Tuesday, August 27, 2013

A visitor....

Discovered this lovely creature in the fence in the back yard yesterday. After googling around yesterday afternoon, I realized it was a Question Mark Butterfly. Thank you for visiting my yard, fellow, you made my day...my week!
I thought it was beautiful with it wings shut.....but look at the top side of this butterfly....such incredible pattern and colors.

The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.
                                                                                                             ― George Carlin


Sunday, August 25, 2013

Recent projects....

It's been a while since I've posted and wanted to share some recent projects that have been on going around our house.

Have become addicted to English paper piecing these past few months. I started with a pattern called "pies and tarts," but have put it down to focus on my version of a "Levens Hall" quilt top. The center medallion is almost done. Am currently working on adding the stripped border and mittering the corners which will be a first for me. 
The quilt shop where I worked part-time this past year closed its doors the end of June after a 7 or 8 year run. During one of the "employee" sale days, I picked up this awesome piece of Echino Decoro by Etsuko Furuya for Kokka, it's call "dahlia." Absolutely LOVE the colors in these fabrics. With all the hand-piecing I have been doing lately, I did turn on the machine to put together this whole cloth quilt using the "dahlia" fabric. It's approx. 72" x 72", a nice lap size quilt...a cheerful quilt for napping under this winter.
We bought a palette of rock this past week to use around the flower beds and throughout the yard. Tons of work a head for this project....but very satisfying once it gets done. Here's a bit of the results from the front flower beds. We are trying to eliminate most of the grass and establish more draught-tolerant plants. The yard is slowly evolving...

Thanks for stopping by....

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
                                                       Wm Shakespeare