quilting zen and woodchuck den

My Farm Girl Vintage Sampler quilt is coming along nicely!

I'm nearly halfway done.  I organized my scraps into "rainbow order" and the bright, bright, bright is now coming more naturally! 

I'm not sure how I will feel about the finished quilt.  There's a part of me that wants to order a few mixed fabric bundles in the beautiful muted, earthy colors I love from Fig Tree and make another version of this quilt which is more suited to my color preference.  I have enjoyed making this so much, though, that I don't think I'll mind making another. 

I've also been knitting, although not nearly as much, since knitting still hurts my hands.  I'm making a pair of gingham-checkered socks and I've just started the second one.

Another fun project!  I heard about "half birthdays" earlier this year - celebrating the halfway point between your last birthday and your next one.  I definitely don't need a real reason to have a celebration, so I scheduled it on Google Calendar.  When it popped up this weekend for Todd, I had a great idea.  I didn't want to make a whole cake (to be cut in half), and a half cupcake seemed like a bit of a stretch for a celebration.  I decided to take a small-batch chocolate cookie recipe (which made 12 cookies) and press the dough into half of an 8" cake pan.  I made a foil "wall" and used pie weights as a buttress. 

The resulting cookie was a perfect half-cookie cake size.  Livened up with a little almond-tinted frosting and festooned with sprinkles, it made a very cheerful half birthday surprise!

Around the house this week we've had a lot of interesting creatures.  A wheel bug was resting in one of our ferns.  They're pretty aggressive and have a nasty bite (said to be much more painful than a bee sting), but I've found that the general wildlife rule applies:  leave them alone and they'll leave you alone.

Check out that spiky wheel!  Both males and females have them and its general purpose is unknown...perhaps an intimidation tactic?

Can you see that long, pointy rostrum?  They're in the assassin bug family.

I saw some wood ducks a week or so ago, but they're very flighty (no pun intended) and I've been unable to get close.  These ducks, though, don't seem to mind. 

I was gratified to see the growing flock.  Last year, we only had four!

Our little woodchuck has been very active too.

He's got a den under a fallen tree stump in our back yard.

I don't see him very much, but I'm always keeping an eye out!

For weeks, spiders everywhere.  Then, boom!  Nothing.  I did find a nice web in the back yard, where this yellow jacket had just been tidily wrapped up for later consumption.

I couldn't catch the spider, though...he was too fast for me!

Lots of flowers still blooming.

Our orange ginger lilies, which I transplanted around the front of the house, are blooming.  I wouldn't plant them again, though. The flowers are too short-lived and the plants themselves remind me of corn stalks.  While they last, though...

A few random gardenias are still opening up, and the japonica bushes are starting to sprout the funny 'puffballs' that will eventually become bright black berries.

Some leaves are falling...

...but I miss the bold, varied displays of the Midwest.  At least it's a little cooler this week.  Last week we hit 90 degrees again!  I dreamed about a snow storm last night.  I think it's back to winter-scene puzzles for me!

Have a great week! 

Rain on the Brain

More signs of fall!  Some much-needed rain.

My sweet *autumn* clematis has begun to bloom!

Fall-blooming ginger lilies are opening up.

Our Japanese maples are definitely starting to turn.

More liriope, and more evidence of fall-grazing deer nibbles too!

Beautyberries are finally changing colors.

"Stage one" acorns!  My favorite - a lovely green.

A large group of ruby-throated female hummingbirds have swarmed our house this week.  They typically over-winter in South America, so they're working overtime to get enough sustenance for their fall migration.  They're incredibly territorial and have been chasing each other like mad!

Love their beautiful iridescent feathers.  Speaking of iridescent, check out this Chrysis nitidula-complex, or cuckoo wasp!  They get their name from the way they, like the cuckoo bird, lay their eggs in the nests of others.  Then their larvae eat the host larvae and thrive. 

Another cool insect I recently found is the spider wasp.  I was working at my desk and kept seeing a wasp dragging spiders across my window.

I went outside and got a better picture.  These wasps use spiders as hosts for their larvae.  These spiders you see have been given a paralyzing sting, and each will receive a single egg.  As with the cuckoo wasp, the larvae will have a built-in source of food when they hatch.  I think it's so interesting!

A South Carolina mantis sits on a zinnia blossom, waiting for its next meal.  They're so small compared with the Chinese mantises in Indiana!

Doesn't he look a little grumpy?  I left him alone so he could get back to hunting.

Lots of tiger swallowtail butterflies around...

...but many of them are looking a little ratty, like the one below.  They only have a one-month life span and they can get a little tattered by the end! 

When not outside prowling around for seasonal clues or working, I'm spending time on my sewing.  I made two 10-inch paper pieced quilt squares this weekend.  Both are the same pattern, but have a look at the one on the right.

I chose the colors and put it together, only to realize that the diamond sides and half of the star points faded into the background.  I studied the example and saw that the author chose dark complementary colors for the stars and tips.  My second attempt (on the left) has much more "pop" than the first one!  I finally felt confident enough to make a large online fabric order for my first "no more practice" quilt!  I chose more contemporary colors and designs (snails!!) than I have traditionally used, but the patterns really spoke to me and I just decided to go for it!  I can't wait until it comes.

Have a great week! 

Our November Color Wheel

I love the colors of autumn in the South.  You've got your traditional reds, browns, yellows, and oranges...

But you also have unexpected splashes of pink, white, and green.  The camellias are just starting to bud out, and what beauties we have this year!

Lovely creamy orange ginger lilies are still holding up their heads...

...and we've got more nice spheres of white all around our front door.

The fir trees are setting up their cones, which are light green, all over the yard.

We even have a few late-season zinnias still producing!

Somehow these odd blends of colors go together well and produce a very pleasing appearance in our late November yard.  And those branches of yellow leaves on our driveway?  I picked them all up, of course, and made big bouquets.

It's especially nice when the late-afternoon sun comes slanting in the windows...

Love!

I haven't had much time for crafting lately.  This is my busy season and I'm generally working 9 hour days (or longer) on my business.  However, I gave myself a day off this weekend and made a quick and festive plaid pillow in about 30 minutes. 

I will post a tutorial later.  I'll be making plenty more of these!

I've also been baking like crazy!  In preparation for Thanksgiving, and some extra for Todd's office, I baked about 7 batches of cookies, 2 loaves of pumpkin bread, and a plate of cheesecake bars in the past week alone.  Our freezer is fairly bursting!  I haven't had any myself, though...not one single bite.  I'm not there yet, but I'm officially nearing the end of my "six weeks of no sugar" plan, and I'm ready to wax philosophical about it. 

I've always been crazy about sugar.  I love to bake, and sweet treats are my favorite.  I crave sugar all the time, and in the past have tried to limit my consumption to a few servings a week, although that tended to grow when I was cranky, tired, busy, or stressed.   I noticed that I gained weight this past spring and early summer, and I knew there was a direct correlation between the amount of sugar I was eating and the number on the scale.  I have always been too afraid to limit my sugar - what else is left?  What about my baking? It's just too hard!  I'm fond of saying, too, that I don't want to live in a world where I couldn't have a cupcake when I wanted one.  Six weeks, though, seemed manageable. 

I stopped eating all sweets - cupcakes, ice cream, candy, pie, cookies, bars, syrups, etc.  I allowed myself 1 TB of honey a day and WHATEVER ELSE I WANTED THAT WASN'T SUGAR.  I had tried to be relatively low-carb before, but now I embraced them.  Oatmeal every day!  An occasional sandwich...with bread!  Roasted potatoes!  I didn't really miss the sugar because I so enjoyed my meals.  I had other pleasant side effects to help me along:  I suddenly started having higher-quality sleep.  No more waking up at 3 a.m. and reading for an hour - I slept all the way through the night.  I had more energy and felt better.  A weird but definitely welcomed side effect was weight loss.  Sugar triggers me to eat a lot, so take out the trigger, and my eating naturally moderated.  I lost 8 pounds in 5 weeks, doing nothing different except removing sugar from the equation.  I bounced back up a couple of pounds recently, but I realized that my desire to eat has become so quiet, and I've been so swamped with work, that I've been forgetting to eat like I should.  Not eating enough + regular vigorous exercise = weight gain.  I'm happily eating an extra 200 calories today!

With all of these wonderful discoveries, will I ever go back to sugar?  Oh, yeah!  My six weeks are up on Thanksgiving and I plan on having several cookies and a big piece of pie.  But I won't stay on sugar.  I've decided to live one week on sugar/three weeks off sugar every month.  I'll have a few days a month when I can get an ice cream cone, have a brownie, and make a big cookie sandwich dripping with homemade buttercream filling.  I'll have a week where I won't sleep as well, won't feel as well, and won't perform as well at the gym.  Then I'll have three weeks where I will.  I think it's a nice, tidy ratio and I look forward to putting it into place after my Thanksgiving week!

Happy eating!