What I hope to accomplish the first week of December 2018

I had this written and forgot to publish it! Guess I should add that to my get it done list!

1-I did get all the blocks for the Irish Chain Star quilt finished and they are sewn together into rows!


 
Sometime this week I plan on getting the rows sewn together. Border may have to wait for next week!

2-I also managed to sew a bunch of Kaffe blocks

This week have November's to sew. Mine come at the end of the month so always a month behind.

Did not get anything else on the sewing front done from last weeks list.

3-Adding this week-table runner and maybe placemats!


Cooking-yes to the chicken corn noodle soup. Made some was eaten and the rest in the freezer.

Need to get out the dehydrator and do up more chicken snacks for our girls.

4-need to finish with the Christmas decorations!

That is probably enough for the week!

linking up with Judy at Patchworktimes

Good bye November 2018

As much as I have to admit it my parents were right-the older one gets the faster the time goes by or seems that way! Here we are the last month on 2018! Hard to believe!

November was a busy month for us. We took off on several day trips looking for birds that were migrating through our part of Texas. And deer season started the first Saturday of the month. On the weekends Galen joined his friend in Brady I was able to stay here and sew. That is always a plus. We did have a trip planned for Rockport the week after Thanksgiving but Galen has a chance to go with another friend in early December birding in the Texas Panhandle region. We changed the dates of our trip and this past week has been spent decorating for the Christmas holidays!

My sewing-finished all the blocks for the Irish Chain Stars. This is a picture of the first 5 rows on my design wall. Taken before anything was sewn together. there are 9 rows all in all. This was a block of the week posted by Debbie at Piecing the Past. This was a nice change of pace for me as lately I have been sewing with mostly fabrics from Kaffe. Totally different look!

Speaking of Kaffe I have all my blocks through October finished for the mystery. November's just arrived, they will be next.

All in all November was a fairly good month with time spent at my sewing machine. 91 blocks total-63 for the Irish Chain Stars and 28 in Kaffe blocks!

What I hope to get done the week of Nov.18, 2018

As you see I am now adding hope to get done, not plan to get done!

1. I did manage to get more blocks of the Double Irish Star finished. Good thing too, the final blocks and finishing came out today! I finished 5 thru 10 and 11 and 12 are started!

2. the Kaffe blocks are still waiting to be made


3 I still need to get busy on a baby quilt

4. Still need to get the binding on a small quilt that has been waiting for a few weeks!

Cooking: plans are the same

chicken corn noodle soup
cinnamon beef noodle soup

Not sure I even want to mention dealing with the upstairs but as I said that is an ongoing project!

There are no plans this week to take off for a day here and there. That happened last week. Ended up taking 2 days to go places. And I am certainly not going out to the black Friday sales except maybe the grocery store since they will be empty!

Get it done at Patchworktimes

What I would like to get done this week-11/12/2018!

A friend of mine, Judy at Patchwork Times is posting her want to work on list for the week and asked us to join a long if we want! Like New Year's resolutions I have never been very good at lists but will try!  You can see Judy's post here

Quilting-
1- I got a late start on the Double Irish Stars block of the week from Piecing the Past.
    Week 4 came out this morning, I am working on week 2! Each week is 4 blocks and multiples in         each block.
                                                      Blocks 1 - 4

2-Still need to get October's blocks made for the Kaffe mystery.

3-There is a baby quilt that needs to be started

4- A small quilt that needs binding

5-And a kit started that I cut out this past summer. I got 3 of the 4 made that I had cut, but stalled out on probably the simplest one!

Cooking-

1- I want to get some chicken corn noodle soup made and frozen.

2-I made a beef noodle soup last week that tasted much like what we ate in Asia. Want to get more of that made up and in the freezer as well.

House-

There is the on going project of sorting and tossing from the upstairs. That will be on my list from now and forever!

October 2018 Wrap Up

As usual the all good intention to keep the blog up to date has gone by the way side. Guess that is good, means we have been busy!

The week we had all the rain in central Texas, Galen and I were at South Padre Island. The weather there was not great but better than here at home. Had hoped he would get out fishing with his friend there but they decided to save it for another time. However he did go to the birding center just about every day and was able to get some new lifers plus updated pictures for this year.

In the mornings then again in the evenings when we were in the hotel I managed to get 4 quilts bound. They were the 4 made from the string blocks I found in a container. 

Once we got home I had more quilts to bind. Managed to get 2 more done for Quilts of Compassion. Those were 2 my friend Joan sent me to add backing, get my friend to quilt and then I would bind them. She sent more than these 2 but they will go in the next shipment along with quilts from another friend. Kerry my quilter has been having issues with her machine plus I have been having issues with my right hand. I think over use is probably the word! 

                  Joan's Aiming for Accuracy Quilts

And a string block quilt from Joan

 

But I did pull out several others from my completed quilt stash for this shipment to the Carolinas

I think this one is called Charmed Star

This one is from the Top of the Month Club at the Cotton Cupboard in Lakeway. It's a Villa Rosa card but don't remember the name

This one was a Block of the Month club at Cotton Cupboard. Pattern is Trifecta

Had one other quilt to get together and finished. Had help with this one as some friends made some of the blocks. And now that she has received her quilt I can post pictures

Once again this month was pretty much spent finishing quilts so not many added to my block count for the year; only 20 which takes me to 530 through October. With 2 months to go I don't think I will meet or surpass last years total count. But you never know!
And I do need to get back to getting quilts made-my stash of quilts is getting pretty depleted. 

Last Day on the island

This is our last day here until the next visit early in 2019. It has been a good trip. A drizzly day today although Galen did go out this morning for a little while. This afternoon we decided to go for an early mid-afternoon dinner. Went to Daddy's. We have both been hungry for scallops. And we did enjoy them along with the margaritas, cold boiled shrimp and sides. We did skip dessert!



We decided to make one last stop at the convention center to see what was flying! Turns out it was a good idea.
                                                       Female Hooded Warbler

Grey Cat Bird

Black Throat Green Warbler

Great Blue heron

Great Blue heron hiding in the grasses

Roseate Spoonbill

Roseate Spoonbill, Black neck Stilts and Mottled ducks

Roseate Spoonbills

Short - billed Dowitcher

Brown Pelicans

Tri-Color Heron

Not the greatest-had a few empty sky pictures especially when the spoonbills took off and caught the wind. But you can tell this in a pelican!

Not a great picture but here goes

 A Common Gallinule and short billed Dowitcher

Last but not least we had an unexpected visitor in our motel room tonight. Yes, the door is open so I can listen to the ocean.

A Rambur's forktail damselfly! He landed on the light where I am working!

A Few More Birds and critters from South Padre!

 I think they are all labeled correctly. Galen will correct me if not! Galen goes to the birding center in the mornings then we either go to the convention center grounds in the afternoon or take a drive.

                             Immature Tennessee Warbler   SPI Convention Center grounds

                           Reddish Egret-SPI Convention Center grounds boardwalk

American Oyster catcher-Zapata Boat Ramp

Laughing Gull-Zapata Boat Ramp

Short- Billed Dowitcher -Zapata Boat Ramp

Black Neck Stilts-Zapata Boat Ramp

Great Blue Heron - Pier 19 SPI

Willets-Pier 19 SPI

Jack Rabbit-SPI Convention Center Grounds

                                                          That's all folks!

Trip to South Padre island

We are in South Padre right now. Not spectacular weather wise-no fantastic sunsets or sunrises this trip. In fact non to speak of unless we see something tonight or tomorrow! But only one day where we pretty much stayed in the motel. Galen has been able to go across the street and get a lot of pictures of birds, especially warblers. Some were new lifers for him. the ones we came to find that were usually not in this part of Texas were chased out by the weather front that arrived when we did. So we missed out on those.  We did however have an Eastern Whip-Poor-Will  in the grassy area by our motel. Galen took a picture and we discovered he was still there the next day. He was hurt, think he had a hurt wing. Galen knows someone who works at the SPI Birding and Nature Center just across the street. He came and got the bird. It spent the night on the Island then the next day it went to the raptor rehabilitation center at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville.

                                                         Eastern Whip-Poor-Will

Hoping he will be able to be released again once healed. He is another one rarely seen in this part of Texas.

Galen bought me a new camera right before we left for the Island. I wanted something that had the capability of getting some decent pictures of everything! You know nothing where I had to change a lens etc. That's for him! And something where the quality was comparable to the camera on my phone! He bought me the Canon G3X.  Am learning to use it and I am liking it! Here's a few from yesterday I took on  the grounds at the Convention Center.

BLACK AND WHITE WARBLER

FEMALE HOODED WARBLER

GREY CATBIRD

MALE HOODED WARBLER

IMMATURE ROSE BREASTED GROSBEAK

IMMATURE ROSE BREASTED GROSBEAK

IMMATURE RUBY THROAT HUMMINGBIRD

There are more from a few days ago but need to get them labeled.  All for now