Wildlife Wednesday - on Tuesday ... oops, Monday

Giant Praying Mantis

Moving very slowly, did not flinch when I went out on the deck to photograph.
(Yikes, please ignore the mildew.)

Female, bigger and prettier than the male.
Does it remind you of the Geico gecko?

Yes, I see you, too!

People keep these as pets!  $28 on Amazon, includes free fruit flies.

Four hours later and she had only moved about 10 feet.

After googling, I suspect she may have just molted this morning and was drying her wings.
She is now on the deck railing, strategically positioned to snag victims from
Charlotte's web .. or maybe Charlotte!

My Guy

On this date 40 years ago I sold a Kansas house in the morning, finalized a divorce in the afternoon, loaded a rental truck to the gills and headed home to The Folks in Tennessee. 

The following Monday I started my new job as specifications typist at an architectural firm and a bright young draftsman/office boy stopped by my cubicle to invite me to the office canoe outing the next weekend.

Sadly, I was not able to go on the outing but one month later that office boy and I had our first "real" date (lunches don't count).  I never went out with anyone else and after 3 years of "consideration" we decided to make it official.

During the round trip to the longarm quilter near Nashville on Friday I got my hair trimmed (must have been inspired by Jocelyn/Canadian Needle Nana) --

My husband commented that he liked the cut because it reminds him of how I looked when he first met me.  (He forgets I had bangs then.)  He has NEVER commented on my hair (without my asking) in 40 years!

Hallelujah!

The fridge is here!

After waiting almost 8 weeks the new refrigerator was delivered and installed Saturday. 

 Thank goodness we had a spare in the utility room!

I suppose if we hadn't been so determined to get one like the one we left in Brentwood, it might not have taken so long.  Nevertheless, our experience with Lowe's in Crossville was less than stellar.  Maybe the fridge was on the same Fed-Ex truck as the dress I ordered for next week's wedding that went from Mexico, MO to KC, to Nashville (LaVergne), to Atlanta (Ellenwood), only to be taken to the USPO for delivery!  The jacket I ordered from a different source at the same time came in the mail in half the time.  Sheesh!

After the whirlwind round trip to Nashville on Friday, I settled in for a weekend of sewing and a productive weekend it was.  I first wanted to get started on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month -- orange.  I had made my geese units earlier in the week, so I spent a little bit of time putting the first 9 together (with Garden Mosaic units in between).

It's partly the lighting, but I went with the more subdued shades of orange in this column so that it wouldn't overpower some of the earlier columns.  I was surprised to observe how many of these were paired with purple or mixed with purple in the prints.  A pairing to consider in future quilts ...

As soon as Mari/The Academic Quilter posted the Squared Away sampler block for the month on Saturday, I went in search of some of my "jewel-tone" orange scraps to stay in the jewel tone theme of earlier months.

Since I have been through several "orange phases," I thought surely I would have something -- not!  So I did the best I could with what I had.

THEN I discovered I had four project boxes with bright orange yardage squirreled away in them!  I guess I still like orange.  If I have time I may make another orange block, but for now it is done.

I have had second thoughts about my plans for the king-size quilt to go on our bed.  I am taking a class in October and my initial thought was to expand that quilt to fit the bed.  But it is mostly log cabin blocks made from 1-1/2" strips.  Not only would it take a long time to make, it would be heavy with all those seams.  So I decided to go with a re-make of one of my favorite quilts (which I would show you if I could find the picture).  Staying with my planned yellow and gray scheme, there will be alternating gray and yellow backgrounds

Though it looks black in the photo, it's really a dark gray.  There will b e a lot of variety in the yellows and grays and in an ideal world there will be no duplicate blocks.  We'll see.  I have been busy today cutting block kits to take to Devo and Sew on Tuesday.

Linking up with soscrappy and Oh Scrap!

Friday Facts

My gas light comes on at 30 miles DTE.

From that point it uses 2 miles for every one you drive.

Walmart has cheap gas.

Ask me how I know.

Free Time

Week in Review

It's amazing what one can accomplish when she stays home and takes a pass on housework.  We've only been here since February so how dirty can the house be?  (My socks, unfortunately, tell the truth!)  But the sun will come up tomorrow whether I dust or not, right?

Early in the week I put the finishing touches on the fall flimsy

I then prepped it and two other tops to go to the longarm quilter.

The third quilt of this trio on the left is one I finished a couple of years ago -- started in a class with someone whose name escapes me at the moment (I'll get back to you with the details later).  We had just returned from a Caribbean cruise so I named this one Sand and Surf because the colors reminded me of the incredibly blue seas down there.

I assembled eight rows (one quadrant) of Garden Mosaic.

And finished tiny hourglass units from leftover corner cutoffs.

To get consistency, I had to trim these to 2.25".  I'm thinking these will become a decorative strip on some placemats for SIL to go with the winter wall hanging.

I also finished the Wedding Quilt but forgot to take a picture before I prepped it for the LAQ.  Here it is when it was still loose blocks.  I rearranged the blocks before sewing them together.

Five and Dime from Loose Change

So we're driving to Nashville today to deliver four quilts to the LAQ, three of which are Christmas gifts.  She is booked through October but thinks she can get them done.  All are on the small side so I'm hopeful.

Twosies

Then Foursies ...

Inspired by Gayle/mangofeet and Cathy/Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting, I have started my own version of Garden Mosaic (a/k/a Totally Demented, a/k/a Fractured Rainbows).  If you want to see what it should look like finished, go to Sally T's blog The Objects of Design.

The big difference is my pieces are cut at 2-1/2", instead of 2".  AND, I am only making one quadrant or one fourth of the quilt.

After making a mountain of HSTs over the last few weeks,

I began pairing a HST with a solid square to make a twosie.  Next, pairing twosies to make 4-patch units, some with light background squares and some with random dark squares.

The way I remember how to orient the pairs is I see butterflies or kissing triangles.

When I realized I had enough 4-patch units to make a 64-unit "block," I paired a light with a dark and churned and chained those little beauties into twosies, then foursies ... and finally 8 together in a row.

I think I need more variety in my scraps so I won't stitch these rows together.

Three more to go! 

There's a wedding and a cruise on the agenda this month so I don't expect to get a lot more done.  My bits and bobs will remain on the table extension so that I can work a few in, now and then, as leaders/enders.

Wildlife Wednesday

Apparently the ducks didn't get the message that this is a "no-wake" lake!