Little Bird, Big Bird

I have been watching 2 different nests.  One belongs to a pair of Bald Eagles and their 3 chicks.  And the other is a Hummingbird nest with 2 chicks about to fledge, but there will probably be another new batch in a flash.  I have been trying to show the girls how amazing these different birds are. Vicki Welsh has nest boxes all around her house and always give pictorial updates on the nesting birds. The link will take you to the first posting of  the 2011 bird season, so refresh her blog to see if she has added some more current pix.

Today Is...

Our 24th anniversary.

The day mom is being released from the hospital and going back to the nursing home.

Is my only day off from grandchildren this week.

The day I finally solved 'the does she or doesn't she' have a pre-paid cremation plan. No. She doesn't. 'She' being my mom, who has thought she did have one all these years!!

I did find a possible ancestry tid-bit though, on my dad's side.

I also found out it wasn't my cat involved in the cat fight that woke me up this a.m.  The scattered fur left behind is from Boots, the neighbors cat. I did see the instigator, a beautiful black cat, slinking away unharmed.  And I noticed Boots a couple of hours later basking in the sun, so I am hoping he is ok. 

I got all sorts of paperwork done today, which included the phone calls to funeral homes. Yipee!

Pink For a Girl Named Megan

Megan's day started with a new pink helmet.

 She didn't have a clue that it went with a new bike!!!

poses are important

little sister following big

had to hide the fugly car

Her dad, my Ben, turned it into a trike so she can ride ride ride!!

Megan has inner ear trouble, so riding a two wheel was a little to scary, but not the end of the world.

my pixie

 as with many others, Jude has influenced me to try some weaving. Scraps from my mom's favorite shirt and my daughters dying experiments....she was trying to get to black....but these purple bits go with moms bits.

 new threads and new pens

 I use the pens for marking fabric, they are the washable kind **that is important!!! if you want it to wash out**

The threads are the Cosmo "Multi Work" 2-strand that I have fallen in *love with. I would enjoy having all the colors of this thread, but I don't have to HAVE them. These colors are for the Tropical quilt I am working on...and maybe for a few other projects...you just never know.

My thimble for size.  My mom gave me this thimble when I was a teen.  She had my initials, the ones I use for signing my work, engraved in it.

this is jill buckley's doodle version that i have blogged before, this is not usually how i do mine on my work, this is better

*the cosmo thread is different from DMC, has a longer wear, or I would use that because I have lots of those colors!

Tropical Quilt Back in the Works

Since the coral round was done, I hadn't gotten back to this project. I needed to add fabric to 2 sides....so after finally getting that done, I started adding the next round.  This is the turtle, dolphin, and seahorse round. After pinning on a few of each, I decided to take a full look at this.  Page happily stayed where she was so you can see the size of this quilt top.

 Wow.  Bigger than I thought.  So I went in search of another tropical type creature I would love to see.  I picked starfishes over many [millions] others because of their color range, though I have seen Discovery channel shows that say the starfish are harming coral in some areas.

 *who stuck that leg in middle of things here?

So here it is with the stars added, though you can't tell squat because they are just basted blobs of fabric. Oh, and the cat stopped long enough for me to use her for sizing. I am going to add ribbons and such for seaweed, winding through things,  instead of adding it as a round.  So the next row/round after this is the flowers/trees/seashells/?. !! Remember the goofy map I made for this in the beginning? I am doing pretty good about sticking to this 'plan'.

*The leg.  That's Ben's. With another tattoo idea taped on. 

College Girl Stephanie is home on spring break. She got in on a trip to Italy in August! I think it's for 5 weeks. Go Steph.  And she is planning on doing an off campus apt. with a friend next year. 

Middle Child, Ashley, is hoping to move into her house in early May. Just before baby Avery is due.  I have pictures of her kitchen counter tops, but from a cell phone, so they don't show up well here. I want to go take pictures myself one of these days.

My mom is staying in the nursing home.  Her care is now beyond me. She fell there too.  

I love you mom.

Interesting

I have not seen a single comment on any blog about Japan.  I have a brother in law there, so I am concerned for him and his family.  I also live in a bad quake area, so I know that could easily be us. 

Healing thoughts go to all those in Japan.

Edit to add...
I get it Vicki, I was just surprised no one had said anything.

I am happy to say that the said family and his family, including his in-laws, are all ok.  The in-laws live closer to the epicenter, he lives in Tokyo and did his own frantic gathering of his family members.

Sketchbook Challenge- March & "Stitch"

The Sketchbook Challenge 'words' for March are "Spilling Over"

and I didn't 'feel' a thing for it, not like "Opposites" did.

But then after I soaked out the pen lines I had used for our hands {everything else was done free-hand} I was struck dumb for a split second by the dye spreading out from the tree...

The damn stuff was spilling over into the background....so there we have it, 2 months in one work.

Then I remembered that Steph's fingers encroach onto my side...so I am thinking that 'encroach' is just another term for "Spilling Over", right?  {kind of hard to tell in this shot that the finger tip is full of purple and yellow stitches.}

dog shadow spilling over my work

I don't want to give too much info here in case a soon-to-be-6 person sees this...but how could I not show you???  It's Pink and it has "STITCH" sticker-ed right on it!!!!

Anyone know what 'stitch' has to do with BMX bikes??

More Pix Variety

9 storms stacked up

So we have had a lot of rain this year thanks to La Nina, but 9 headed our way?  Sheesh.

meg, lily, ben

Fun stuff.  We actually had sun on Sat. so we got outside to play.  Ben tried to help Megan on her bike, but she just wasn't getting it.  But put her on my trike, and she was off in an instant.  So Ben figures it might be her inner ear trouble screwing up her balance. She has a birthday in April and we want to get her a bike, so Ben went a Googling and found a conversion kit to turn any size bike into a trike! We are hoping to do it through a local store because of wanting to buy local sort of thing.

butterfly on arm painting

The girls got tattoos....NOT.  They went to a party and got face-painted....well....Lily's is on her arm.

face painting

Megan had some watering eye trouble, otherwise she did have her face painted.

what can i say?

Lily has some great facial expressions.

second tattoo by ben, but on a friends leg done last night

megan loved riding my trike by herself...with lily on board

Pix

This weather picture is fantastic.  Look at the clouds over the pointy thing, the Space Needle, you can see a face!  These clouds are not something we have often here in the NW, because they are usually part of severe thunderstorm activity, like the Midwest gets.

weather over Seattle

megan's photography

more tattooing

Ben just couldn't wait to do more tattooing, so this is what he did 

more megan photo's, good one of gup!

megan, self portrait

Huge Quilt

This is a quilt Ben has been trying to finish for a long while.  It wasn't something you could just work on now and then, it needed a big chunk of time devoted to it.  [like a whole season of Rescue Me]  So now it is finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

Ben did all the tying you see, I helped him with the borders and such.  It took both of us because this is bigger than a king size bed.  Ben used regular flags....the very slippery kind.

here it is on his bed

New Month, Old Project

But first...Rhiley loves boots and entertained us with this pair.

 Sketchbook Challenge for Feb. still...

 I love these roots!  I used yarn.

The sky above the rooted tree doesn't show up as well as I want, so I will add some more quilting to it.

Crappy pix, sorry.  I took only 1 of each, usually take 3 or 4.

Sketchbook Challenge for March is "Spilling Over".

Ohmmmmmmmmmmmm