A good family news day

It was a day for good news in the family today....my cousin Heather had a healthy baby boy today...Mom and baby are both doing well. And yes, she is MUCH younger than I...close to the age of my kids...happy now?! LOL

And Chesty, Mary's little fur baby, is finally getting better...poor little boy was so sick the last few days

And since I should post a picture...here is a quilt I finished the end of March for a client...new quilter, but it was impeccably pieced. they have been sailing in the Bahamas on their sailboat the past few months and will be home in a couple days..then she'll pick up her quilt.

I have to say, since I do primarily high end custom, I don't often get a turning twenty quilt...actually this was my first....may be my last, who knows. But the fact that she used batiks and a lot of solids, made my kind of quilting stand out on it. We'll see if she likes it. Her only request was fore the piano key border, and that it look tropical. Do you think???

Only 11 days left till we leave for MQS...YEAH!!!!

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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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