Gypsy Birds

 Our birding adventures continue right from the kitchen window with this flock of Cedar Waxwings. The bird books say they don't stay long in any one spot so we were glad we noticed them when they were in the area.

 They stopped off in their wanderings to get a drink of water in our birdbath. Note the yellow tips on their tails and yellow backsides.

 They preened for a while in the sugar maples then moved on to wherever, but Goodman and I did enjoy seeing them and felt good about providing a good stopping place for them.

 I've begun another quilt that will be a bit bigger than the first one, somewhere between full and queen size.

This time I'm trying to piece an easy, well-known quilt pattern. I'm still learning about colors and everything to do with quilting really so I don't know how well it will look when finished. I'm thinking I've made a bit of a mistake with the purple fabric with yellow splotches, even if I do like it. We'll see how it turns out. This time I'm planning to try stippling the quilting part.

Have a great week, Y'all!

For the Birds

 A cardinal with its feathers all puffed out against the morning chill. We thought winter had passed by us, but this week we're having nightly freezes.  Bird watching for a few minutes as I have a cup of coffee in the morning really adds a bright spot to my day and carries me happily through some of the less pleasant chores of home-making. :)

 A red-bellied sapsucker dwarfing my suet ball. I guess he doesn't care that I hung it for chickadees and other smaller birds. The nerve...lol.

 For those who wanted to know what I use in the suet here's an approximation that I read in one of my Audubon books. They suggest a basic mixture of: one part fat ( can be suet from rendered fat or bacon grease or other fat) one part peanut butter,  and six parts cornmeal. To that you can add your choice of seeds, raisins, nuts, stale bread, oat groats, etc. The birds in my neck of the woods don't care for raisins so I use black oil sunflower seeds.

 Just give all the ingredients a good stir and shape as you like to fit the type of feeder you have on hand. I put the bowl of suet mixture in the freezer for about thirty minutes to harden then shaped it into a ball....

 then I placed it in an empty (recycle!) onion bag and tied a knot close to the ball.

  I tied another knot above the first one so I could make a slit between them to hang on a hook.
 Here's a block of suet mixture that I put a lot of sunflower seeds in, and of course, the birds light on it first. ;)

I've started another quilt using the fabrics in the pics below...

I'm getting kinda giddy about quilting, (who knew?) and hoping to make a quilt that will fit a bed this time...don't know what size yet, though.

 I hope these blend well in the order I plan to use them...we'll see.

                                                                   
Before the cold snap this week my daffodils in this pot had popped out.

Have a great weekend, Y'all!
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