We've been out of pocket for the last little while- we lost Mom's brother last week and made a trip back east for the service. I'm not prepared to talk about what an exhausting and emotion-laden event that was, so I am going to skip right over it to the good parts.

Due to certain things that occurred, we decided that maybe this wasn't the year for us to be traipsing off to Houston for the quilt show. As a result, we thought that we maybe deserved another trip to Mary Jo's Cloth Store. (Yea!)

You can order online from her here: http://maryjos.com/

I will just have to say that it is a good thing that I live nowhere near Charlotte, NC. I'd have to move in to Mary Jo's and sleep under one of the cutting tables. So this is the pared down stack of fabrics that I managed to stuff in my suitcase and get home. (Minus the couple that I got to go in the quilt Mom is making me.) I did have to get a little help getting it up into that overhead bin! Maybe "pared down" is a slight exaggeration...

Sky and textures for bird quilts!

These were in the scrap bin. The bottom fabrics I picked to use for my nickel swaps this month. (No peeking, Karen!)

Marsha's blocks came before we left, but I hadn't time to take pictures and post. Liri's blocks were here when I got home. There were a bunch of goodies in there too! I am really happy the chocolate didn't melt- I ate them all as soon as I got home!

And here is my lovely Texas block! I am guessing this is a bluebonnet, but I have never seen one close enough to tell that the flowers look like this... What a beautiful block!

Since I had most of a day back at mom's house before I flew back to Texas, I also got to see the bluebirds. I spent some time decompressing out in the yard taking pictures, but I will save those for another post. Tune in later!

How to Make a Quilter Feel Good

Okay, I have decided to update my UFO list.

That is, I am going to write it all down on paper. For those of you that are faint-hearted... be forewarned. This could get ugly.

In no particular order:

UFO list

1. APQ 2010 Block Swap
2. Rose Red
3. 2008 Binding Friends Swap Blocks (I'm off to a bad start already, if I am including the year in the name of the quilt)
4. Oyster Cracker Quilt
5. Unblue Too
6. American Sheepherders Quilt
7. Blue 5" Squares (isn't that a memorable name)
8. Twist and Shout
9. Fleeing Caleb
10. The Beachcombers
11. Wheel of Fortune
12. Blue Streak
13. 2007 Block of the Month- March- Plano Guild
    
14. 2007 Block of the Month- February- Plano Guild
    
15. Mississippi Kite
16. Dyed Quilt (yet another memorable name- guess I have to work on this!)
17. Oh America How I Love Thee
18. Leah's Quilt (she's probably walking by now)
19. Adornment Quilt
20. Sol III
21. Sol IV
22. Fishpurse X
23. Fishpurse Y
    
24. Schwe Schwe quilt (this is a type of fabric that comes from Africa, so I guess this quilt needs a real name, too)
25. Applique blocks- mustard
26. Charles Morgan
27. Snowflake Quilt
28. Jacobean Applique
29. Storm at Sea
30. Merhorse
31. McTavish wholecloth quilt
32. Yellow Ribbon
    

In addition, here are the kits I have pending:

1. Thanksgiving
2. Halloween Friends
3. Shades of the Desert
4. Poinsetta Passion
5. Be Attitudes
6. Sherman's March
7. Shiloh
8. Cool Guys (I picked this up at the Dallas show this year- how likely do you think it is that I am going to embroider all those snowmen?)

Anybody feel better about their own list?

Quilting Rut

Yes, I am in one.... Did you ever get so scattered you just can't decide what to work on? Yesterday was like that. I was sitting at the table trying for about the fifth time to decide what to work on and my little hummer girl flew up and sat down outside the window. The camera was right behind me (which NEVER happens!) and I managed to snag it and get some photos:

Here is the best of them... I didn't discover until I moved to Texas that birds pant (here they pant all the time) and it looks like hummingbirds do, too. In the sunshine she is iridescent green. I think she is probably a ruby-throat, or maybe a black-chinned. That is the Rose of Sharon she is sitting in- right behind her is the cigar bush that she is frequently visiting.

Yesterday, Ruth's blocks came in the mail but it was too late to photograph them. Today I got Christine's too! So here are the latest blocks and some additional goodies. I've never mailed a block swap before and I didn't think about putting a notecard in my packages (I'm sure you are all impressed with my post-it notes), so I will have to do that next time.

Isn't that a beautiful little quilt block on Ruth's note? And you wonder why I have such a long UFO list...

How'd you do that?

Okay, Love- I have only seen two white winged dove all summer. You put out a photo of a dove on display and suddenly the backyard is full of them. What did you do, put out a call for entries?

I got home this afternoon and there were ten or twelve of these guys in the backyard. There is a telephone wire that runs down the road in back- there are a bunch up there on the wire above the feeder, but the camera can't get them close enough to photograph.

Here are the couple that are leading the charge to the food below.

And this is when everyone decided to eat:

In case I haven't mentioned it- the backyard is full of plants for the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees. There are hummingbird bushes, salvia, obedient plant, coreopsis, passionflower vine, a huge butterfly bush, rudebeckia, mums, daisies, foxglove, blacksnake, three red rocket crepe myrtles across the end of the yard and a huge rose of sharon planted next to the pond. Maybe I've gotten carried away with the flowering plants? It sure is pretty to look at, though.

Also, (just in case anyone is still hungry) there are four birdfeeders- the hummingbird feeder, the thistle feeder, one with seed and sunflower and one with suet peanuts. I also put out shell peanuts and raisins. So you can see why the animals come to visit, even it it does include the peril of fleeing for your life....

Not sure if I will get to the Midlothian show this weekend- if I can find someone to go, then I will probably show up. I I quizzed my small group last night to find out if anyone is interested in going with me, but I don't have any responses yet... if you can contact my email, I will send you my phone number.

Okay, so I thought this was going to be a lot easier project than it has turned out to be. Anybody notice all those points on that quilt? Try not to look too close. Apparently I was oblivious to what all those HST's actually meant.... Nothing in this quilt lines up.

I think the circle I drew to line up all those stars ended up a little big, too. Maybe they end up a little too close to the edge? And I didn't manage to get 13 stars in there, either. Ah well, clearly I still have a lot to learn...

On to the quilting...

And just because I was telling mom about it, here is the flower I planted last week. (And replanted in front of the window when I decided it was getting too much sun). I had this great plan that it would be a favorite of the hummingbird (who I only see in the evening). But this plant flowers in the morning and by the afternoon the breeze blows all the delicate flowers off. Didn't see that one coming...


This purslane was in a hanging basket on clearance at the nursery across from my dentist. (Yes, I deserve a reward after the brrr... brrr... of the drill.) I took the hook off and placed it on an upside down plastic pot (inside the one you can see). The bees just love this. Now if Caleb would just stop snapping at them....

Oh boy! Looks like there are three of us who get to look forward to something other than bills in the mail this month!

Mom reminded me to get the mail last night, although I was sure it was too early in the month to get anything yet. The true thoughts of a real procrastinator, can you tell? (I sometimes forget that she is reading blogs while I am at work.) But amazingly enough there was mail (from left to right) from Katie, Joanne and Kathleen... Aren't those lovely? I especially like Joanne's pansy fabric around that bottom block. Not that I am partial to blue, or anything!

And here are the other treasures the girls added to my packages- isn't that sweet? I swear, that Katie remembers every little thing you ever mention in a blog....

Also yesterday, my friend Dee gave me a book she found on clearance over the weekend. There are some beautiful detailed photographs in there. I suspect I will be able to put it to good use- what do you think?

Whew!

I didn't get any comments about it, so maybe nobody noticed that the top two blocks of that flag quilt were backwards.... guess I can fix that before anybody notices the stripes don't line up.

With all the rain funneling up through here for the last week or so, the garden is an exceedingly happy place right now. Usually this time of year, the soil is like a clay brick. Due to the amazing amount of rain (yes, three inches is amazing here) it is quite easy to pull the weeds out. So I have spent most of my long weekend mucking in the garden.

I don't know about the rest of you, but where I grew up grass grew straight up. In Texas, we have this stuff which vines along the ground and invades everything. It is horrible stuff to keep out of the flower beds. Around the side of the house, where the shed is located I had a whole patch (think 6' square) of the stuff in a giant ugly clump. Since Peter Rabbit and his siblings have been hanging out in my garden, I decided that it should be cleaned up. So the grass has been dug out and mulch has been put down and I am probably NOT going to be crippled for life. Maybe.

In recovery mode, I noticed that the birds are having a good old time. Between the bird food, thistle seed, raisins, bird bath and pond- why would they not? My buddy is here fairly frequently- I think I have decided that he is going to be a male. See the red coming through on his chest? All the food must be doing him good- he is not nearly as scrawny as he was..



And since I have been digging like crazy, the weeds are mostly under control- here are the flowers outside my sewing windows. That big salvia bush in the background is right in front of the pond.



This birch tree is my baby- it is planted right in the middle of the yard. In another ten years or so I will probably have some decent shade. In the back is the hummingbird bush (full of spiders) and the white gaura which is blooming profusely since the rain...



I'm not posting a picture of the far side of the yard- Attila the Squirrel Hunter has run over all the plants and the bush that I had out there. I had to pull out the skeleton of the bush, since I am getting tired of cleaning all the war wounds that someone has on his legs and feet....

Okay, I decided.

Nobody gets to post any more cute quilts until I get my UFO list done.

Seems like every time someone posts a photo, my list is increasing. (Can you say "No Self Control")? Last week I got stuck in traffic over by Southfork Ranch (from the old show "Dallas") and I decided I just had to make Ruth's friend's quilt. So I am sewing away this weekend on my flag quilt:



I'm not sure that I want to applique any stars on the field, so I may just use that Carpenter's Wheel I have been working on lately.

Having spent a great deal of time working on Mom to get her to start quilting (well, quilting REGULARLY) I am very pleased that she is happily quilting and blogging away. However....

I have noticed that for all the hard time she has given me over the years, that the number of projects that she has going seems to be multiplying. Suddenly she won't tell me how many projects she has in process (believe me, I know from experience that is a bad sign.)

Up until last year, our small group was tracking how many UFOs we got done. So I decided that I need to update my list.

Um. Maybe I shouldn't be giving her a hard time.

I suddenly seem to have different "categories" of UFO.

Not good.

So far I seem to have:

• Just an Idea
• In Process
• Kits
• Maybe Someday I Will Make This
• Never Gonna Finish
• Wow, is that cool! Add to the list....
  

And if I shuffle things around on my shelves, I keep finding projects I have forgotten. This is going to be really ugly, I guess, but I am going to update my list.

Maybe I should just give up blogging until I get them all done?