something hanging out of the top of the propane tank.  I had just cleaned it out. Wrens try to build nest and just make a mess.  I sprayed it with 409 and it fell out of the top behind the tank.  I got the Deer repellent made it come out so I could use the hoe and shovel.  Dee held it down with the hoe and I hacked it with the shovel.
I knew you would want to hear all about this adventure.

Lesson #1: Do not mess with my Mother or you will get a squirt of 409 in your face and your head chopped off.

Lesson #2: Never show Mom your weakness, she will never let you forget it!

My family is so much fun!

 

Bird Watch

We are still waiting for the Tree Swallows to hatch but today Chris found another nest! This one is on a tree at the corner of our neighbor's property and it's a Brown Thrasher! Isn't is a pretty nest?

We will keep an eye on both nests and post again when someone hatches.

I'm alive again!

After my magical afternoon nap I finally am over my weekend cold - or whatever. Just in time to go back to work tomorrow. There's nothing like having your energy back though and I took my new energy right into my sewing room.

First I did the first step in the Quilt For an Hour project and then I decided to work on my blocks for the On the Double quilt. This is the one that Mom and I are doing together. I got all of the blocks together - except one. It seems that I am missing two brown pieces! Crap. I hope that Mom has them in the stack of parts that she took home with her. Mom, would you look? If not the quilt will be 1 row shorter and I'll use those 5 blocks for a pillowcase border or something.

I don't know if this will be the block layout or not. There are so many possibilities with these blocks. I pinned up the borders and I am not sure I'm happy with them. Isn't that always the case? I started with the outer and inner borders as the inspiration fabrics. Now I'm not sure about the inner border. Do you think a blue print would work better? I like the black and the outer border. I'd really like to use the brown/black inner border though since it's already cut. Any opinions?

Liquid Starch Recipe

I think I posted a few months ago about making my own starch. I use a lot of starch in my quilt piecing. I like the fabric to be as stiff as paper, especially when I'm working with triangles. The problem with my original starch recipe is that it didn't fully dissolve and sometimes left a white residue on the fabric. That didn't bother me because I always wash the completed quilt....but it drove my Mom nuts when she was here and we were working on our "Quilts on the Double" quilts. She and her sister looked through my Grandma's recipe book to see if her starch recipe was recorded. It wasn't. So a search of the web for several recipes resulted in this new recipe that works much better!

If you decided to make your own starch, only make what you can use in a day or 2. It does go rancid. I seem to use a little more than a cup in an average cutting session.

1. Put 1 1/2 cups of water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

2. While waiting for the water to boil, dissolve 2 - 3 teaspoons of cornstarch in 3 tablespoons of cold water in a cup or small bowl. Keep mixing the cornstarch while waiting for the water to boil.

3. After the water boils, pour the cornstarch mixture into the boiling water and stir for a minute or so. The liquid will be clear or slightly cloudy.

4. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.

5. Transfer the starch mixture to a spray bottle and starch away! Throw it out after a couple of days.

Weekend update - Quilt For an Hour

I  had grand plans for the weekend to cut out the new Quilt For An Hour project and to get most of Kim's quilt quilted. Things aren't going to plan. I've been very tired all weekend and finally realized that I have a cold or something. It's taken all weekend to get the QFAH cut out. You can see that I chose a bright palette. The pink will be the border. It's a piece that I dyed. I was trying for a true red - it's not but it works well with the print batik. I think I will like this one but as I said earlier, it still risks being obnoxious. Regardless, it's going to be a nice counter point to the brown and blue QOV that I cut out two weekends ago. Fortunately I will piece noth of them with medium gray thread. I'll probably alternate an hour at a time on each just to keep myself interested.

So, that's it. That's all I've accomplished this weekend and now I need a nap!

Stash Control Report

I didn't do a stash report last week because I wasn't even in my sewing room. Last week was all work and no play. I took Friday off thinking that I would get a jump start on sewing for the weekend but I spent the day making soap, putting up strawberries and chores. It all caught up with me yesterday. After a few morning errands and a fabric cutting session in the afternoon I was DONE! I sat in the recliner at 7 pm and, aside from an hour to get ready for bed, I slept until about 7 this morning!

One of my errands yesterday was to buy one fabric for my Quilt For an Hour project. I decided last week that I would do mine in bright colors. I'll show you all of the fabrics later but that orange in the photo is part of the palette! It might be bright and happy or it might be obnoxious.

The quilt shop was having a sale on batik fabrics - how timely! I got the orange but also fell in love with two more pieces. The patriotic piece and the wavy stripes. Judy, how about designing the next QFAH so I can use that patriotic batik. OK?

Now before you start wagging your finger at me for buying 2 fabrics that I didn't need and 3 yards worth of fat quarters you need to know that I put 4 bolts back on the shelf before they started cutting!

Here's the current tally:

This week IN: 12.5 (from yesterday's purchases)

This week OUT: zero

YTD IN: 90.5 yards

YTD out: 146.5 yards

NET OUT: 56 yards (Goal 100 yards)

Hemp Soap

Yesterday I made two batches of soap. I made the Shea Butter because it's everyone's favorite and I made another new recipe because I love playing around with new oils.  I added some ground up raspberry seeds to a sample of the Shea Butter to see if I liked having an exfoliant added to my soap.

The new soap is made with Hemp Butter and is a 36 ounce recipe for my larger mold. The hemp butter has a green tint and I thought it might add some color to the soap. It didn't. I have more new recipes planned too! I added Aloe Butter and Walnut Oil to my stockpile of oils. I'll report in the success of this one in a few weeks.

Hemp Soap

Hemp Butter 3 oz.

Sweet Almond Oil 4 oz.

Coconut Oil 7.5 oz

Palm Oil 9 oz.

Palm Kernal Oil 10 oz.

Stearic Acid 1 oz

Castor Oil 1.5 oz.

Lye 5.4 oz

Water 13.6 oz

Bird Watch

I've received a few questions lately asking how we take the bird photos. Chris made all of our boxes. The 4 bluebird boxes are mounted on fencing posts with the top of the boxes about 5 feet off the ground. I have to stand on tiptoe to look in but they are the perfect height for him. He hinged the lid so we can open then and peek in. The birds have never seemed to mind us taking a peek. I just open the lid and snap a couple of photos and then leave them alone. We try to only go every other day so that we are not bothering them too much.

Two other boxes are mounted on trees. He has to use a ladder to check those. I'd love to figure out a way to have a web cam in the boxes but that would require some REALLY long extension cords!

We checked on the boxes today and the news is not all good.

The Chickadees in bluebird box 4 have fledged but the Chickadees in the Chickadee box are all dead. We don't know if something killed them or if the parents abandoned them. We had several days of very heavy rain and maybe the parents couldn't take care of them.

But the 5 Tree Swallow eggs are doing fine.

Chris has seen the baby Bluebirds flying around and we are hoping for one more Bluebird nesting before "baby season" ends.

I'm back!!!

I know that we usually prefer to complain about work but I can't complain about anything this week. I worked every day from 8:30 am until 10:00 pm hosting a 4-day workshop. This is a program that we started last year to facilitate networking among associates from our offices around the world. I have a class of 20 each year. The come to the headquarters the week of the Shareholder's Meeting where they meet every executive in the company, learn about all of the big initiatives going on, attend the Shareholder's Meeting and kick off a year-long project. This year was even more awesome because both of my classes were recognized at the Shareholder's Meeting Tuesday. On top of all of that my boss was promoted to President of our company. It was a super fabulous week.

But even the brain needs a balanced diet and mine is low on fiber. So I'm taking off tomorrow and Monday for a 4-day weekend! I have to do a little "real" work but most of the weekend will be all about ME! My mind isn't totally functioning yet but I am going to attempt a to do list for the weekend:

• Make a new batch of soap with hemp butter
• Quilt Kim's quilt. I got it loaded Sunday and started the quilting and I like how it looks so far
• Start Judy's Quilt for an Hour project. This will also include a trip to Quilting Adventures to take advantage of the batik sale. My QFAH will be made from bright batik fabrics and I need one more. Besides I think I deserve a present for my great week at work! LOL!
• Finish my samples for my machine quilting class
• Work on my QOV project.

That should be quite enough, don't you think?

Bird Watch

This is probably the last bird check until Thursday. we got these two just before the big rain started.

This is bluebird box #2. We can finally see that the Tree Swallow nest has 5 eggs.

Here are the Chickadees in bluebird box #4. They may be gone by the time we visit them Thursday.

While we were out we had a very exciting sighting of the Scarlet Tanager. I've only seen this bird once about 8 years ago. We hear them often but they don't often leave the cover of the woods. This photo isn't very good but it's still proof that we saw one! I was standing about 40 feet from the tree.

No Activity.......

Just checking in for a few minutes to tell you that my blog will be on a "no fiber diet" for a few days. This weekend and next week are all work and no play. It's OK, because it's a very rewarding project but I will not see my sewing room again until Friday.

......keep up your posting though! I'll have to get my daily fiber intake when I can steal a few minutes to read your blogs. I do hope to get in at least one more bird watch post though.

Mother's Day Cards

I had a flash of an idea early in the week for a funny Mother's Day postcard made from an old family photo. I liked the idea so much (and it was so easy) that I decided to do them for my 2 aunts also. These were really simple to make. I opened the photo in Photoshop, added the text bubbles and printed to fabric. The front and backs are fused to Timtex and finished off with a zig-zag stitch. Couldn't be easier.

The one on the left is for my Aunt Edna. She recently told me that in high school she had to make homemade biscuits for her Dad every morning. When she got married and left home she vowed to never make another biscuit.....she kept to the vow. That's a picture of her dad (Granddaddy Dove).

The middle one is for my Mom. That's her Mom and Grandmother (Grandma Dove and Great-Grandma Flora). Mom's sisters only had 1 child each. My Mom had 4. It must have been like a raid to have the 4 Ottaway urchins arrive for a holiday meal!

The one on the right is for my Aunt Dee. She told me recently that for years she had to sleep with her Grandmother! Eek! The woman on the right is a neighbor standing with her Grandmother (Great-Grandma Flora).

They elicited the responses that I wanted.......Mom sent an email with only 2 words: "smart ass"

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Bird Watch

Don't read to the bottom of this post if you are against vermin destruction.

First the good news. Chris took some more photos today.

The Tree Swallows are working Bluebird Box 2. We always love these birds because they are really friendly and don't seem to mind our attentions at all. Chris got 2 photos. One with her peeking out of the box and one with her on the nest. I think they are really beautiful birds.

Then he checked on the Chickadees in the Chickadee box

and the Chickadees in Bluebird Box 4. They are getting their black caps!

You might be wondering why I am doing two bird posts in a row. I had planned to wait until Saturday to survey all of the nests again but something happened today to add "bird inventory" to Chris' list of chores.

I work at home Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today, during my lunch break, I happened to look out the window and saw a bird perched on Bluebird Box 3 (the Chickadee family photographed yesterday). I grabbed the binoculars and saw that it was the evil House Sparrow. Over our few years of birding, we have lost bird families to two things: snakes and House Sparrows. Snakes, I understand and we do a lot to dissuade them from eating our birds and, if Chris catches them in the box, they generally have an unfortunate accident.

House Sparrows are not native to the US. They are to us as the Gray Squirrel is to the Brits. (I don't like the squirrels much either but in Britain the Gray Squirrel has just about eliminated the native Red Squirrel population.) House Sparrows here are brutal to native birds. They destroy eggs and baby birds and then nest on top of the abandoned nests. I did a lot of reading on the subject last year (after they destroyed a little bluebird family) and followed the recommendation to let them lay their eggs and then destroy the nest.

When I saw the House Sparrow on the nest box I knew what had happened. I looked in the box and all of my Chickadees were gone and the Sparrow had already started building a new nest. I reported the incident to my hero hunter.

Vengeance is mine saith the bird woman....

.....followed by a full inventory of all other families.

Bird Watch

The Bluebirds fledged today! Chris will clean out that box to see if we can get a second group. Meanwhile, the Tree Swallow has started laying in Bluebird Box 2

And the Chickadees seem to be perpetually hungry.

New projects!

Remember on Friday I talked about a new project that Mom and I are starting? It's from this new book by Judy Hooworth and Margaret Rolfe. The basic technique is that you make a lot of strip sets with a narrow strip of an accent color and wider strips of the main colors. You make lots and lots of strip sets and then cut them into triangles. Half of the triangles have the accent on the bottom and half have the accent on the top and each set makes a separate quilt. We picked a print from my stash for the main border fabric and then pulled fat quarters for the strip colors. We purchased black Fairy Frost fabric for the accent (solid black was too stark) and the brown/black print for one of the borders. It was in the same collection as the main fabric. We cut, sewed and cut like maniacs Saturday night and all day Sunday and got everything, even borders, cut for both quilts! My quilt is made with the "accent on top" pieces. Here's a photo of a few of them in the design wall. So far I like this technique but I've got a lot of sewin' to get to!

We are going to make these to be QOV quilts. If that wasn't enough, I've also decided to participate in Judy L's next Quilt For An Hour project. I love her quilt designs and I think this one will also be a good QOV quilt. Judy posts instructions in hour increments every day until the quilt is complete. She posted the yardage requirements today and I think will start posting instructions in a week or so. I'll pick out my fabrics - from my stash - this week. If you are searching for a new project to do, Judy's quilts are always fun!

Bird Watch

Chris saw one of the baby Bluebirds peeking out of the box today so we feel pretty sure that this is the last glimpse we will have of them.

And the Chickadees in box 3 are getting cute! We didn't check the other two boxes but I'll get Chris to snap some photos of them later this week.

and the winner is........

Sarah! She guessed 67 yards.

Typepad must limit the number of comments that it displays because some of the most recent ones are not showing. Sarah's entry does not show but, trust me, it's there! Thanks to everyone for playing along and I am thrilled to tell you that the actual yardage on those boxes was even higher than Sarah's guess. it was

77 yards!!!

So here's the tally for the week

This week IN: 18.25 (from yesterday's purchases)

This week OUT: 78 (1 yard of the giveaway fabric)

YTD IN: 78 yards

YTD out: 146.5 yards

NET OUT: 65.5 yards (Goal 100 yards)

Wow, that felt good! It's nice to know that all of that fabric will be used for community service quilts. I can even tell that there is a little more space in my fabric cabinets. I sure hope I can keep from stuffing it full again.

A beautiful day!

Mom and I had a great day today! For one thing, I believe this was the first Saturday in 9 that we haven't had rain. It was a beautiful day. We started off at Quilting Adventures where I bought 18 1/4 yards of fabric! Eek!

The two on the left are to go with the fabrics we pulled from my stash last night for new QOV quilts. The others are the fabrics that I saw in the store last weekend. after a week I was still lusting for them so I invested! Mom got some fabrics for a quilt she is working on and templates so that she can finish a double wedding ring quilt that my Great-Grandma Flora started.

then we headed over to Millstone Quilts. Isn't this beautiful and wouldn't you love to shop there? So would I. We walked in and the smell of some sort of fragrance was overwhelming. We didn't get to look around at all. I was totally bummed because this store has just about every reproduction line made and I was looking forward to wandering around the place.

They did have a nice outdoor quilt show and here are a couple of pictures of the quilts.

Tonight we'll start cutting the fabrics for the new QOV quilts.

Bird Watch

We did a complete tour of all of the bird nests this morning.

The Bluebirds are growing like crazy in Bluebird Box 1

The Tree Swallows are about finished with nest building in Bluebird box 2

We have 3 Chickadee families. Here's the group in Bluebird box 3

and Bluebird Box 4

and the newest family in the Chickadee box

It's the weekend!

Yeah!!

Mom is visiting this weekend. She came to quilt one of her quilts on Willie and did the whole quilt while I was at work today. I had to come up with something  else for us to do this weekend. So tonight we pulled these fabrics to make 2 QOV quilts. We are going to make these two quilts. They are from Quilts on the Double by Judy Hooworth and Margaret Rolfe. You make a set of strip pieced fabrics and cut triangles from the strips. You get two quilts out of one set of strips. I first met Judy and Margaret when I took their Spectacular Scraps class at Houston in 1998 or 1999. We then hosted Judy to teach the class for our Guild. It was a fun technique and I made several quilts with it. I saw the "double" book in my LQS last weekend and picked it up. There are loads of possibilities for this technique - that's what I love about their approach. The quilts are scrappy and have a lot of design possibilities. Hopefully we can get the cutting and strip sewing done this weekend.

But first I have to take her to Quilting Adventures and Millstone Quilts. I hope I can show a little bit of self control!

Here was last weekend's list:

• Load and quilt the Guild baby quilt done and delivered!
• Work on samples for the LQS machine quilting class worked on but not done
• Paint more of the black feathers from the MQX class. nothing accomplished on this one.

Here are the goals for this weekend and next week:

• Cut out fabrics for the new QOV quilts
• Work on the machine quilting samples
• Make a new soap recipe with hemp butter
• Load Kim's quilt for quilting
• Clean out the dye area to make room for my new dye sink!!

What are your plans for the weekend?

Bird Watch

It's a great day in bird land!

The Bluebirds are growing fast. Their blue feathers are starting to show.

The Tree Swallows have been very busy.

And the Chickadees are hatching everywhere. These photos are from Bluebird boxes 3 and 4. We didn't get a photo of the Chickadee box but assume they have hatched too. I think the ones in Box 3 hatched today. The ones in Box 4 look a day or 2 older.