Poodles and Quilts

  Final week of August 2024 It was another hot week here in central Texas. Good week to stay in during most of the day.  Out in the morning and evening to give our plants a drink, fill bird feeders, make sure the bird bath fountain has plenty of water as well as the other bird baths. My lap top is in our bedroom at a window so I often get to sit and watch the birds at the feeders and in the fountain.   Having more activity at the hummingbird feeders. Galen took these pictures while we were sitting on the deck. The wings look red because of the reflection off the feeder.  These are black chin hummingbirds. I got a big surprise this past Thursday when I sat down at my computer and looked out at the fountain.   A Coopers Hawk was sitting in it staying cool abd waiting for breakfast!  I took this picture through the shutters with my phone. He stayed there for a little while then flew to the fence.  Galen was able to get a good picture then. ...

  A Productive Week! I was able to spend a lot of time bonding with my sewing machine.  I managed to finish all the blocks for the 5 at the Hive quilt top.  As many times that I looked at the blocks I never saw a mistake, even after taking a picture! A friend said she and I were looking at the colors! I can go with that!!! Wrong Right It was fun adding all the extra blocks to the 12 monthly blocks.  The top is put together in sections.  I added a 2 inch solid black and then a 4 1/2 inch stripe for the final border.  I found a colorful black splatter backing in my stash. Nice that everything in this quilt I had here, even the batting. Backing fabric As I was sorting contents of more bins I came across one that had 42 blocks made for Carnival.  The pattern is by John Flynn.  I figure I must have bought 2 laser cut kits from him in maybe 2002 or 2003.  Got the blocks made then needed my design wall as I was participating in on line block swaps a...

  We have 2 standard poodles. I spend my time quilting and my DH has becolies Home Another  Monday Am sitting on out deck reviewing last week. It was a hot one but not quite as bad as predicted.  At least not at our house.  Having some big trees surely helps.   Friday and Saturday we even managed to have a little rain.  Not quite a quarter of an inch but will take it.  The heavy stayed elsewhere.   Lady was sitting between us on the couch , one  loud crack of thunder, she was gone to her safe room! On the nature front Galen did go down to our LCRA lake  a few times to see what Dragonflies were around.  The most exciting thing here was seeing a Texas Rock Squirrel in one of our Live Oaks!  I looked out our kitchen door and saw this critter resting in the tree.  We get black squirrels once in a while but this really didn’t look like a black Squirrel.  Once Galen took the picture he was able to study and ID it....

  A HOT WEEK AHEAD! It’s not always good to look at the extended forecast but we really can’t complain toooo much!  Starting Wednesday we have 100’s in our forecast for 7 or 8 days.  That means I should get in some sewing! If I do need to go out for anything it will be first thing in the morning. We moved 3 tomato plants (in containers) out of the sun.  We did have shade cloth over them but it kept blowing off the plants and they were getting the hot morning sun, plus being against the white brick.  Probably wasn’t a good idea to put them there. They should do better in their new location. Galen is putting up several tall cages around a couple more Mexican Sunflower plants.   Several of the plants have to be 7 feet tall!  Not much of a root system so a good strong wind out of the SE will uproot them. The hummingbirds and butterflies feed on the flowers. Galen was away for 3 days last week.  They went to the Rio Grande Valley in search of drag...

  Last Monday of July 2024 Another week has come and gone. Our weather was pretty decent.  We had some rain showers here but the heavy rains were to North West of us.  That really helped the highland lakes.  Don’t get me wrong, we still do need rain. With it.not being quite as hot we got to use our deck more.  Had a few meals outside. Plus with the work we done on our deck last year we were able sit outside during a shower. I spent more time goung through fabrics and quilt kits.  Doing a little organization and starting more boxes of fabric for the Linus group. I was able to get our queen size Log Cabin bound. A good project while watching TV in the evenings. I love the backing I found for it- 108 wide and perfect for the quilt! I worked on the blocks for the 2009 Five at the Hive.  I have 14 blocks done so far. Several months there are filler blocks too.  Here’s two of the fourteen that are done. It’s going to be colorful. Galen has gone dow...