DQS9 finished and sent!

All folded up and ready to go, along with the goodies I made to go along with the doll quilt. I decided on making a cute needle case with hexies, and a pincushion, who doesn't need these things right! It was such a relief to be sending it out, fun to make but now the pressure is off and I just get the enjoyment of waiting to receive mine, from goodness-know where, sooooo exciting!

This is the front of the doll quilt all finished. It is a modified double wedding ring, pieced and then appliqued, after which I decorated with three rows of hand stitching around the whole shape, I really love this part. Then finished by quilting in the ditch, and adding a polka dot binding. The idea for the quilt came from my partners inspiration mosaic and flickr favorites, and a preference for fabric, brights with white.


My partner also expressed a weakness for hexagons, so I added a strip of them to the back of the quilt, again with the hand stitching. I love the way this quilt came out, it was my first time making this kind of small quilt, and my first time joining the wonderful Doll Quilt Swap #9, an awesome group indeed! I guess my only regret is not being brave enough to quilt the white parts of the quilt, I think it would have been better for it, but I'm not confident at all about quilting ( I guess I should practice ) and I didn't want to mess it up at that stage, I hope my partner loves it anyway, much work and love was put into it! ♥

Have a wonderful weekend! ♥

hummingbirds!

{ hummingbird in my backyard }

After reading this post on The Zen Birdfeeder blog, I went and found my hummingbird feeders and mixed up a batch of food for them. Then, I hung out their feeders and waited. My feeders hang on the log edges of my house, so you can't see them from the inside at all, and at first I thought they were not coming. Maybe they had already migrated to warmer climates. However, after just a couple of days I started to see them buzzing past the windows. Since then they've been a regular visitor, there's at least two pairs, and they take it in turns to fly from tree to feeder and back again. If you sit quietly in the corner of the deck they'll buzz right over your head, pretty cool hearing their little wings going so fast.

{ partaking of the waters }

some bee blocks finished and sent -

{ bee blocks for the 3x6 sampler quilt mini bee }

{ beehive 5 - 3rd quarter }

{ blocks for Mary - Bee-Stitched August }

{ blocks for Heather - Sew Fun 2 August }

a nature walk at Moreau Lake

{ beaver dam }

Last week the kids and I went to Moreau Lake and walked some trails, namely the nature trail and also the Mud Pond loop, about 3 miles'ish all told. it was a beautiful day, although in the morning we'd had a humdinger of a thunderstorm, and it kept threatening us with dark clouds on and off. There are many trails at Moreau, and I highly recommend the trip.

{ some kind of dragonfly/damselfly? }

We saw, and heard, lots of wildlife, ( if you can name any of the this posts inhabitants I would love to know, thank you! ) dragonflies, lots of birds, a heron, fish, millipedes, bullfrogs, lots of insects. We're going to start keeping a record in the form of a nature journal of all our nature walks, what fun! I certainly need to invest in some more field guides and get better at spotting different specis though, also next time we must remember our binoculors!

{ water lily }


{ deer having a drink }



{ unusual looking nest }

I wondered who they'd put this nest out for, do you know?


{ shelf fungi }

We all decided it was a great trail, and would definitely do it again, lots to see and hear along the way. Next time we may walk one of the overlook trails to get views of the whole lake and area, although this was just about the right length for the kids, especially since it was very humid that day. Happy trails. ♥