I need to move my bird feeder to another area so they won’t mess up my little garden when I get it planted but in the meantime I was enjoying them this morning while I was checking my google reader for blogs that I enjoy – no I haven’t made the change over to bloglovin or feedly as of yet – I’m waiting to see what the reviews are.
A pair of doves
Two varieties of woodpeckers
I’m not sure what these two are – one with a very reddish head the other plain.
The one with the red head at the feeder.
the gold finches are getting brighter every day
I have been busy today going in and out – 82degrees! (and maybe 34 Friday night!) – while in I have been working at prepping my applique block and I now have it ready for glue basting – I will work at either a Patchwork of the Crosses block tonight or quilting at the Bow Tie Medallion. The light color on the block is actually a light purple although it looks more gray here. I changed colors out from what I showed this morning. Seam allowances here on these pieces so it all looks larger than it well be, I need to prep the two circles shown on the bottom of the block and then all will be ready to glue baste.
I’m going to be checking out a sewing machine tomorrow – CJ is selling her Juki and is giving me first dibs on it. I’m going to try it out and see how I like it – she only lives about 12 miles from me. I have heard such good things about the machine and hers is practically brand new! There are quite a few bloggers who use theirs for both piecing and machine quilting. I have been trying to get into machine quilting a bit more to save my fingers for the special quilts and my janome just isn’t strong enough – the motor sounds tired at times if you know what I mean it is working too hard – it isn’t a work horse. It is a low end machine. My janome doesn’t do free motion well at all – or maybe that is me LOL 
but I have heard that the juki does much better – if I get the machine I will be practicing that a little as well.
Last night was the first pleasant night that I can recall that was perfect for a walk out at the lake – and this was actually the first time this entire summer that I felt like doing that! It had just been too hot.
Such a nice evening and we were lucky to see a mink searching for food last night just before sunset. It is not a really good photo of him, but he was too skittish to get very close to him and this was with the zoom lens.
And other of him, he ran back around us and I got him in a different position. I don’t know why I didn’t realize they were quite so small.
A variety of cypress trees that grow near the lake.
these are the seed pods up close – kind of weird looking
This is the visitor center at Lake Dardanelle State Park
The next POTC block started. This one is #18 – a little blurry – sorry about that – I will take another photo when it is finished.
I decided to go with the aqua and green batik for the squares that join all the blocks – I will put 4 blocks together soon so I can show you all how it looks and also so I can make more progress 
I have a lot of pre-cut 6 inch squares (plus more yardage) of these two fabrics that I was going to use for another project several years ago that turned into a table topper instead of a full size quilt – I need to use up these squares and thought it would be perfect for this project. The joining squares are 1 1/2 inch with the seam allowance included. For those that don’t remember this is an Inklingo project where you print your templates on fabric from your computer.
I finished the last little bit of a row on Joseph’s Coat last night and gave the quilt another crank down – almost the end in sight now – Row number 10 the last section is still to be unrolled. So nice to know the end is almost in sight!
It is cloudy today and so far not hot! Time for me to do something other than sitting at the computer or sewing – have a great weekend everyone.
Well I have gotten another block done – so many left to do if I make this one queen size 
The latest POTC block.
All 10 so far:
Joseph’s Coat right before I gave it another crank down on Friday night -
Looking down the row at what needs to be done next. I got very little done yesterday– I was mainly reading a book and working on the green vine part of the applique on the Red and Green quilt. Hopefully done with that done today and then I can get started cutting out flowers and gluing in place.
I have been looking at fabric on the shelves and starting to put together bundles of what I want to use in “Common Bride” – I’m not sure when I will begin this quilt – probably not until next year but it is nice to start going through the fabric to see what I have available. You can’t see real well on this photo but I really like the color scheme already there – lots of pink/browns – some greens and blue thrown in as well. The background is numerous shades of beige to light brown – I am thinking more cream for the background and go a little lighter for that part of it.
Mike found this lizard yesterday outside – he trapped it and brought it in for me to look at – unusual in that we never see this kind around the house outside – a spotted salamander. Released back outside after I got a photo.
For those that have asked me about where to purchase turkey lacers/skewers to make the stilettos I got them at this link. They are a little more than the $5.00 I thought they were – I hadn’t remembered the correct price – you can get a package of 8 for $7.04 plus shipping unless you can find them at your local grocery store or a Wal-Mart type of store.
Yesterday was quite a day of getting caught up on things after being away from home for 9 days. We have been home for less than two full days and I have been moving the water sprayer all over the yard trying to get the plants to look better and it is working. A lot of the flowers that I thought might not recover are looking great now. I left the water on the dogwood tree last night at a little trickle and this morning the leaves look much better – they had been drooping.
I got caught up on laundry, cleaned the house – or most of it – had a dentist appointment, got the grocery shopping done – and then collapsed in the cool house for the rest of the afternoon! We are to be near 100 degrees for the next 7 day outlook – up here on the ridge we are usually a little bit cooler but it has been about 91 since we got home daytimes and I expect that to rise by the weekend.
I have gotten some work done on Joseph’s Coat and sat aside the Patchwork Crosses yesterday. I wanted to make some progress on the quilting yesterday.
Last night I found a British tv show on netflex to watch – I think it is about 10 years old or so called “Folye’s War” I believe – I got the quilting up to the orange area- about half way across or so. I will probably work on it off and on all week as the afternoons are too hot to be outside for me. Summertime I get a lot done in the afternoons it seems.
This morning while checking e mail I heard a noise outside the window and there on the ground rooting around was an armadillo. I know they are around as they work up the ground some looking for insects and stuff but I don’t usually see them. I went outside on the deck to get some photos when I couldn’t get a decent shot through the window screen.
From the back by the A/C
looking down at it from the deck.
Tried to get it to look up so I could get a good picture but even tossing little rocks in that direction wouldn’t get him to cooperate- just acted like he didn’t even know I was there. I never noticed on these creatures how hairy their legs are under that armor! There is a good photo on the link above of the whole animal.
I will start the next POTC block today and take photos as I assemble it and then do the tutorial from that.
These are all of the colors I have that I plan on using in The Patchwork of The Crosses. I’m looking through them and I see a couple more that should work for fussing cutting. A couple pretty strips that should work as two of the three blocks that I have been making are. I’m not sure on the other ones, I will have to look them over and then the stash to see what I have. I don’t really plan on buying more unless I really have to.
Morning Glory? Isn’t it pretty! I will have to try to grow these.
Do you see anything weird here in this photo 
That’s right a lizard in the flower! Coming out the other side! how funny, almost missed it but Mike happened to see it as he glanced over at it.
Such a pretty lizard.
I didn’t realize there were so many elk and deer in the Grand Canyon – we saw a lot of them today, especially after 4 PM when they were out feeding.
All of the photos of the elk and deer are taken from inside the shuttle buses as we went past them.
An elk
A very pretty deer
Another elk – so close to the road that the bus almost brushed against him it seemed.
As we were walking to a viewing point this Raven was in a tree next to the trail – very used to people – he just sat there posing. I was only about 5 feet from him and he didn’t move.
In the next tree was this very pretty blue bird – I don’t know the name of it.
A very pretty, very large fireplace in one of the shops – and look at those chairs carved out of logs.
Kolb Studio – paintings of the Grand Canyon on display in this nice little studio in the park.
I told Mike I wanted this one but it was already sold! Darn it, 
couldn’t afford it anyhow – but nice to dream. Looks like I took the photo a little crooked.
We go back to see more of the park tomorrow 10/8/11 then we are moving on to New Mexico. I wonder what we will see there – we think we will end up in Roswell and then Carlsbad Caverns way in the south but haven’t a clue at this time what campgrounds we will be at or where we will stop along the way. After the Caverns we are heading home.
