Bug Stories

Well, doesn't everybody just have SOMETHING to say about bugs! And here, I thought that no one would comment on my yucky old post.

So several thoughts popped into my head when I read all your comments:

Lisa- My dad has almost the same reaction as you when he sees a spider. (Maybe minus the girly scream.) The day I posted the spiders, Mom said that Dad had come in to the room and sat on the floor. When she told him she had seen a spider (hours before) he hopped right up and left the room. So Mom is in charge of all bug disposal...

Love- Here's another great spider story for you- When I worked in Alabama, I had a customer that was in Tennessee that I frequently got to talk to. She had a 5 year old son- they were making a costume for Halloween for him. I made a passing comment about my age and not having any kids and she laughed and proceeded to tell me that she was considerably older than me. Apparently she and her husband had tried to have kids for years and had finally given up. One summer in the garden, she was bit by a Black Widow Spider. It made her very ill for months- she also had bad reactions to some of the medications they gave her and she ended up on steroids for an extended period of time. As it turns out, whatever she was on subdued her system and she ended up pregnant! How's that for a silver lining?

Katie- No, I don't think there will be any spider quilts. However, I have a really cool picture of a grasshopper, lots of butterflies and a couple of dragonflies. You never know what might turn up next! The flowers are on my hummingbird bush (and I actually have one!) She is a female. Not sure what kind, but she is iridescent green in the sunlight so I am guessing a Ruby Throat. Hope to have some males in the near future.

Fer- I once went to a conference in Arizona and one of the ladies there was from the New England area of the U.S. (Maybe Massachusetts?) She told me she had found a lobster in her bathtub. When I finally stopped laughing, I told her it was a scorpion....

Beth- I lived in Florida for a couple of months. When I first got there, Jack and I went for a walk in the evening and he found a black snake. I went in to the office the next day and asked about poisonous snakes in the area. When I told them it was black, someone asked me what color it was underneath. Really? You think I am going to go turn it over to find out if it is a dangerous snake? Sometimes people really worry me...

This morning I finished a little project- Dave loaned me his Kindle this past week to read a couple of books on it. So I made him a cover for it as a thank you. It's not a very big deal, but I put a picture of it up in the finished UFO link.

Texas sized bugs

Okay, I have a confession- I really like bugs.

Well, not in the house or flying around or anywhere near me, I guess. I like them in the "Wow, that is interesting-looking and kind of creepy" way. So while I was out feeding the birds I ran across this new resident in the garden.



I have a pretty good zoom on the camera so I am not nearly as close as you might think. She's about two inches across. The bugs have been pretty bad this year- (maybe due to the extra long winter?) so I have been leaving spiders alone when I might normally chase them off. But then I was standing around watering the plants when I realized that she has a shadow...



Can you see him up there? I was having trouble getting them both in focus. Now, I am assuming that this is probably a male, given that he is significantly smaller than she is. I'm pretty sure the Discovery Channel would tell me that she is likely to devour him, but I am not so sure I am too happy about having a garden full of these guys.

Ready for Quilting!

Finished my Kite this morning- now I am sewing it to the background and should have a photo in the next day or two. I spent the morning giggling over my dog... I would say he is as dumb as a box of rocks, but that is not really true anymore. He is learning....

I have been pretty much ignored for the past two weeks. My dog has been on high alert. There are some of those fuzzy tailed guys (S-Q-U-I-R-R-E-L-S) raiding the bird feeder. Apparently, this is a SERIOUS problem. And he may not be very smart but he is incredibly patient.

So I was sewing away when Caleb suddenly jumped up and raced out of the room. I expected him to slam out the back door to chase the raiders off, but this is what happened:



You can't see out the other window, but every time the squirrel puts his head down Caleb moves sneaks a foot movement. Guess I expect to come home to a massacre at some point.

Later in the day, when he finally zonked out for a nap this friend showed up:


Isn't he adorable? I think I have baby rabbits under the front bushes. I have seen 3-4 of them pretty steady the last week or so. Mom must be gone, they seem to be on their own now...

Here's the latest test blocks- I am still plugging away at it...

The Carpenter's Wheel has a green star in the middle- I have taped a fussy cut square of a rose from my striped fabric over it. I think that may "blend" the two blocks together a little better. The color is not very good in this picture- the sun has gone by so the colors are a little off. The backgrounds are gold and yellow. The two sashings are navy and a sort of purple/burgundy color. I can't decide if I like it this way, or if the colors should be switched.

Then there's the issue of that little in between square. I think I like the fussy cut one better, but this is getting a little tedious maybe.

Maybe I'll be able to make a decision tomorrow. Today I can't make up my mind...

It's Monday, which is always a struggle. No quilting today, but I did have a new friend show up...

I have had a pair of cardinals at my feeder for 3-4 years now. Usually they will stay until dusk, long after all of the other birds are gone for the night. As it gets dark, I can typically spot the female by her bright orange beak and the male is hard to miss for obvious reasons. This weekend I spotted what I thought was a female, but she had a black face and beak. I didn't get a good look and wondered if it was maybe a waxwing...

But look who was checking out the pond tonight:







Does that look like a scrawny adolescent, or what?

Mom sent me a care package a week or two ago, there was a bunch of stuff in there but in the bottom I found a pad of graph paper and this:



So I went leafing through it that evening and ran into this article:



Yep, I really NEEDED a new project. Sure.

Don't know how well you can see it, but I LOVE that quilt in the top corner. And it just so happens that I have collected a couple of striped fabrics that might lend themselves to making a quilt like this. (Most recently I picked up a gray stripe at Mary Jo's in Charlotte, NC.) Also, the theme for the quilt show next year is about stars. That quilt there is made up of a Carpenter's Wheel and a Hidden Star block. I'll bet you can see where this is going, right?

So I started fooling around with designs. I started out with what I had in my stash and came up with this:



Didn't really like the thick gray sashing in there, so I went to the fabric store and tried again:



Those stripes are all from the same fabric, but I thought the flowers looked kind of overwhelmingly busy. Maybe I should switch subjects... Do you know how hard a Carpenter's block is? The pattern I have shows it made with all these set in seams- like I want to make twenty or so of those puppies... So I drafted a pattern using triangles (and that handy graph paper out of my box!)

Here's the wheel:



I really like that, even though it is all kinds of brown. It's just that star that bothers me.... I thought maybe the sashing was too thick, so I switched the stripes:



I guess this is pretty good, but it really doesn't seem to be "striking" enough for a show quilt to me. Guess I will do like Da Vinci said and go away for a while to refresh myself...

Okay, packages mailed.

I even posted Christine's blocks, too, as they were already made. I noticed that she hasn't been out here for awhile- hopefully she is just tired out and we will hear from her soon. (And YES! I remembered to sign them!)

I went to pick out some blocks for mom to send too, but ran into a problem. I have occasionally made a couple of "extra" blocks and thrown them in a drawer for me and mom. (Figured I would send her a couple extra, you know, as she's my mom.)

So I pulled the extra blocks out of the drawer.

Um.

Maybe I have gotten a little carried away?



There are 22 of them in there. Do you suppose they are multiplying like the scraps? I am either going to have a gigantic quilt or maybe two smaller ones I guess. Maybe I could make one reversible? One side with everybody's blocks and the other with my ADD results? Although I am not sure I want to see if I can line up the two sides... that might be problematic...

So which ones should I send to Mom?

Okay, I'm an idiot.

This weekend was a challenge- among other things, I managed to poison myself with some expired medication, but I did manage to get my blocks done. Yesterday. How last minute is that? I'm not sure what happened this past month- and I'm not sure how June got here so fast. (Sigh.)

So today I went off to the post office, as I am pretty sure I have to fill out some kind of paperwork to send mail out of the country. While I was standing in line, I realized that I had not signed any of my blocks. Do you suppose I had any kind of permanent pen with me? No. So I came home to sign the blocks and put Texas on them. Guess they're getting mailed tomorrow.
Sorry about that guys- that is a giant "Whoops!"

But just for the record, whoever gets blocks for June- I have them done already!

Here are the May blocks- you can tell because they have no writing on them!