Almost like Christmas!

Today in addition to batting, my UPS man brought me the new circle lord templates I had ordered. I already have the circle lord basic, the spiral, starz, delta, tiles and the giant zigzag and cable templates. Today's bounty was the diamondz, heartz, gingko, and miniclam., and a surprise. I won't share that one till I use it and provide the feedback to Michael and Kay.

A good mail day, don't you think! Thanks Michael and Kay!

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All is well

On our news tonight they had this news bulletin and pictures of horrible devastation...right when we were having dinner around 7:30 pm. The only thing they said was several F4 tornadoes touched down in Southeast Virginia and the death toll was unknown. Well, southeast Virginia just doesn't get F4 tornadoes...normally. Big hurricanes yes, but not this. And we have lots of family there in that general area...Mother a brother, , a daughter, a son and those 3 beautiful granddaughters.... so you can imagine the worry. Well after phone calls to everyone, who ALL said "what are you talking about?" They are all fine. There were terrible storms that destroyed a lot of homes and businesses, and took 1 confirmed life so far. But none of our family was affected and for that I am thankful, as my heartfelt prayers go out to those who were affected.

Nothing new here...it's hot and I'm working on quilts. A peek below of the one I finished today....No Mary, it's not yours. But it will be yours soon...


Have a great night!

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It's almost May!

And the love bugs are back...ICK! But their life span is short, and in a few weeks they'll be gone.... till September.

Today my DIL sent me these cute pictures of my youngest granddaughter, Fiona. She is getting to be such a big girl! They are coming to visit in July..over my son's birthday week...I can hardly wait!!
Isn't she just the cutest!

And I haven't shared photos of the yard since the original planting. Things are really starting to fill in, and as soon as the rains start in another month the transformation will be amazing. Since things have grown and started flowering, we have so many butterflies! I am just thrilled. This is the front yard.

And this is the raised herb garden that Don made for me.

And the bougainvillea.

The Meyer lemon tree is loaded with lemons. And they are so sweet!

And the mango's are getting big. They'll be ready to pick in August.

And this is the other side of the back yard..opposite of the fruit trees. I still need to fill in a few plants here.

And I didn't take pictures today of the side yard on the south side where the lime and fig trees are...they are fruiting too.

Hope you have a great weekend!

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Our burrowing owl babies

OK, as promised here are the pics of our baby burrowing owls. There a 5 babies this year, and they chatter constantly...when they are awake...they fall asleep standing up sometimes and fall over...too funny. They don't mind people, they'll lick your hand if you hold it out to them. They are a native species to South Florida, protected still, thankfully. And we just love watching them. And the pictures are clickable to a larger size. Enjoy!

See the frog "lunch"?

And we steal food from each others mouth too!

aren't they cute!

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circle lord and the textures sample finished

First, I want to post this quilt. I bought the circle lord and several templates and giant templates back in January. Today was the first chance I've had to start playing with them. Before I had the Quilt E-Z templates and used them a lot. Today I just took out the circle lord and did overlapping concentric circles on this wheel of mystery quilt. I have to say, that as to ease of set up and use....not to mention accuracy...the circle lord beats the "others" hands down...a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. I realize they might not be in every one's price point. But if you can swing it...there is no comparison. The thing that intrigued me about this system, was the potential for really neat, and unique custom uses with these circle lord pieces as base elements upon which to build. I haven't had the time yet, but this summer I will begin those experiments. Thank you Michael and Kay for wonderful tools that help us expand our creativity. And then, the textures class sample. I was under the gun to get this finished for my upcoming class. Got it finished last night...except for a little beading left.

If you didn't get the earlier post...the appliques are painted batting...warm & white to be exact. And the vase is painted and heated tyvek (hard structure). I added some hot fix crystals and couched some leftover yarn around the edge, and am beading the flower centers. How's that for recycling on earth day???

One of the advantages of this technique, is the batting and tyvek doesn't ravel...so you attach the appliques as you quilt!

Quick, and easy and uses all those batting scraps! The applique batting is painted warm and white. The quilt sandwich batting is Quilters Dream "Puff". The background and backing fabrics are my own hand dyes. The thread is King Tut "Cairo" in the floral swirls and So Fine in the orange peel.

Hope you have a great night!

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A Sneak Peek

I thought I'd give you a preview of what all that painted batting and tyvek from the other day is becoming. I'm doing a class on textures soon, so this is my class sample in progress. The flowers are made of painted batting and Angelina, the stem and leaves also are painted batting. All painted with Dye-Na-Flow. The background fabric is one I hand dyed a few months ago, and the vase is hard structure tyvek painted with Lumiere and then heated with an iron.
Since nothing I've used ravels, it is stitched on the background and quilted all at once. The edges are left unsecured to add dimension. The thread is King Tut "Cairo". I used decorative rotary blades to free cut the stems, leaves and vase.

Won't work on it any more till Monday. Too much else going on this weekend.

Hope you have a great one!

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A productive(though expensive) day

OK, my day started out innocently enough. My sewing machine dealer (domestic machine) called to say the eyelet punches I had ordered were in...finally. I ordered these when Mary was here in Jan.....they were backordered. So I go to the dealer this morning to pick them up. We use these to punch the holes for buttons and brads on our postcards. They work better than anything we have tried. They have a cutting edge, rather than just a point, so it goes effortlessly thru the fabric/batting and peltex. I ordered 4. I get there and they have 2. OK, so I take the 2 they have and tell them I still want the other 2 and to call me when they come in. OK, so I'm all the way out there, so I might as well go to Michael's while I'm out this way.
Aren't these brads cute?! They'll go great with the musical instrument charms I have for a musically inspired postcard. I bought other brads and letters and such...these were the cutest.

And then on my way back home again, I have to go right by the bead store....oh boy...I'm in trouble now! LOL. Well as fate would have it, they were having a huge sale of their myuki bead mixes....oh my! Well, this is just a small sampling of what came home with me. Aren't they pretty?

And then a stop at JoAnn's before heading back over the bridge to home, for a bolt of peltex.

Out of some weird sense of dignity, I won't share this week's joggles purchase. A girl's got to have some secrets :)

Have a great night!

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A new finish

I have been working on Mary's quilt, but my eyes needed a break, so I loaded this client quilt. She made it with civil war reproduction fabrics. She is an excellent piecer and does beautiful hand applique. I used Renae's arcs for the curved crosshatching. Good tools make the job so much easier! This has Quilters' Dream Blend batting and I used Superior So Fine thread # 402.

Now I'll load Mary's again and work on it a little more.

Have a great evening!

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Thanks Mother!

Mother has been bitten by the postcard bug too! Look what she sent me in today's mail... isn't it cute!
And on a work note, for those longarmers out there....Renae's amazing arcs are very versatile tools. And I found another use for them... I am using them today to do quick, easy, no mark curved crosshatching in these pineapples. Gota love good tools! Makes the work easier.

And that's it for tonight...we went with friends to a Mexican restaurant for dinner...very good...but I'm stuffed and done for the night!

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Wow, it's been a week since I posted last! It's been hotter than snot here....near the 90's all week. All little early for that, even around here!

At any rate, I've been keeping busy. This is a piece of tyvek (soft structure) that I painted today with Lumiere. I am teaching a textures class soon and I need to get some new samples made. So this is the first step.

And here we have the latest loot from joggles....wool felt, and lots of colors!
And I've already used some it making this postcard! Actually, I made 2, mailed one off to my SIL and kept this one for myself for now, anyway. Nice and summery!
And the rest of the photos show some of the pieces I will be using in my Textures sample. This is warm and white batting, painted with dye na flow in 2 colors. This makes great appliques...it doesn't ravel so the edges don't need to be finished and it is soft and had a wonderful textural feel. Looks great cut with a decorative edge blade. I usually cut my applique pieces and stitch them down as I quilting. Quilts up beautifully and a dream to bead!

These are pieces of peltex, also painted with dye na flow. Again great for applique , good texture, no ravel. A little firmer than the batting, but still stitches and beads easily.

And of course I couldn't throw the leftovers away, so I dunked some cheesecloth! Then it all went out into the sun to dry. Cause in case you didn't know the sun intensifies dye na flow colors.

I've also done a little quilting and gardening to this week. Now to go catch up on my blog reading!

Have a great night.

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