Goldfinches...hanging around

I guess the little sunflowers are maturing...

the goldfinches are starting to hang around...

Right side up....

And upside down.

I would love to have a birdbath for them but our Puss Puss would commit murder too often then.  She is the little huntress of the the three cats.  She gets out there and hides, and lays waiting.

I talked to one of my friends the other day...I had not talked to her in a while, but had ran down to take her a couple of tomatoes from our garden.  It was late evening and she was so sound asleep she did not hear me when I knocked on the door two or three times, nor when I walked in and set the tomatoes down.

She has two girl kitties.  Neither are lap cats...they won't let me near them.  Neither of them even like to sit in her lap, but one of them does come and get in bed with her when she goes to bed.

She has a cat door for them till they can come and go as they please.  She was telling me that the other night before I was down there, she had went to bed and went to sleep.  About 3:00a.m. they woke her up coming in...they came to her bedroom just meowing to each other and went under the bed.  Which was weird.  Then they started growling at each other.

So she rolled over, and I assume turned on a light.  They came out from under her bed and one of them had a bird.  Alive.  So she jumps up and takes it away from them...and while holding it in one hand, had to get her clothes on with the other.  Then took it out to behind her house to set it free.  (she shut their cat door till the kitties could not get back out.)  I got so tickled when she told  me all of that.

She said they were always bringing her things...that this was the 7th bird this summer, besides, moths, butterflies and a dragonfly....

The Big White Dog

Did you ever see eyes that were any more loving than hers?  We still do not know her name, but we enjoy watching her.  And occasionally go across and pet her.  Lots of times our regular mailman goes out of his way to go back and talk to her and pet her.  Also, one of the subs that helps him goes our of her way to give her a pet.  IF she is outside.

And she is an inside dog, most times is well groomed, but how the lady keeps her that way is more than I know.  She will get out and dig in 'her areas'....not all over the yard.  She favors 3 places that I know of.  And if it is wet and rainy, she will be just brown with mud...so brown you would not know she was a white dog.  Then the next time I see her, she will be back sparkling white.

She is so much fun to watch.  There are big, huge cottonwood trees along the sidewalk right outside her fence.  There are squirrels in those trees.  At least one of them loves to tease her.  It runs down the tree to where she can see it.  She runs barking towards the tree.  The squirrel runs around the tree out of sight for just a few seconds, then goes back around to where it can be seen by White Dog, once again provoking her.

If a bird gets in her yard, she chases it out.  If anyone/anything moves in the neighborhood, she barks if she is outside.  Just totally loves watching the world go by.   They have a small child's pool for her like we had for Lorelei...they run water in it every now and then and she just loves it.  She will run and jump in, then out and run, then jump back in.  Just total joy.

Planted just for the flower

My BFF sent me a few of their okra seeds...I planted some just to see the bloom.  I think it is one of the most beautiful flowers.  The flower is not out where it is showy...it is buried among the leaves and you have to look for it.  But even the plant is pretty I think.  I don't know why I didn't think to take photos of its leaves.

Had a day of running around yesterday instead of sewing all day.  But I did get a little sample quilt made to do a little test quilting on.  I got my Juki 98 set up to do free-motion quilting: got the free-motion pressure foot on, got the needle changed, feeddogs lowered, etc.  Did some test quilting and looks like it is good to go with no adjustments.  Now, to decide how to do the quilting.

Every single one of these crumb quilts I make, I think, well it is just an old crumb quilt...I will not worry about how I quilt it.  But then by the time I have it made, I think it is pretty and have a hard time just doing utilitarian quilting.  I like a lot of quilting, but think for sleeping under, that they are better not quilted so closely.  The one thing with these quilts, no matter how you quilt them it won't show up much!

First of all....

First of all, I wondered is blogger slow for any of the rest of you?  Here the past few days, sometimes when I click to comment, I will have to wait and wait.  Sometimes, I have to click two or three times for it to ever pop up.  And each time I wait a bit...not like I click and click and click.  I click and wait...finally will 'x' out of it, then click again and wait and wait.

Then there is the issue of it taking forever for the editor to load.  Maybe not forever, but it is slow.  I have not seen anyone mention this lately, so I wondered if I was the only person having these issues.  I did see others having issues a while back, but I did not have any to speak of at that time.
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One of my day lilies.  I remember I used to not care for these at all, and now I just love them.  They come in such a variety of colors.  I think I need to separate some of mine.  It is just a matter of looking up when is the best time.

I am sitting here watching the birds...they are after the sunflowers now.  I am wondering if the seed are any good cause they are not after them as they normally are.  One year I raised some of the big headed sunflowers, and the seeds did not have anything in them.  I did not plant these, they grew from the seeds the birds dropped.

I am running late with this.  Running late this morn.  I need to get off here and get ready for this day.  It looks like rain, so I won't be hanging out any clothes.  I guess I will be forced to sew, which is what I did a lot of the time yesterday.  

Two versions of the same photo...

I got to playing around with this...I like the color version okay..

then I got to playing with it in B&W, and now I don't know which I like the best.

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Tootie only stayed the weekend.  We went to pick her up...we meet half way at this gas station/mini mart.  It is 40 miles from our house and 40 miles from Sarah's.  So though not a bad drive, it is not like it is 20 minutes away.

When we got there, Sarah was there waiting.  We could see Lorelei jumping up and down in the truck, but not getting out.  So we get out and walk up there and open the door and there she is with her Kitty Soft Paws/ Pearl, her kitty.  She came out the door as they were leaving so Sarah just threw her in the back with Lorelei and she did fine. 

I picked her up, and held her a minute but she wanted down to go back to Lo.  Lorelei said she stood on her lap part of the time coming and watched out the window.  And later Sarah said that she got in Lorelei's booster seat and slept all the way home.  I cannot imagine having a cat that travels well.
 

Just a little B&W`

Just have to show this in black and white...we have been having some of these clouds every evening.  I haven't been out to capture the latest ones, but thought I would show this one from the strip pits taken a few weeks ago...

Lorelei is calling...so no time to write....but will say I got to meet her kitty.  As they were leaving to come meet us, it went out the door with them, so Sarah just put her in the truck.  She likes riding fine.  And slept in Lorelei's seat all the way home.

She is also known as Kitty Soft Paws, which is from a Puss-n-Boots movie.  You can tell she loves Lorelei.  Just totally happy with her.

Asiatic lilies & more

This is a new Asiatic lily...I have had it planted for at least 3 years.  I have it planted right up against the house almost.  I thought it was safe there.  This is the first year it has bloomed...seems like something has happened every year up until this one.

I heard Roger yell yesterday.  And he was flying out the door...said the kids were destroying my flowers.  He asked them what they thought they were doing, and the older girl was just going to go on down the sidewalk as if she had done nothing.  She is 7....he said 'Get back here young lady!'  And sent them home and followed them and told their mom they had just destroyed these flowers.  (And they had pulled off all the blooms, on one of the plants, but left rest of the bloom pods, but the other one only had one bloom pod left and it had not had any open yet.)

I was outside by then and sitting down...just so upset I was shaking.  But wait, you don't know the entire story.  I had Asiatic lilies blooming earlier out by the road, and these same kids pulled off every flower but about there.  I talked to the older one enough, till I thought she understood...and she promised to leave my flowers alone.  Later those blooms were gone...but cannot say for sure that they got them.

Well, I heard her mom telling her to come tell me she was sorry...this may be mean but I do not want an empty apology.  I want them to straighten up and fly right.  I came in the house, knowing I did not want to talk to her at all.  But she came and knocked on the door...and her mom was standing out on the sidewalk.  The 7 yr old said,  'I'm sorry."

I told her to go home, that I did not want to see her...did not want her in my yard.  The boy is 4 and the girl is 7, and you cannot talk to them.  If I had not talked till before till I was blue in the face, I would have tried again.  But they are not disciplined at home...she told me she had to threaten them with calling their aunt...

The day she was telling me that amd all the while I am talking to her, the kids have a styrafoam cup and are tearing it up. She was telling them to stop, but not enforcing it.  She talked a few minutes and said to the kids, 'come on, lets go home.'  I told the kids, "Hold on, get all that stuff picked up!'  And she got in and helped them.  If I had not said anything, she would have just left it.  Scattered all over.

Roger has had the garage open the past few days...had the bay doors open and all.  And I was out trying to clean up some other stuff, and if I told them once, I told them a dozen times between the two to stay out of the garage.  About the dozenth time, I had just told the 4 yr old to get out and stay out.and he come running back in before I even got gone.  Did I ever yell then...and his mom heard me. 

In our part of the garage where we park, there is just too much they could knock down and get hurt.  I tried explaining that to the mom and she cannot even stay focused long enough to hear me out.  Then as far as Roger's shop is concerned, they are always barefoot, and there is metal shavings, and who knows what on the floor in there.  Besides the dangerous tools. 

The bad thing is, I really would enjoy them if they were not so destructive...they just try to destroy my dogwood tree...the boy had broken one of my coneflowers...Roger does not even know about that one.  I have enough of them till I don't really miss it.  He likes to start digging in our yard.  Though I didn't see them do it, they got in our mail.  I know it was them, cause I can hardly keep the 4 yr old away from the mailbox.  Some of it was laying on the little table out there, an insurance statement had been opened but was stuck back in the mailbox.

They come over here and are in our yard and on our porches...as if it were theirs.  We will be in the house, and they don't even know if we are home or gone.  Again, I wouldn't mind if they were not destructive.   But who lets their kids just roam around in other people's yards and on their porches.

I have not seen them out since that happened yesterday....I was a case all day.  Was shaky for a long time...not from anger but just cause it is so upsetting.  And Lorelei has loved to play with them, but again, there is the destructive issue...and also, the older one can be kind of mean.  She will come over and then won't play with Lorelei.  And again, they won't listen as far as me telling them not to do something.  I tell them to stay in the front yard where I can see them, and they still want to take off to the back.  Or if we are in the back yard, they will want to go to the front.

So, that is my current issue.  We should be heading out to get Lorelei here shortly!   If the kids ever come back out, and try to come over here, I am not sure how I will handle it.   I hate feeling this way towards kids...towards neighbors. 

Edited to add:  Ginny made the suggestion of being nice to them....well, we have did that from the time we met them.  Popsicles, drinks, whatever Lo has they have, and even when she is not here, I give them treats.  But no, not in the house.  Just too destructive.

All pictures tell a story....

 Sarah sent these

 I think they tell the story

 with no help from me

but just have to say

Don't you think she is almost as adorable as her mommy?

Waiting to be quilted...

This is the quilt I got ready to quilt yesterday.  It is probably going to be a bit before I start the quilting.  First of all, I haven't decided on the quilting design...and then there is the fact

 I am so sore and stiff through my neck and shoulders...going to try to let that ease up a little.  Roger keeps trying to think of some way I won't have to get down on the floor to do the pin basting...

maybe one of us will eventually think of something.  This way just works so good and I don't have puckers.
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A beautiful day here.  It is almost 4:00 p.m. and I just hung out a load of clothes.  And the way the humidity is so low, and the wind blowing, I think they will dry just fine.  I always throw them in the dryer for about 20 minutes anyway to soften some, and get the worst of the wrinkles out.  Not that they have that many.

I have been getting the black screen when on the internet, kind of gave me a fright, but turned the computer completely for for a minute or two and that seems to have taken care of it.  I had two or three tabs open that had tons of photos so that might have been part of the problem.  There is not much worse than computer problems...well, there is a lot worse...maybe annoying is a better word.  Keep your fingers crossed that the problem is solved. 

Anyway, think I will go run Malwarebytes just to see if it finds anything...just to be on the safe side.

Leftovers--in the quilting world

Often us quilters make and or cut extra blocks....specially when we have no end result in mind.  Well, these blocks used in this are leftovers from this quilt top.  So, while trying to decide on a backing for that quilt top and the last crumb top I made, I had the urge to sew.   So, sat down and started sewing these blocks together.  I did make 4 or 5 more of the little crumb blocks to have enough to alter with the plain fabric square.

I have had it quilted and the binding sewn down by machine for at least a week, maybe more.  So the past couple nights, I did the hand stitching part of the binding.  I have not measured since quilting, but this is only about 20-21 inches square.

Roger likes the quilting on the back about as much as he likes the front.  I quilted it on my Juki Exceed F600.
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I am in the process of pin basting a quilt right now.  Or at least ready to start.  I have all the layers stretched and pinned to the floor....now the real fun begins.  NOT.  Roger did help me get things stretched and pinned, or at least the backing and then helped me spread the batting and the top.  I wanted to do the pinning of the top.

For at least the next 2 or 3 hours, I will be on my elbows and knees, using curved safety pins like these.   The quilt top is approximately 70-72 inches, so going to take a lot of pins.  I have tried spreading a the layers of a 52 inch square top on my 30 x 60 folding cutting table and using binder clamps to keep it stretched but it just does not do as good.

Anyway, its back to work for me...

Another beautiful quilt...

In my opinion, this was another work of art...lots of work here.

I cannot imagine the hours that went into this quilt.

I would love to know just how many yards of thread was used in the quilting.  That would be amazing.  As you can probably quess this was my other favorite.

I wondered if Lorelei would like this one with pink and purple being some of the main colors.

Or this one...sorry, I could only get about 3-4 ft away from it to take a photo...anyway, another I thought she might enjoy the colors.  Plus she loves butterflies, moths, and flowers.

 I really did not take many photos..I thought the above beautiful...

 and the color choices for this unique.  It's name had something to do with Halloween and I thought that fit perfectly.

 I don't remember the name of these two....but liked both of them.

this bottom one had a lot of embroider work on it also.

Midwest Heritage quilt show

This was my favorite quilt at the Midwest Heritage Quilt show, held at the Vermilion County Museum in Danville, IL. I did not think to take my other camera with me, so missed having the normal lens.  But still, you are seeing most of it here.  The bigger stars are pieced, with embroidery done on an embroider machine doing the feathers/triamgles along the outside of the stars.  The little stars were embroidered.

The quilting on this was done by machine.  Nevertheless, it was simply out of this world.

As you can see in the above picture, there is even embroidery added to the pieced part of the block...
I just now thought, the quilting might have also been done with the embroidery machine...I wish now I had one of the little booklets about the quilts.

No matter how it was done, it is fabulous and was a lot of work.

There was not a super lot of quilts...so I did not take a lot of photos.  I want to encourage you to click on these to expand the view.   I will show the rest in another post.

Lorelei...

We took our Tootie home on Tuesday...she requested that we stay the night.  So got home yesterday evening.

After we left, Sarah took her to a rescue place, and let her get her very own kitty.  The kitten's name is Pearl...she crawled by Lorelei on the way home and went to sleep.  Every time she picks her up, she purrs....I am pretty sure that Lorelei thinks she has died and gone to heaven to have her very own little cat that likes to be held, etc.

Roger's new occupation

I thought I was going to paint her toenails and fingernails...but nooooo...she wanted Papaw!

That was fine by me...gave me the perfect photo opportunity...

We went to her other Mamaw's house for the 4th....they have kittens at her house.  As you can tell by this pic, Lorelei was so happy....

She and her little cousin had a ball...I did NOT manage to get a good shot of them, though, much to my regret.

We did not get home from there till about 11:30 p.m.....I had to give her a bath, and as part of her ritual of going to bed she always gets to watch a little something from Netflix.  She chose Scoopy Doo.  She was sitting in the chair with me, and before the second episode was over, she was asleep.  I got her awake enough to go to bed.  She was saying things like, 'oh, I was I wish I was already in that bed....I just want to lay down, etc.'  But the line that cracked me up was, "Mamaw, I am just going to talk with my eyes closed."  (We ALWAYS talk a while before she goes to sleep.)  But not that night...she was asleep within a minute.

Laughter--medicine for the soul

By the time you read this, the 4th will be almost over.  I am scheduling this post ahead of time because I am thinking I  might be too tired to do it later.  I have mentioned Madsnappers experiences with getting a new car before...and I think most of you read them.  If not read them here.  What I didn't share was the Pixar short video below.  It was almost as if it was made for her...



It always makes me laugh...

Have a Happy 4th!

We will be going to a cookout tomorrow and may be bringing the Tootie home...so may be slow visiting.  IF she comes home with us, I am going to try to keep blogging but sometimes I just can't.

So have a good 4th of July!  It is past midnight and I have got to get busy and start my contribution to the cookout.

Not much happening here...

This particular day lily is blooming and blooming and blooming!  It is funny how a person changes...I did not used to care much for them and just over the past few years, I have grown to love them.

The coneflowers are doing wonderful...not seeing very many insects on them, though.

We had temps in the 70's today!  And the humidity was not bad...and tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same.   This evening I was trying to sit outside to finish reading a book, and it actually got so cool that I had to come inside.

I did finally finish the book....The Thin Black Line.  About a boy leaving to go to the Klondike gold rush.  He meets and makes friends on the steamship on the way there.  I am not going to go into details.  But will say for some reason it was just a strange book...it is fiction and just never did really ring true to me.  So not recommending it, but if anyone else reads it or has read it, I would love to hear someone else's views on it.

A bit of this and that....

I don't feed the birds in the summer...but I wanted to use up all the bird food we have left so went to get the feeder down the other day.  As I was getting it down, I noticed a wasp.  Just as I got it down, the thought struck me that I bet there was a nest.  I gently held the feeder away from me and turned it till I could see around the outside perimeter.  Nothing.

I held it out from me and gently raised the roof...there they were!  I threw the thing down too quick to talk about.  I could tell from their looks they were ready to find out what the heck was happening to them.  They swarmed out of it and flew all around the sunflowers..and the other feeder.  I was standing back a few feet and the paid no attention to me.

I came in to get the wasp spray.  By the time I got back out, they had almost all left the scene.  I did kill 2 or 3.  After that, I had to get a picture of this before tore it off.  I am not sure if they have taken up residence again...for a day or two, I saw them come back to the feeder but haven't seen one for days.
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I have been doing a bit of this and that...trying to figure out how to declutter my life.  Seems like even my mind is cluttered.  And I spent at least an hour or two this evening going through my favorites...I had bookmarks I had  not looked at in years.  I had doubles of some.  I had some that were no longer good, even though they had been places I used to visit all the time.

So I rearranged, deleted, put in folders...if only life were that simple.  My house is so full of stuff, that I don't enjoy half of it.  I have books I will probably never read again, yet I just cannot part with them.  At least not yet.  I have an encylopedia set that we got when the kids were young.  I remember being so excited to get them.  And we have used them quite a bit.  But never do now...not with the internet.  So should I donate them to a charity?  Is that what you would do?