This week's Foto Finish theme is wildlife. I briefly considered posting a picture of my daughters bedroom because you'd definitely think that something wild lived there (I'm still not sure how she sleeps there). But I decided that really fit more into a wildlife habitat theme. So I decided to go with this one instead:
This little guy is a horned toad. It's amazing how well he blends into the surrounding landscape. If I hadn't hard the rustling of the dry grasses, I'd have missed him. The shot was taken in Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, TX.
A very long time ago, I attended a physics conference with My Guy (Who at the time was just My Boyfriend. Must have been true love don't you think? What else would drive one to sit through an entire day of talks on physics?). The conference was at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX. One of the first things that we saw on campus was this statue of some spiky creature. Looking at the plaque on the statue, it said this was a horned toad, TCU's mascot. Struck me as a bit weird for a school mascot, so it stuck with me. When I saw this little guy it was like, wow, they do exist. I think he's cuter in person than his TCU likeness.
To see other wildlife, check out Cat Patches.
I can't quite say TGIF yet, but it's closer to Friday than Thursday right? I'm sure a really good lawyer (which I'm not) could argue that point and make it stick.
Not sure where I was going with that, but lets move on to FTF! It's been a wet and dreary couple of weeks. But all the rain has paid off. I walked out the door this morning to the glorious smell of a multitude of roses.
Flowers are really one of my most favorite things and these not only look lovely, they just smelled so good. They don't have a real strong, overpowering smell, it's very subtle. These rose bushes could use a good trim, but they look so glorious with all the roses, it's been hard to cut them back. As it is the clemantis are barely visible. But you can see them really well when you walk out the front door.
The yellow roses on the other side of the house aren't blooming yet, but there are buds all over them.
In the next week or so there will be big fluffy yellow blooms all over the place.
So that's it for my FTF this week. What's yours? Check out Quilting in My Pyjamas for more cool favorite stuff!
I can't say we had any less going on at home this week, but I did a better job of coping with it than last week. It didn't hurt that I was off work Thursday and had time to sew. We went to the visit My Guy's family for Easter, so not a lot of sewing this weekend. But I did get two sides of binding sewn down on the Brown Bag BOM.
So how does the report look this week? A lot better than last week, at least 15 minutes of sewing happened 6 out of the last 7 days.
Much better than last week's 3 out of 7 days! I really made an effort this week to get upstairs to my sewing room. Some nights it's so easy to convince myself that I'm too tired to sew. On those nights staying in front of the computer and reading blogs or answering emails just seems easier. I guess there is something to Newton's First Law of Motion, "A body in motion tends to stay in motion. A body at rest, tends to stay at rest". (I'm married to a physicist, occasionally something rubs off). Once I get parked in the recliner with the computer on my lap, staying at rest is really, really easy!
Did you find some time to sew over the holiday weekend or was it just too jammed with other festivities? Write a post about your quilting time and add your link below.
Looks like we are in for a rough day weather wise. We have the possibility for strong storms all day today. It would be a good day to hang out in the sewing room with the Weather Channel on TV, but it's Monday, so back to work for me.
What's up on the design wall? I finished block 11 and 12 of the Layer Cake Quilt Along that Moose on the Porch Quilts was sponsoring.
The "blue" in both these blocks isn't really the same, the second block is really more green than blue, but for some reason the colors read the same photographically. My block 11 isn't made according to the pattern, I made some changes there. For block 12, I stuck with just two colors. The layer cake I worked with had a lot of busy fabrics. I had a hard time putting more than 3 fabrics together in a block. Any more than 3 and pattern overload was the result.
I'm still playing with the layout of the blocks, but here's the last possibility that I was considering.
I need to break up the row that has all the green in it and spread those blocks out more.
I did make some progress on the Castle quilt, but with the Easter holiday, haven't had time to get a photo of it.
So that's it for my design wall. Check out Judy's Patchwork Times for other design walls.
Happy Easter! It will be a rainy day here today, the kids are probably going to have to hunt the Easter eggs in the house rather than the yard. I'm sure they won't care.
We've spent the weekend with family so not much sewing going on. But I did make last week count. Here's the stash report:
Used this week: 1.9 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Used year to date: 18.59 yards
Added year to date: 16 yards
Net Used for 2011: 2.59 yards
Fabric Budget: 13 yards for April to June
Bought/Budget: 9/13 yards
I'm starting to recover from last week's fabric splurge. I've made a lot of progress on the Castle quilt, got caught up on the LCQA, and made the binding for the Brown Bag BOM.
How's your stash management going? Check out other stash reports over at Judy's Patchwork Times.
