Babies are Gone!

Yesterday they were standing at the door of the nest, and this morning they flew the coop! My baby finches are gone. I hope they do well and grow into fine adults. Just like teenagers, they left their room messy! Poop! I don't know whether I should leave it in case they want to raise another brood or clean it up. What do you think?

Baby Finch Coming Out

I had to post this. One of the Baby Finches is testing coming out of the nest. He let me come pretty close. I didn't test him too much. I think he is getting used to me because I look in on them every day. Check here for the whole story.

This afternoon, we also had a family of Hawks calling to their baby. The baby was on the corner of our roof for a while. I tried to get a picture of him up there but he flew off. I don't know if this is the baby or not. He kept calling for several hours. Quite noisy. The picture is not the best. I had to zoom in on him.

I am getting ready to go to teach my Crazy Quilt class tonight at the Fabric Patch. http://www.thefabricpatch.com/ I have eleven students. I will be teaching 2 more embellishing classes in the next two weeks.

A Little Help From My Buddy

Today, I was preparing for the CQ class I am teaching on Tuesday and had some help from my Buddy. He is the best boy. They don't come any sweeter. His name is Buster but I have always called him Buddy.

Back Yard Landscaping

As part of buying our house, the HOA required that we had to landscape the backyard within eight months of moving in. We have had a company working on it all week and they will be back next week to finish up. It will be really nice to have it done. I am so tired of all the dust that comes in the house every time we walk in and out of the back door!

This is a view to the right. Where the table is will be a nice big patio. Grass will be next to it on the other side. A little enclosure will be around the air conditioning units to hide them. We are thinking of planting a Dwarf Date Palm or 2 at the bottom of the hill in the corner by the fence.

This is a view to the left. Grass will be over there on the other side. We are thinking of planting a Queen Palm and/or a Sago Palm or 2 in the corner by the wall.

This is the larger side yard. I think it kind of looks like a stream bed going down the center. The soil on the left will be my vegetable and herb garden. I have tomatoes all ready to plant. The center area will have decomposing granite in it. It will supposedly be about the same color as the wall.

We may put another patio in here at a later date. Maybe a hot tub with a pergola? That will be a long way down the road.

I can't wait for it to be done so we can set our bird feeders back up and sit outside and watch them. It will be a place of peace and serenity. I can't wait! Did I say that already?

Baby House Finches Update

I took a photo of my Spider Plant baby House Finches today. There are 3 of them in there but you can only see 2 of them in this picture. They are so cute and fuzzy. They look at me very warily every time I look in on them. Mama flies out of the nest whenever we go out the front door.

I have been kind of worried about them lately because we have had men doing the landscaping in our back yard for a week and the Parents have stayed away a lot because of all the activity.

It has been kind of cold and gloomy here in California. They call it June Gloom.

I think that they have enough feathers now that they can keep themselves fairly warm.

There is a lot of bird poop all around them on the plant. I am going to have to do some srious plant cleaning after they fledge.

Check here for the background on the birds.

How I Designed and Made My Stitches for "Sarsaparilla"

I have been asked if I used templates or waste canvas to do the stitches on my "Sarsaparilla" CQ. No, I did not, although if I had some templates, I would probably try them.

First, I carried a notepad with me and when I had free time, I sketched out seam treatments. For example, I would start with a basic stitch like a herringbone, add some detached chain stitches, some straight stitches, maybe a French knot or a seed bead and then I had my design.

Next, when stitching, I used a small ruler (6") and a chalk pencil, not a wax pencil! This is very important. The chalk will rub off. The wax may not. I like Clover Brand. You can get them in a package with 3 colors and a sharpener.

With the ruler and pencil, I would draw little even lines and I would use this as my guide to stitch and keep them even. My Friend Marci likes Tiger Tape to do her precise stitches. It works well too. Sometimes, I would draw a light line parallel to the seam so that I could stay on a straight line.

For designing special stitches like an animal, I would draw a little picture and try to figure out how to convert it into stitches. For example, with the little birds, it is mostly just a series of straight stitches and a French knot for the eye.

The little spider is also mostly a series of straight stitches. The body has straight stitches and beads.

I use a lot of cotton thread because I have rough hands and silk and rayon frustrate me because I get it snagged on my hands. I use a lot of perle cotton. I also am not afraid of using one strand of cotton floss to accent.

For my favorite threads, I love bright colors. I feel that if I am going to spend the time stitching, I want them to show.

I have a new favorite variegated hand-dyed thread but it can be expensive. The secret is finding a friend or two to share it with. The perle cotton hanks are large. I like sizes # 12 and # 8. It is made by Artfabrik, sold only online or at larger quilt shows like Houston and Chicago. She now has a really nice floss, too. The variegations are great so it shows up after stitching, which gives more texture to the stitching.

I also like Wildflowers by Caron. It is a perle cotton size #8. Below is Wildflowers thread and Artfabrik sizes #8, # 12, and cotton floss.

I discovered Presencia Finca Perle Cotton Thread a few years ago and really liked it. It comes in a lot of great colors and sizes. My favorite sizes are #12 and #16, which is fairly fine but this allows for the complexity of the stitches. It is also reasonably priced and I have found several quilt shops that carry it. I would not recommend their variegated perle cotton because the variegations are too far apart so when you use it, it doesn't change variegation quickly enough so it doesn't look variegated.

DMC has some newer cotton floss that I like really well called Color Variations.

Anchor has a few colors of variegated floss and perle cotton.

Below is DMC perle cotton size #5 and Color Variations cotton floss, Presencia Finca perle cotton size #16, and Anchor variegated floss.

You can see that you don't have to have silk thread to get really great thread so if you have rough hands like I do, there are options.

Last of the "Sarsaparilla" quilt stitches

Here are the last of the stitches from my "Sarsaparilla" crazy Quilt.

I used seed beads in many of the stitch combinations. Mostly size # 11 and #14.

Here are some more comet stitches and another variation of the wheat sheaves.

Many of the stitches are taken from antique CQ's that I have seen on Ebay over the years.

This is one of my pieces of hand-dyed Indian silk dupioni.

The images were antique advertising trade cards that I bought from Ebay and I scanned them and printed them to silk fabric.

Here is some of my hand-dyed silk/rayon velvet.

This is a cast on flower arrangement that I embroidered in the corners and sides of the border. I used Caron Wildflowers thread. I love variegated thread.

The judges for the Houston Quilt Show thought it needed quilting in the border, too.

I have been asked if I used templates to do the stitches. No.

What I did with this quilt is I carried a notepad with me and when I had free time, I sketched out seam treatments. For example, I would start with a basic stitch like a herringbone, add some detached chain stitches, some straight stitches, maybe a french knot or a seed bead and then I had my design.

When stitching, I used a small ruler (6") and a chalk pencil, not a wax pencil! This is very important. The chalk will rub off. The wax may not. With the ruler and pencil, I would draw little even lines and I would use this as my guide to stitch and keep them even. My Friend Marci likes Tiger Tape to do her precise stitches. It works well too.

Other times, I would draw a little picture and try to figure out how to convert it into stitches. For example, with the little birds, it is mostly just a series of straight stitches and a french knot for the eye.

The little spider is also mostly a series of straight stitches. The body could be made with beads or detached chain stitches.