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......

Herb Garden Revisted

I thought for sure I would be able to get to do some quilt related things but I am thinking it might have to wait till the later. There is a quilt I wanted to start, one I wanted to finish and one I wanted to work on the middle of.

I got a great suggestion from Patty the Quilt Lady  when she said Chalk.  I headed to the hardware store and got chalkboard paint (not chalk paint, there is a BIG difference).    The can of spray paint was cheaper than the can of brush on.  After I got it all home, Carrie told me I might be sorry because her friend told her it took like 20 coats of paint to be able to write on it.  geez.





I wanted it to look cute so I made a a template.  Here's how.

Cardboard!I cut out a window.  But who wants a plain square?

No me!

 So I used the corners of the waste to add back into the opening.

 Make it easy right, like my daddy always said, you won't see that in the end product if you use enough tape!

 Ihad to recruit Frank to spray the can for me.  Muscles, you know.  I couldn't hold the cardboard and do the can at the same time. 


And he is a spare with spray paint as he is with a dime.









 I was concerned about being able to write on the fancy chalkboard spot, remembering what Carrie said abot all those coats.  This is only one "Frank" coat.

And all I had was dressmakers chalk, not sidewalk chalk.

It seemed to work though.

 I tried to make it look like it was as random as the rest of the whole project is, here and there.  In the end, it will all taste the same!

Thanks for the great suggestion, Patty!

The New Herb Garden

After the flood, during the house rebuild I was the happy recipient of a large pallet.  I don't remember what it contained now, but it was a double pallet.  It has been leaning against the back wall of my boat port since it arrived.

Chloe gets stuck back there and needs rescuing about once a week.

I saved it for the purpose of making an herb garden.  Today I decided it needed to happen.  I already had most of what I  needed: the hardware cloth, staples, air gun.

I knew what I wanted; the design is already in my head, planned long ago and refined over and over again. 

I needed a few things from the hardware store  like some 1 x 4s to add a couple of shelves and some quarter round.

After we pulled up the shrub that has been there for over 25 years, I found some dirt in several places around the yard that had been created by mulching leaves and clippings over the years to fill in the hole.  This made for a stable base for the structure.

 I dispatched two snakes.  Small ones this time of the year.  The internet said they were either black water snakes or water moccasins.   Neither of which I really want in my patio as pets.  You can see McGee there trying to find more.  Like I really need more than two snakes in one day.

 I needed to figure out exactly where this monstrosity should go.  This  looks good I guess.

Of course, later I would figure out that it was in the way of the flood light up there, but I think we can just move the light to face a different direction.

It's a P A L L E T Frank, nothing is L E V E L !  Get over it.


That is Chloe thinking Frank just needs to get over it.

 And of  course I brought out the quilting tools to make the herb garden.  You take the hardware cloth, measure how long it needs to be to make the pouch to hold the soil, double it, add three inches and staple it to the pallet.  That is the tailor's chalk Carrie gave me for my birthday I used to mark it for cutting.  I  cut it with Frank's scissors though, not my own.

Everybody wants in on the action, DiNozzo just wanted to lay on my stuff.

I know it is hard to see and understand but I stapled the doubled hardware cloth into a pouch that hangs in the center of the pallet.

 Here is Frank doing some high work on the step ladder.  I just climbed on the pallet.  It held heavier stuff than me originally, really Frank, it is OK.

This is a small speck in a big universe.  I made him lay there and TRY to be good after he knocked my camera off the table and knocked it around a bit on  the cement.  I was not happy.

We finished it off by putting the quarter round on the front of the  board.  This not only cleans up the look but it holds the font of the hardware cloth pouch in place. 

 I must have freaked him out because he is still laying there. 

This is what it looks like by end of day. The dirt delivery never came and the rain was threatening to become a torrential sprinkle.  The predicted rain never materialized.

Tomorrow we will go to Louisiana Nurseries and see about getting the herbs laid in.

I can't wait to see it finished and in the summer with all the herbs growing and filled out green.