Birds, Bobbins and Birdbrains

I have a half an hour before I have to leave for my big Performance Test.

Figured I needed to get the Birds on the frame yesterday.  Took me forever! 

I got the backing on and it just wasn't sitting right.  No matter what I did it kinked.

So I took a blue marker and made some lines where it was off and took it to the machine to do some take up sewing. 

Ah, tres bien!  Don't you hate that?  You think you get the back all worked out straight and then it doesn't work out?  It really makes it worthwhile though, when you spend the extra time making it work out.

And I am one of those people who hate those details.  I generally let the "quilter" make it work out!  LOL.









Then I debated on what color I needed to make the back thread.   I chose a yellow poly I have worked with before and have a love/hate relationship with.  I liked the yellow, and the sheen, and the fact that I only had 4 free bobbins. 

Does your bobbin case look like this?

So what do you do with all your leftover bobbins?  Do you just buy more empty bobbins?  Do you take off the leftover thread and dump it?  Do you just keep them like this? 

I have a lot of that teal blue because I ran bobbins then changed my mind about the color I wanted on the back of the quilt somewhere in time.



Like this one.  After I got the first bird quilted, the block had a yellow cast to it, and I wanted it to be white.  Maybe it was my imagination.  Maybe it was real........but I spent half of My 600 Lb Life ripping it out!

Soooooooooooo

And I took all the thread off the 4  bobbins I ran and refilled them with white cotton. 

I will re-do the block with white thread today and see if it still looks YELLOW to me and see if I just need new eyes.




 This is the basil that was so tiny when I planted it!  Growing like a weed!  I pulled some leaves and  brought them to my PT people yesterday.  The chalk seems to be hanging in there with the rains and sun beating on it.  Kudos to PATTY!

DiNozzo.......says, he is NOT the dog eating the lettuce on the lower level of the herb garden. 

But he did ask for me to plant some tomatoes this year......

Art Haul at Habitat ReStore

NOTE:  I am linking up with  Free motion by the River

 We have two Habitat ReStore locations here in Baton Rouge.  I love them both.  We bought a lot of stuff from there when we were flipping the houses.

They have an Art Auction every spring.  Jennifer issues $25 gift certificates to anyone who wants to participate.  You shop in the stores and create art with some things you buy.

The art then gets donated to the Art Auction and sold to build houses.

So I went shopping.  I had $25 burning  hole in my pocket.

Frank was the one who saw this fabulous frame.  It looks oriental, right?  Perfect for my Japanese Tea Bag piece.  I will decide whether it will go into the auction or I will keep it, later.  I want it, but it is perfect for the auction.

It was $3




Now, this is what I wanted to do last year, but was involved with the flood aftermath.  This year the perfect chair presented itself.  For $5 no less!

No, this is not hashish.  It is a bag of rusty nails!

Only I would want rusty nails, right?  Buck fifty for the three pounds of nails.  Got big plans for these guys.

 This is a copper thing.  No idea what they used them for, but I can see the copper becoming a mordant with rusty stuff and creating great circle stains on fabric.  Yes!

Now I have so many ideas!





And I found a Reindeer bib for Sawyer, or someone who dribbles.

I also got 3 packages of paint brushes, two nice paintbrushes and a pack of foam brushes.  Can you guess what the total for all this was?

I got 15% off for being over 55 and the whole bill was $16.58!

I could have gotten the chandelier I was lusting after!

Here is the rusting I did yesterday.  I used some smaller pieces and actually rusted it twice because the first one was not heavily marked.  This is not great but it is better.

I did see that I can do a leaf printing in the center and maybe double the impact for both rusting and leaf printing!

I am excited to get started on some ideas for the  Art Auction pieces.  I wonder how much they raise each year.  Let me see if I can find out.