In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

I snapped this photo earlier today. I so LOVE this quilt! This morning feels like a good while ago, what with a deluge of rain falling, causing flooding all over Humboldt County. Highway 101 was even closed near College of the Redwoods, both sides of the freeway inundated with water. We spent an uneventful day, thankfully, although keeping track of a nearby field that kept looking more like a lake. The chickens had some outdoor time, mostly spent under the awning near the coop. They happily dug through gravel, no idea what they found so intriguing, and I'm also glad they can't tell me. Only four eggs today, WHEW! Take a break girls. But all of that wasn't on my mind when I coined today's title. More to matter was peace, grace, love; all those I experienced in great waves very early this morning, wiping my teary face on the top edge of the Cornflower quilt , what I've been snuggling under for the last couple of weeks, wanting a full-size cozy, what with winter knocki...

Camilla on the far left, a Barnevelder checking out box #2, while another hen inspects box #4; chicken photos from yesterday, courtesy of my husband.   Yes, I KNOW laying eggs is what chickens do. Young, healthy, happy chickens who apparently don't care that tomorrow is the winter solstice. Chickens whose instincts are so deeply embedded that for thousands of years producing eggs ranks right up there with scratching for food, searching the highest spot for sleep, and clucking for no obvious reason. Okay, the last one is my addition; we just made an emergency visit to the run to confirm no predators had infiltrated because one of those ridiculous hens was clucking her dang head off! I kinda know, or assume (for better or worse) I know why she was being so vociferous; they want out of the run. LOLOL! Sorry chickies, not today. The run isn't under water like it was a few days ago, ahem, because 1) It hasn't rained in several hours and 2) My husband extended the trench that lie...

Too many nice photos to simply chat about chickens. Probably a Welsummer egg due to the speckles. But yes, the hens are LAYING like there's no tomorrow! Five of the eight, we think, are acting as if winter doesn't matter, youth has no bearing, and who cares if the solstice is right around the corner! That's what those chickens would be saying, if they could do more than cluck, cluck, cluck. The other Welsummer egg, freshly washed, why it appears so dark. Am I really one of those chicken owners who feel it necessary to display various eggs? I guess so.... I have a lot of pictures to share, of eggs, and the beach, and coasters completed. None of the hens, lol, maybe in the next entry. We're heading into the homestretch of Advent, Christmas preparation, Hanukkah. Heading into what I hope is a quiet time, a time of reflection, thankfulness, peace. A time where I want to embrace my faith in Christ Jesus, revel in grace, eat some eggs. Eggs.... Oh my goodness, how did the Bar...

  Good and evil and Christmas coasters in the making.... And chickens. It's the third week of Advent, which I didn't mention on the last post, over which I then inwardly chided myself, but sometimes not everything lands in an entry. The Bondi Beach shooting had occurred, that didn't get into the last post either. Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were murdered, allegedly by their son. The list of awful incidents seems unending, and yet, a miracle is nearly due. How to slot waiting for the birth of Christ into my daily, and mostly mundane, activities; we're getting three to four eggs a day, Camilla still the star, but then her Barnevelder sisters are pretty cool too, laying eggs a good two months before the average Barnevelder hen. Fussy the Chicken raised HECK yesterday when she emerged from the coop, all her sisters out free ranging. Cluck cluck CLUCK brought me to find Fussy in the run, and it took five minutes of crooning/cajoling her to where her coop-mates were forag...

Fabric with dots is Aerial View. The other is Lands End. I like the colour blue. In lots of shades. And pink. In many hues. And I like the weight of Ruby Star Society fabrics, especially for EPP. Put those together, and tonight I have much of another block for my Eden quilt sorted. I also like making blocks that have a center hexagon, lol! Cornflower blocks , Eden blocks; what I appreciate is simply stitching around a basted shape, not worrying if center points meet up. I realized that while making the Cornflower blocks, and it's reinforced with these little beauties. Earlier today I put fabric on the design wall, but I'm keeping this quilt under wraps until it's gifted, as it's a surprise. Not in time for Christmas, but hopefully before February. Large squares will lend themselves to being quickly turned into a top, but as I plan to hand-quilt this project.... It's going to take a few weeks of evening stitching. Yet having completed the design element freed me to ...

If I did own a Christmas quilt, it would look a lot like the placemat above. Lol. A few mornings ago I took the photos for this post, in part I was thinking how I don't have a Christmas quilt, although I have made several for beloveds. And that I truly love these mats, made from what Katie Pederson calls Magic Numbers sewing. I still have 2.5, 4.5, and 6.5" squares in my Christmas Fabrics bag, and maybe one of these days I'll sew up more placemats, as I only made four when I fashioned these. They won't have bindings, but the layout makes me HAPPY! And small projects are easy finishes, 'nuff said. I wonder if my chickens think of their egg-laying as easy finishes, LOL! One laid an egg in the dustbathing box yesterday; DUDE! That's not cool, chicken. We think it's a Welsummer egg, from the hue and slight speckling, and if that is true, I'd guess Cami laid her first egg because Cami LOVES dustbathing. But I am very sorry, Miss Cami Chicken; eggs are to b...

Title and idea courtesy of my husband. And the hens, lol. Oh, and the Year-End Smashwords Sale! Do chickens have guardian angels? Do humans? I don't know the answer to either of those queries, but I have suspicions, and who is to say chickens or humans don't possess someone assigned to their well-being. I will say that yesterday morning my husband scraped a LOT of nasty poo off the wall, leading us to wonder if said chickens had coccidiosis. Yet, we didn't have the liberty to do much more than pray about it because we were meeting our eldest daughter in Santa Rosa for lunch and to exchange Christmas presents. We fed the chickens, I gave them some bonus straw in which to play, then chased after Nadia who slipped from the coop, that nimble hen! Finally trapping her near the door, I slowly picked her up, then set her where she belonged, wondering if later that night I'd be dosing their water with Corid. Highway 101 yesterday morning, photo courtesy of my husband, as I was ...

  I did try to hang the quilt outside to photograph it, but it was too heavy and fell to the ground. Today my husband held it aloft, and while not the perfect photo, it's good enough. This quilt seems to have had two lives; the English paper piecing blocks have been around a LONG time. Many were done, the fabrics not my faves, then I fully finished them earlier this year or late last year after a big PUSH when I had Covid last summer. While quarantining in my bedroom so said husband wouldn't get sick (not that it worked, but....), I sewed Lucy Boston (LB) blocks because I didn't want to touch/contaminate anything I truly adored, haha! Come to find out, these at times obnoxious, at other times sweet blocks from my early EPP days have wormed their ways into my Kawandi heart. And what's especially precious (not in a sickly sweet manner) is that this quilt is WHOLLY HAND SEWN. No machine was employed in its creation. The back is a flannel twin-size sheet, the front i...

Yes, Past Me, there were four blocks remaining. And now the Lucy Boston quilt is completed. WOO HOO! Meanwhile, another hen has joined the Layers Club; my husband found an egg when he removed their feed late this afternoon. I had done some coop cleaning mid-afternoon and had checked all the boxes, and the hubby checked my checking, LOL. It was dark when he removed the egg, but once he brought it inside, we found it was Nadia-coloured, so probably a Barnevelder. I wondered if Cami the Welsummer had laid it because on the field trip this morning, Cami submissively squatted when my husband tried to pet her and she had NEVER squatted for either of us. Cami detests being touched, maybe she'll be the fourth member of the Layers Club in the near future. From left; mystery chicken's egg, Camilla's egg, Nadia's egg. My poor Quilt of Grace, wholly usurped by CHICKENS! Or rather eggs, lol. So, back to the quilt, under which I am cozily seated at this very moment in time. I'll ...

One of the four alleged blocks left to hand-quilt. And one of the four safety pins left to remove.... Last night I did a little hand-sewing on the Quilt of Grace. I'd already made a hexie flower, it was well past my usual time to pick up a new evening project, but something within me said, "You're not that exhausted." Which was true, though I was tired, lol. I ran a lot of errands early that morning, but not before Nadia presented us with her second egg! Nadia's second egg! Which is still thrilling, let me say. And this morning, when my husband was giving them breakfast, Camilla was scoping out the nesting boxes (Update: Camilla laid egg #3 today, bless her!). I'm also pleased they are upping their laying times to a.m. and not p.m. And I'm still gobsmacked they are laying at all! But back to last night and that Lucy Boston/Kawandi mash-up: So I loaded some needles with light blue Coates and Clarks hand-quilting thread, then completed maybe three blocks? It...

What is Nadia doing in that nesting box? As I read today's novel installment, I kept waiting for the scene to end; surely this was merely a scene within the chapter. Because once the scene ended, I was going to plop it here, but first mention that in the last two days we've received THREE EGGS! Camilla went first, then Nadia, then again Camilla; DUDE! And while that revelation deserved its own post , so does Chapter 98 of Nothing More Complicated: The Hawk Book Four . I can't link to it because it won't be released until early next year, but if this chapter piques your interest, start with Give Her My Love , then Brave the Skies , then Straight to the Heart . Because that's what my writing is about, getting straight to the heart . Character-driven fiction, that's me! As well as the owner of LAYING HENS, woo hoo! More about that soon....   Chapter 98   On the third morning of Stanford’s vacation, he woke alone. The previous two days he and Laurie had stirred ...