Unwelcome Visitor

Not ten minutes after my last post, we noticed this guy in our backyard:

Yes, it's a skunk.  We smell them from time to time in the evening, and run around closing all the windows, but a daylight sighting is unusual.  We think this one is still young.

Our birdbath is quite a popular watering hole.  It is often stuffed to the brim with migrating birds in the spring and fall.  The sparrows especially like to all pile in at once.  Sometimes I think it would be a great location for a webcam!

And sometimes we have take the bad along with the good.  I suppose all God's creatures have some (inscrutable) role to play!

50 Blocks Done

Today I finished the last three nine-patch blocks, and got them all up on my "design wall." That is one of the most fun parts, isn't it?

I didn't want to over think the layout here.  I put mostly darker blocks around the edges, because those will show dirt less over time.  I broke up any glaring light patches, and tried not to have the same fabric in two adjacent blocks.  Then I took the photo and packed it up again.

This quilt is a lot more interesting close up, rather than from further back.  I think it's main claim to fame is the variety of fabrics - from batiks to prints, modern, retro and reproduction.  You can find some close ups of the blocks in previous posts.

I am pretty sure now that this will be the first quilt that makes it all the way to the end.  It's been a long time coming!

Backwards and Forwards on Celtic Spring

There has been a fair bit of work done on Celtic Spring since the last time I showed it, but it has not all been forward progress!  Once I decided to stitch all the gold braid double, I also decided to remove most of the previous gold stitching that had been done single.  This necessitated taking out some of the other stitching around those areas as well.  The main areas that were affected were the left side border, and the front of the underskirt.

The gold sure looks nice, though:

I also decided to keep all the backstitching to just a single strand.  When I squinted at the small blurry picture that comes with the chart, it seemed to me that the backstitching had been done double. But, when I tried it both ways, I preferred the more delicate effect that a single strand achieves:

The chart also calls for a dark quarter stitch to fill in the eye, but I left it unstitched to give the effect of a highlight.

I am very keen to start putting in some of the beads.  There are lots!  But I don't want the stitching to become awkward to hold, so I think I need to give that some more thought.  I know from experience that doing all the beads at once can be tiresome too, so balance is key!

I'd rather hoped to be further along on this by now, but, you know, life gets in the way sometimes!