Visits- Abby, Animals, Chimney Sweep and Hexagon Quilt, Parachutes Quilt and Free Pattern

The weather has been best described as indecisive lately...sun, cloud, cold and then warmth...this fluctuation ongoing all day long like Mother Nature can't make up her mind. All over the place and this week rain and cloudiness thrown in.  The season is trying to change that's for sure. 

So happy that Abby came along with SIL when he dropped by to do a few bigger outside chores (like straighten a chimney on the garage- Hubby is no longer allowed up on roofs). The two Labs get along well and Murphy tolerates the much younger Abby's intense friskiness no problem. Hard to get a good photo as Abby kept wanting to hug me. The friendliest dog we've ever seen.

Keeping with chimneys, we had our chimney sweep come for his biannual visit- he's always cleaned the chimneys here so knows just what to do.  I watched him on the roof and was happy he was wearing special boots for walking on metal roofs. I'm always worried about bird nests in chimneys but he's never found one here. He mentioned starlings are prone to doing that and I've not seen any starlings so far. He made me think of Santa up there. 😊

I saw this on Facebook and just had to share it as it was so intriguing. Fascinating really. It was a great year for bees here; I've never seen or photographed honey bees before and so many of them. And this amazing sculpture below is controlled by live bees! This article at the Smithsonian explains how it works.  Prepare to be amazed! I found this wonderful free pattern  from generous Allison at Cluck Cluck Sew called An Hourglass a Day. Easy to sew (even for me), stress free and a great little pattern for those taking part in the RSC or wishing to use up those scraps.  

My Hexagon Stars quilt is now a flimsy! It measures 56 by 70 which makes it a great throw size. I enjoyed working with the pattern enough to think of doing this as a truly scrappy version with white hexagons and multi coloured points which could use a lot of scraps because why are there always so many of them. This project started as a true squirrel...I was intrigued when I saw it and just had to give it a try. A great use of some old Kaffe fabric (with other brights) as well.

Something similar happened last week when I got inspired to try another pattern. I mentioned it in the last post and spent ages trying to work out a pattern.  Here's part of that venture. Not much to show for like two hours...

The fans are too large I decided even though I was okay with the overall finished block.  Well a few kinks to work out like the wonky curve and where those stitched lines are meeting in a mess there.  Can't have that.

But at least you have an idea of what I have in mind.  I'm going to call them Parachutes. I've since made the parachute pattern a little smaller but keeping it in an 8 inch block. I'm also going to stay with dark blue backgrounds and alternate patterned fabric with plain for the fans. Perhaps use up scraps of the Kaffe fabric and some very old batik material I have. I've since found another link which better illustrates this idea....Tokyo Jinga , an interesting site that sadly ended in 2015. 

In this photo taken through the old sewing room window back in July, you can see two deer visiting our little side lawn, a popular spot for them.  

They are extremely skittish and can alert to sounds made inside the house.

You can't see it but a little rabbit was grazing on the edge of the woods at the same time. I was happy to get photos of them all by changing cameras to the one with the zoom.

Looked like a healthy specimen too, happy to note. 

Murphy and I often catch sight of their cottontails leaping away from us on our early morning walks. 

I've forgotten to mention we have put out a trail cam and so far have photos of just two animals...rabbits and fox. It is a fun thing to do and Jenn at Cottage Country Reflections regularly posts their trail cam footage -loads of different animals and she lives in our neck of the woods.  I'm curious if we will see some of them too.

This is Thursday so lots of thankful, positive posts floating around the blogging world. You can visit more at Not Afraid of Color, It's a Small Town Life, and  Brian's Home Blog. Also linking with My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, So Scrappy, Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, Viewing Nature With Eileen, Applique Patchwork Quilting, Random-osity and For the Love of Geese.

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