Sing, sing a song....

A drive through the strip pits tonight resulted in these captures of a Dickcissel....
he was just singing and singing.
We really didn't see much out there tonight...we heard all kinds of pheasants but they were impossible to see. The grass/hay/weeds are just too tall. We saw deer crossing the road out ahead of us. They walked one at a time across the road...three in total. When they walked out, we had not seen the first one, and barely saw the other two before they stepped into the open. And when they crossed to the other side, after a couple of steps in the field of hay, we could not see them at all. I would never have believed the grass was high enough to totally hide them.

Another quilt...

Sorry to be posting two quilts in a row...but I just had to show that I finally finished this. I finished doing the binding yesterday evening, but did not take pictures till today. I wanted to take them outside till the quilting would show up better. It has been one of the most fun quilts to quilt because it is for us...I did not agonize over how to do anything...I just did it.
I like my backs to have a little something extra on them sometimes....and sometimes it serves a purpose other than just to add interest. In this case, I had all those blocks left over, I thought why not add interest as well as save cutting more material. Oh, yeah, see the white to the left of the blocks-- I caught an extra block of a different size in the quilting and did not notice till way late. Since this quilt is going on our bed, to use every day, I was not going to rip out those stitches to remove it. I just trimmed it real close to the stitching. After one or two washings, it will probably be almost gone.
I thought I would zoom in just a little to show the quilting a bit more...it is just free-motion quilted. No pattern is drawn on or anything. I like it because it adds texture to the quilt. This is the quilt I used almost 1,000 yards of thread in the quilting...

Blogger's quilt festival....

I can not even remember how I came across The Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy's Creative Side...I have grabbed moments here and there through the day to visit quilting blogs and see what there is to view...for the most part I have not commented because I didn't have a post ready for it. And had not planned to do one till a friend pointed out that it is open till May 28th. If you want to join or just view some quilts and hear their story, click on the badge below.
One of the rules is to tell a bit about the quilt and why it is special to you. So here goes.
This is my River of Light quilt. I started it when I still worked at the apple orchard....I wanted to sew sometimes but was too tired to do anything that required thinking. I decided to make a string quilt in the quilt as you go method. I cut the backing and batting foundation over-sized. I drew two diagonal lines with a chalk marker to help me with the placement of the yellow. I did not measure at all when marking the lines...just threw my ruler down and ran the chalk marker along the ruler.
The only real restriction was I wanted the last yellow on each corner/end to be the same one. And a black and white print was to go next to the yellow. I think I cut the strips anywhere from 1 1/4 to 2 inches wide. As I sewed each strip to the previous strip, I would pull the thread up from the bottom and tie it in a knot, trim the ends, then press the strip open.
I just used old fabrics that I didn't especially like for the backing...just to use them up. If I had known I would like the quilt as much as I do, I might have planned the backing a bit better. After all the blocks were done, I made borders by a method similar to making the blocks. Then I made the little sashing strips to connect the blocks.
So this is my first entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival...I have shown this quilt before but I do really like it....I think it is special to me because I really had not planned on liking it so much.