This past week...

A week ago last Sunday, Pat came over and finished a BQ3 top for her goddaughter.  She was headed to Austin for the graduation celebration and I pushed her to get it done so I could get it quilted.  I finished it and delivered it on Wednesday--but didn't get a picture of the finished quilt before it left for with Pat for Austin.

I suspended working on this one to do the BQ3.  Pat made this one some time ago, had it sandwiched, and had done some quilting in the ditch.  I decided to practice my freehand work, and did pebbles in all the circular parts.  

I filled the rest of the areas with feathers.  I also used all kinds of partially filled bobbins to empty them out.  The backing is a heavier weight home decorator fabric and I thought it would make a good car quilt.  This gave me enough license to practice without worrying too much about perfection.

After finishing Pat's car quilt, I loaded another quilt for Dr. Kaufman and tried one of my new pantos from Judy Lyon.

It worked great on this quilt, sort of echoing the pattern of the backing fabric.  

I also had enough of this black and white and black faux piping binding I used on Jackie's king quilt to get this one bound. 

Two more finished!

I've been plugging away on the tops I got from friends at retreat.  

This one from Patty E. is great with all the fish and ocean life.

 

I used Dave Hudson's Sea Turtles panto. 

This lovely quilt is from Kathy F.  

I had to widen a twin sheet with more planetary fabric.  I used another Dave Hudson panto, Rings of Saturn.   

I will be making a delivery to Dr. Kaufman soon!





 

Poor plants...

I spent the morning playing with plants.  Repotted several plants, took many of the plants back outside after spending the winter in the sun room.  I cleaned up, had lunch, and then the storm came in! 

 Oh my.  I know we need the moisture, but my poor plants didn't need the hail! There is a lot of leaf litter on top of the hail from our trees.

It looks like a summer snowstorm out there!

 

 Meanwhile we've had a pair of scaled quail visiting regularly.  They are hard to catch with the camera.  

And of course the orioles.  I put oranges out for them.  

Flora & Fauna

Some quilting going on, but also lots of bird and bunny watching and cooking.  Made a couple of batches of jam, apricot, and apricot pineapple, which jelled.  Last time I made it, it was more of a sauce/syrup.  The bunnies continue to delight me.  

This little guy was right outside the living room window, helping with weeding the bindweed growing in between the yucca.

Late afternoon and this bunny dug a cool spot along the fence post to stretch out in after rolling in the dust a bit.

 Migrant birds are my favorite.  We're getting lots of warblers, and then for several days this rose breasted grosbeak hung around.  I knew we'd had one before and found a picture I took of one (perhaps the same bird?) last year May 16.  Pretty regular yearly visitor!

I've had this plant for a long time...got a start from my friend Rosie who called it the "bathroom lilly" because she grew hers in the bathroom.  This year mine has decided to blossom.  It's a "queen's tears" or "friendship plant" which my friend informed me is a bromeliad native of Brazil.  I'll have to divide it up after it's done blossoming and share it with Pat.    

And three more makes six!

I'm getting another stack of quilts to take to Dr. Kaufman.  I'm finally putting a dent on the many tops I brought home from Phoenix.  

This one is from Ami.  She said I could use it for a backing!  I added some Route 66 borders to it, to give it a little more width.  I think some teen will be happy to have it.  I'm happy to be using up Route 66 fabric--and get it out of my stash.

 

It was just short of a (100% cotton) twin sheet with the hems cut off.  I know many quilters poo-poo sheets for backings, but I find that I can pick up wonderful quality 100% cotton sheets at thrift stores.  I don't see any difference between the fabric and quilt shop quality fabric.  Many times, for whatever reason, the sheets are still brand new...and I don't have to piece the backing.

This is a Jelly Roll Race II from Yetta.  I have plans to do one of these with a jelly roll of really bright batiks.  

 

 This one is a small quilt, the first of more than a half dozen from Patty E.  

I was able to put one long piece of the the Little Mermaid Panels on the longarm and get two tops done on it.  

Just ahead of the freeze we had a couple of days ago, Dale saw this lizard out front.  We have an abundance of these normally very brown lesser earless lizards.  This one was really light, and we thought maybe it was an albino--doubt he made up here from White Sands, where they are lighter to blend in.

The baby bunnies continue to delight me!  

  

Baby bunnies!

We have a bumper crop of bunnies this year, and the babies are coming out.  They evade my attempts at photography.  I was able to get a quick pic of this one, before I stepped off the doorway threshold and it took off.

 Pat had a lot of leftovers from her braid quilts, and I was able to put together a baby quilt for my brother's grandson due soon.  Lucky me, the parts were all cut, though I changed up the small two inch squares!  I used the owl panto again.

I also made a couple of taggies from the leftover fabrics.  Kids seem to love playing with the tags and textures.  

Now I need to get back to the pile-o-quilts we were given for Dr. Kaufman.  

Owl panto

Pat finally caught up making all the baby quilts she owed, and I got them all quilted.  I used an owl panto from Judy Lyon on two of her quilts.  Judy has many complex pantos--the owl panto is medium as far as complexity.

Here is a closeup of the cute owls.

  We took off for a long weekend in Colorado.  Dale, Justin, and the grandboys went to a Sky Sox game.

We also rode the train through the Royal Gorge.  It was quite the scenic trip with an open air car.

The boys are growing up so quickly! 

Back to quiltin'...

 The moonrise was beautiful Monday night.  I knew I wouldn't be able to photograph the lunar eclipse, but at least I captured the moon rising.

I got started on my pile-o-tops I was given to quilt.  Judy A. gave me this jelly roll race along with the backing.  

Tove gave me this big top.  She pieced the backing and had binding cut for it as well.

I only had to do my favorite parts:  quilt and bind!  Thanks friends!

Happy Anniversary!

Thirty-nine years ago we got married, at the Fort Carson Hospital Chapel in Colorado Springs.  We were both in the service and I was stationed there. 

 These cacti blossomed for us today!  They are so beautiful, but also short-lived.  

Our friends have a beautiful, inspiring yard.  There is a lot I want to do in our yard when we get back home. 

 We really need some walls to create protected areas for plants.  The plants we moved to the east side of our house when we built the sun room are doing so much better, protected from the prevailing winds. 

House and pet sitting!

We had a great trip to Tucson to house sit and dog sit for our friends while they vacationed in Panama. 

We took the slightly longer route through the mountains and were rewarded with poppies blossoming. 

Before we left I did laundry as usual.  When I went to reach in my clothespin bag, I felt some weeds.  Since we had had some severe winds, I figured a tumbleweed had been blown in there.  Instead what I discovered was a well built bird nest.  Fortunately there were no eggs in it yet.  I'm sure it's likely a house finch nest.