44th Street Rookery - Avalon

I love when spring starts and the herons return to the rookery on 44th Street.  I feel like spring migration is really going to start.  There were about 15 Yellow-crowned Night Herons along with 6 Black-crowned Night Herons.  As a great added surprise there were also 6 Red-breasted Nuthatches working the trees along the sidewalk.

Happy Easter -Cape May Point

April showers bring May flowers.  Here are some March flowers from Cape May Point taken yesterday.

CMBO Photo Walk

The Cape May Bird Observatory has walks every week.  Some walks are geared more towards the birder who is watching the birds and some are geared towards bird and wildlife photography though on each walk you can do both things.  During the winter the walks on Saturday are led by Mike Hannisan.  Spring and summer are led by Scott Whittle.  Both are well known photographers.  I consider myself lucky to be able to go on the walks, have my questions answered and get assistance in becoming a better photographer.  The walk starts at 8AM to catch the better morning light.  Here are my favorite pictures from today's walk - 2 Killdeer pictures and a Drake Gadwall and female Gadwall.

Sunshine challenge accomplished

Two more pieced tops done to reach my personal goal of 6 quilts plus 42 blocks made during Lent.  Pictures are the last 2 tops plus 3 blocks for the block lottery.

Flower wallhangings

To many years ago to remember I become a fan of Eileen Sullivan flower wallhangings.  She has designed some very realistic flowers that are made using the technique of paper piecing.  To find her designs her website is http://www.thedesignersworkshop.com/

As her patterns (for my use) were a little narrower than I wanted, I took her pattern and added to the sides to make them wider.  This was done by either moving the borders out or in the case of her daffodils I added 2 more daffodils to the side.  The Poinsettia and Iris wallhangings (I made) hung in my Mother's apartment for over 10 years. Mom's been gone almost 4 years now.  It's sad to say in all those years I had never finished the daffodil top.  I wasn't happy with the border and one of the iris leaves was waving in the breeze and wasn't anchored to the ground.  I got this top out on Thursday fixed the waving foliage, took off the border I had added and put on 2 new borders. I have now quilted it and it's almost ready to be hung on my wall.

Tortured Tyvek Postcard Swap

 My online fabric postcard group is having a swap called the Tortured Tyvek swap.  Here are some of my postcards.  First I painted pellon with watered craft paints.  I also painted the Tyvek with metallic paint.  Let both dry well. Then I randomly cut apart the Tyvek,  placed it between 2 pieces of parchment paper and ran a hot iron over it.  The hotter the iron gets the more the Tyvek melts.  You can see some interesting results.  I then glued several of the Tyvek pieces onto the pellon and added a back to the card.  Two of the cards I decided to try free motion quilting on top of the Tyvek. It worked wonderfully so I should have done this from the beginning.  For safety you should melt the Tyvek outside so any fumes are disapated outside and not in the house.

Lenten challenge

A Sunshine quilter challenged us to make blocks - one for every day in Lent which is 42 blocks.  I took that challenge and decided to make blocks plus I added my own challenge of making 1 quilt top for each weekend of Lent which is 6.  I have 50 blocks made which are made into 3 quilt tops plus I have made 4 other tops.  I really want to make 2 more quick pieced quilts this week so I feel that I have met my personal challenge.  Here is the top made from scraps of a very kid friendly quilt.