DEER ME!

Ok, this may be the last photo of winter that I post. I could not let this one go. I received this last night in an email. Unbelievable shot I think.

Can you imagine looking for food through this amount of snow for these poor souls.

Isn't it wonderful that those of us who blog and visit blogs find such diversity in our writings and thoughts?

If you look to the left Karen Quilts has interesting articles about her mugs collection which all have an interesting story to tell. She has quite a collection and the stories that come with them is so interesting.

Over at Mary Quilts, she does long arm quilting for heartstrings charities and has taken up photography as a hobby. Her photos are quite well done with her posting each new technique that she experiments with. She was, don't remember how that happened though, one of the first blogs I ever visited when I started quilting.

It's the differences in us all that makes blogging and reading of same my coffee time in the morning fun.. Just like popping in for a short visit to a friend and not overstaying that welcome.

THE LOONS

Have you ever seen a loon? Have you heard them sing? They are quite facinating to watch and to hear their cry is wonderful on a quiet night on our lake in the summer.

These are amazing creatures. They live and breed in freshwater lakes but migrate to saltwater areas in the winter. We have a few hundred of these birds on our lake and it's such a treat to see one come along the shore about 50-100 ft out and then dive and come up so far away in such a short time.

The loons come north early in the spring and seem to know when it's time to leave in late October or even early November if the season is mild. The loons just seem to know when the first ice is going to spread on top of their lakes. They make nests along the shores of our lake, their young being so different in color sort of brown and fluffy. Sometimes they sleep on the backs of their mothers. Very very cute!

There are a few quilt patterns of these loons, but the best is done with a photo transfer I think and it would have to be a pillow size if I did one. But you know there are times when just seeing the real thing just makes my day!

We live about 6 miles out on an island in the summer and since our lake is very deep it can get rough and windy out that far so the loons don't come unless it's a calm quiet day and the lake will then echo with their calls. Sometimes we see all the young males in a group swimming along and since they don't have mates, they stick together for social time I think.

I have tried to take many photos of loons, but a telephoto is best because when we get too close they dive away. I will stop the motor and drift along and wait till the boat drifts closer to them. It takes so much patience and I am short on that, but the loons and hummingbirds are fun to watch as the hours go by on a lazy summer day.......Am dreaming again!

Oh and did I tell you that they like fish? I got this one from somebody who didn't take this photo, but it was sent to them. I can't believe it's real, but they are fearce fishers!

Enjoy your day.

BLOCKS AND WHITE QUILT

When I did the cut outs for this quilt, my original thought was to put them with nine patch squares of all the colours that you see here on this quilt. Well when I started to put the pieces together, it looked awful. Really awful.
So I changed plans and made the little white quilt(see side bar) just to see how it would look. It's only about 36 X 36 and looked really good.

So..... on to this one of using 6 1/2" squares with 2" white X 6 1/2 to border it and 4" white strips on the sides of each strip. It looks really good and Wilson just had to get into the photo and was very curious to see what I had put on the floor.

I am really pleased with the results and the quilt is about 60" square, with the striped blue and white on the back side it looks really good. I made diagonal binding again as it just finished this project. I had a hard time matching the diagonal pieces to look like the stripes were all going the same way. I think it's because I folded the fabric so some of the stripes are backwards to each other you know what I mean? Anyhow it still looks good.

Last night I watched the Grammy awards for the first time in years. And I mean years. I loved the show! Truely talented night of entertainment and I loved the combination of all the singers doing stuff that they don't normally do.

I loved Kid Rock's number and he was really a rocker as the saying goes. I must find some of his stuff in the next couple of days. Robert Plant and Alison Crouse were deserving of their award. Two really different people who came together and had incredible success.

Even the rappers didn't turn me off because they did entertaining (with me in mind) for masses that don't normally listen to them. Not that it made me change my mind about rap music, but it seemed that whoever was planning the show thought of how to best use the entertainers.

Coldplay had been on 60 Minutes last night and I had no idea who they really were and it certainly gave me an insite on this group. They are also good performers and then of course Sir Paul did his show and the place just jumped! He still has it and all the performers there loved his classic rock.

When the show finished, I had finished the hand sewing of the quilt. A good night.