Spider at the Door

This is for Gretchen!

Yesterday, a Tarantula was sleeping above our front door during the day. Earlier in the day I chased a lizard out of our garage that had been in there for more than a week. I think he was dying for lack of food. So anyway, when he ran out, he ran up the wall by the front door. As I looked up, I saw the spider. I think the lizard had a death wish or something. I went back in to get my camera and the lizard had made his escape.

By the way, Spiders are considered good luck on a Crazy Quilt so I see him as good luck for our home.

In the evening, he headed out to get dinner. You can tell how big he is compared to the door handle.

Here is another close up shot for Gretchen. I tend to name things so he will, from now on, be called Harry!

Night Harry! Happy hunting!

Hummingbirds

We now have a 4th type of Hummingbird coming to our feeders. I thought I had seen one in the Spring but it was just once. Now we have confirmed that we also have Allen's coming to the feeder too. You can really tell the difference because they are very brown. My Husband calls them crawdad color. The photos are not the best but they are so quick!

We now have Anna's, Costa's, Black Chins, and Allen's Hummingbirds. I counted over 30 of them out there the other morning. It is so amazing!

Saturday at Kate's House

I meant to post these before now. My friend Jeanne invited me to go to a quilt group that meets at a Friend of hers, house. The house was Kate's Mother in Law's house. She died a few years ago and Kate's Husband could not bring himself to sell it so Kate decided to turn it into her Quilt House. She has moved everything there. All her stash, etc. It is really cute. She has all kinds of quilting and sewing items decorating it.

I took these pictures. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed myself very much. Thanks Kate for letting me come. Here is Kathleen, Pattie, Doreen, and Kate.

Pat and Laura.

Jeanne.

And Jan, who just wanted to know if she could change the needle position on her sewing machine.

Fireplace Quilt Finished!

I finished the Fireplace Quilt! My Husband and I hung it up today. We do not work well together. He wants to be the Boss and I want to be the Boss, so....... But anyway, we got the job done. We will have to do a little touch up on the wall because it wasn't right the first time we did it and we had to start over again. It's Sunday, it wore him out, and he is taking a nap now. Poor Baby!
It was really sunny outside when I took these pictures so it looks darker than it really is. It really looks good up there. I like it and after all, that is what really matters!

That little Nurse under the quilt is our Niece and we are so proud of Her. She just graduated from Nursing School as an RN. Way To Go Rachel!

New Fabric. What to do with it?

I went on the Southern California Quilt Run this last week. I made it to 29 of 42 shops! Whew!!! It was really Hot yesterday. I decided that I was done. It is still going on today and is the last day. I think it takes 1000 miles or more to drive it.

I brought home this fabric. It started with the floral brown fabric on the end. I then found the blue floral linen textured fabric in the middle. Stupidly, I only bought fat quarters. After I got home, I called the shop and had them cut a yard of each and because it is an hour and a half away from my house, I had them send it to me. It is really beautiful fabric. Classically Home "Laurel Cottage" by Benartex. Well, I kept adding to the grouping and now I will have to make a quilt or 3. I think wall hangings. Maybe a group of 3 for the stairway. A few of these fabrics will be taken out because they don't all play well together. I think I would like to do stars but I am not sure.


If you can't handle spiders, then just look past the next picture. I am not particularly squeamish around bugs and snakes so I kind of think these big guy is cool. He is a Tarantula and was about 5 inches across. He was hanging out under the patio light for the good food.

My Vintage Crazy Quilt Project

Allie from Allies in Stitches inspires me daily. Her Blog is my very favorite. She is doing a modern take on an Antique CQ as posted on her blog. Go check it out. She is amazing!

A couple of years ago I started a CQ based upon an Antique CQ that I saw on EBay. This is it. I had hand dyed some silk dupioni in several colors and also some cotton. I used the antique CQ as inspiration to start the construction of a crazy quilt. I Love this quilt! It is so very graphic!

Anyway, I decided to try a Crazy Quilt based upon it. I had put it away for a few years but after watching Allie and her reproduction CQ, I found it and put it on my design wall. This is what I had done. Not much. It is all my hand dyed fabric and the fans are much wider than the original antique CQ. It is probably 2 1/2' wide by 3' tall. The strips are quite wide. I am going to put fans in the corners and Black silk in the center and on the edges of the fans and in the corners of the fans. I tried to dye black silk but it didn't come out black so I will probably have to buy commercial fabric for that part. I am not sure if I will continue with the outside piecing or not. I think I will look at it for a while and see what it says to me. I think that it will need layered stitches on each side of each fan.

Quilting Blogs

I found a couple of sites that list Quilters Blogs.

Check out QuilterBlogs. com. I can spend hours looking through the list. Go check it out and expect to spend some time there, also.

The next site is Quilting Bloggers. This is a great resources to make it easier to find new creative people.