Our sunshine...

Our sunshine had to go home cause she has school tomorrow.  She was getting her hair combed...I asked her to look at me.She can hardly look at a camera without smiling.  Her mom told her to look serious or some such term...

You can still almost see the smile ready to break out.  If you haven't read the Lorelei moment below, take time to read it.   
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It is wonderful to have them so close to us.  Just so easy to hop in the car and go get her, or for Sarah to come here.  

Lorelei moment

At breakfast this morn, Lorelei was telling about this knife/fork/spoon that her friend has.  It is a fork on one end, a spoon on the other...and on one side of the fork it has a knife.  Well, Papaw was calling it a spork.

Lorelei was saying no, it is not one of those spoons with fork tines cut in the end...and back and forth.  Then Papaw says, Oh, I know what you are calling a spork.

Lorelei:  "Papaw, let me explain this to you one more time!"

Mamaw lost it and am still laughing about it.

From a little drive...

We went for a drive a couple days ago...we actually covered a little bit of territory we have not covered before.  Saw places we have not seen before.  We saw this place across the farmland.  I was thinking it was going to be a beautiful place. When we got closer this is what we found:

 I can't decide if it is being worked on or given up on.  The door looks new.  The garage door looks new.  So maybe it is a work in process.

Just between you and me, I am not sure if I could find the place again.  If I could, I would go back a few months from now just to see.  I want to believe that it is being worked on.

A few randoms...

1.  Does anyone else love home-canned tomato juice as much as me?  I love to have a jar handy if I get a cold.  It is one of the few things that sound good and tastes good then.

2.  I am enjoying the birds at the feeders this winter.  Do you now feed birds and have you always? I did when I was a child...mom would let me feed the extra cornbread, and some corn.  I can't remember what else we fed them.  We did not buy food...in fact, I wonder how long has big bags of bird seed been available?  I just started feeding them again in the past few years...so the big bags of birdseed may have always been available and I just didn't notice.

3.  Yesterday, we found this new place where it was easy to get to the Big Raccoon Creek. It has a big sandbar.  A perfect place to take Lorelei.  Hoping we can make it back there this summer.  It is a good place to wade and/or fish...and she can throw rocks to her heart's content.

4.  This is one of the little cuties we saw yesterday!

5.  I totally love days like this...I only wish they came more often than they do.

Finally bit the bullet...

I got the pattern made for the end piece of each row of the Lotus quilt...got it made yesterday but I just did not have the courage to cut the fabric...

Finally this evening late, I bit the bullet, took the fabric and pattern down to my cutting table and cut one set of end pieces, took them over to my Juki and sewed them on.  Things went well.  I cut another set and did another row.  Again, it went smoothly.  So now there are no excuses to not get it finished.  (BTW, the rows are  just laying there...the are not sewn together yet.)
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I told my best friend it is amazing how much fear and dread can color your world.  I have had this baring on my mind for a while now.  Have been sort of miserable the past few days. Actually, this entire quilt has been one of fear for each step.  If it was just for me, just something I was making, I would have went full steam ahead.  But this was something my daughter chose, and something she invested a LOT of money in...fabric is not cheap.  

Waiting in the background...

I have so much clutter in the back of my mind, no wonder I can't think straight.  I have a dozen of these blocks done...they have been done for years.  I love them...

I have even posted them before.  I was considering how I wanted to piece them together and considering machine quilting the top.  But a lady made a comment about it being a shame do do all that hand stitching and then do machine quilting.  (They are all done by hand...every single stitch.)  But I do think that people who haven't done machine quilting don't give it the credit that it is due.

So, they sit in the basement, along with other things.

There is this quilt top:

Along with that I have enough blocks for two different quilt tops.  Not to mention the tops packed away in the quilt chest that I made before I got my Juki 98Q.

But I don't want to touch any of them right now...just need to get myself focused on daughter's quilt top.  The fabric came Saturday that I needed to finish the top with.  I just need to get down there and start on it.

Instead, I sit here and type...been emailing some friends I have not heard from in a while.  Plus some I hear from regular...but in them all, I type and then reconsider what I have said and delete part of it...as I should probably delete this.  I feel like I need to cut down on words and do more action.

Song of a winter storm....

I was messing around at you tube...looking for a particular song.  I didn't find it but I did run into this one.  I am wondering how my blog friends are doing that have been in the path of the snow storm....and is it still snowing or has it quit?  I hope all are safe and warm.

Take a moment and listen to the song...I can almost feel the wind whipping through and feel the snow underfoot....

Eagle sightings, and more...

Yesterday I had to get my hair cut...got downtown, and was sitting at a stop sign just across the street from where I go, and there circling over the beauty shop was a juvenile bald eagle.  His head and tail not completely white.  No pictures for proof, though.

Today we had to go by Walmart for a few things, and after leaving there, I ask Roger to go to the strip pits.  First there was the flurry of wings over the big, big strip pit...

 If you click to expand the view, it won't help a lot but at least you will be able to see there are snow geese.

And for more proof, here you go:

 Again not great pics...they were probably 400 yds away.

While watching them, I spotted an eagle sitting in one of the trees on the far side.  I was looking through binoculars.  I could not get a shot of him.  We continue passing through, and ended up going on past the end of this big strip pit to check a field where we see deer on a regular basis, and have seen turkeys.  Neither of those were there, but look what flew from a tree:

 We actually seen two here...and I am not sure, but think this is all the second one.

 Neither one fooled around, they wanted away from the person with the camera.  So funny, sometimes some of them do not seem all that afraid.

 So, out there we seen at least two, maybe three eages.  We don't know if one of these might have been the one we seen sitting on the far bank of the strip pit as we went in.  So, we left the place, and I almost put up my camera thinking we were done.  But got just a mile of so from Walmart, and saw this one!

A juvenile!  A big boy/girl for sure.  Poor thing...a lot of its tail feathers are missing.  Roger paused in the road for me to hurry and snag a shot...he was circling away from us and this was the best of the few that I got.

From my corner of the world

I finished this mat yesterday....it is 14 inches in diameter.  I am just positive that I used 50 ft. of clothesline to do this.  I get to second guessing myself and wonder now if it was just 25 ft. I no longer have the packaging to check and see.

I have not tried to trim all the threads good yet, but have trimmed some.  I am still not sure what I will do with it.  Not sure I will ever do this again.  I think if I could find some all cotton cording/clothesline that did not cost a lot, I would probably make a few smaller ones to use as hot pads.  And some even smaller for mug mats.

Today I sewed the last row of blocks together for the Lotus quilt.  I still have to do the ends of each row, and I am nervous about that and then just tense about sewing the rows together.  But the blocks went together mush easier than I expected, though I did use a lot of pins.  I just cannot fathom how many pins I am going to use when I pin two rows together that are over 100 inches long!
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We got about 3 inches of snow.

This is just a sample of what is under the feeders...

I think 9 doves is the highest I have counted at one time.

Fabric

We made a run to Terre Haute, stopped by a fabric shop there which I won't name.  I made a couple fabric purchases.

Fat quarter bundles.  The first time I have ever bought them for myself.  I think I have bought one or two as gifts, but never for myself.  People like them because the fabric choices are made for them.  These two were not laying together, but after I got home, I thought, wow, they almost go together.

Just look at these solids...

Aren't they beautiful?

Now, as to why I am not mentioning the fabric shop by name.  I always check to see if I get the amount of fabric I pay for.  To me, good shops give just a tad bit over the amount...just to make up for if they cut crooked.  Of the ten of these, one solid measured a quarter inch over 18 inches in length, a bout three of them measured the 18 inches by tugging the fabric tight.  And the others all were about 1/8 inch shy of 18 inches.

I won't say anything to them....it is not that much. I was thinking when I had bought a length of fabric they gave a bit extra, so will wait and see how it goes when I buy a length. I just think good fabric shops give at least a thumbs width extra.  It is good policy and makes for good will.  And some of my favorite shops give an inch or two.  Of all the quilt shops I have been to, most are the latter.  As I said, I think before when I have purchased from this shop, that I have gotten a tad bit extra.  So will try to withhold judgement.  I got these at a good price, so shouldn't complain now.

I just have to show the prints individually.

Maybe I should have taken more time with the photos,

but if you click to expand the view, you will get a good feel for the fabric.

This one almost has a Christmas feel to it...almost.

So there you have them...if you are a quilter you will probably enjoy seeing these.  Otherwise you might find this boring. 

This & That

Just have to show some proof of the pheasants we have been seeing at the strip pits.  They don't give much chance of getting a good photo.

They take off on the run the minute we pause.  If we just keep going they move along, but not as they do when we pause.
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I am still working on the Lotus quilt top for my daughter.  I had taken some time off to play with the coiled mat I showed the other day.   I have made more mistakes on this Lotus quilt top than in all the other tops I have ever made!  I have made plenty of dumb mistakes in my life of sewing, but this one takes the cake.  and it is really no worse and not as hard as some quilts I have done in the keeping things in order.  If not for the ripping, I would have the rows at least made...
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Has anyone else seen the new series on PBS called Mercy Street.  It is about two nurses on opposing sides of the Civil War.  We saw the first episode tonight and I really enjoyed it.  We thought it well worth watching.

Roosters at the flea market

This was at the flea market but I actually have a pair of them that were Roger's grandmother's.  They face each other over my sink.  I think she had them ever since we were married and we have been married 39 years.

A rooster plate...quite a handsome fellow!

This one is probably my favorite of the ones I am posting, not counting the first one.

I have a pair similar to this but in different colorway.

 This is a really great looking pair, too.  I like everything about their shape, but wish they were more colorful.
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Lorelei spent the night last night but went home with her mom this afternoon.  She had got in trouble at school last week and lost her recess.  Because she couldn't stop giggling at something her friend did.  Her tickle-box is easily turned over.  And it is a wonder a whole group didn't get in trouble cause she has the most contagious laugh.  As long as that is all she gets in trouble for, I am not going to worry about it.

Another rainy day

Last night I was distracted...I was trying to start this little coiled mat...

I could not even get that first little center section of the tan done.  My machine kept dropping the bobbin thread.  I kept trying different things and nothing worked.  I decided to give up after a while and wait till today.  This last photo were after two or three hours today...

I discovered that my machine does not like for me to slow down.  It sews fine until I slow down and then either it drops/skips a stitch or the top thread breaks.

This thing is probably about 8 or 10 inches across...I am not sure what I am going to do with it.  The clothesline I am wraping in fabric is not cotton, so not sure how it would hold up as a mat for setting hot pots on.  Still, I like it....
 

A detour..

Yesterday we went to the super walmart in a near by town.  Any time we go there, we take a little detour through the strip pits.  A few swans were about...but none close up.  If you will expand the view, you will see a couple have neck bands.

Along with the swans and geese, we saw pheasants and a couple hawks.

Then when we got back into town, there out back of one of the houses were these turkeys...

There was at least 6 of them, but a car was coming up behind us and I didn't have time to snap any more pics.