animals and art work

this is Elphie

she is the big black dog that lives at our house

the past few days she has taken on a new moniker -- Mr. McGregor



seems we have a new yard visitor

I've seen a little cottontail out there -- though so far he doesn't seem to have figured out how to get into the garden because of the fencing we put up to keep Elphie out of there

I think Elphie just doesn't want to share the carrots that are growing out there

I can tell when the rabbit is there -- Elphie goes into her best "I'm a big dog" act, complete with hair standing up and growling

and when I let her out the door she runs full tilt toward the rabbit -- which of course runs faster

its a good exercise program for the dog
this morning I went out to turn on the water in the garden

as I was hooking up the hose I could hear a bird in the tree above me so I paused and turned around to take a closer look

one of these birds hopped down onto the fence, less than three feet away from me

I stood still and just watched until he decided he'd seen enough of me and flew off to another tree

I headed straight to the bird book because I hadn't seen one of these before

the bird book says this is a Baltimore Oriole

way cool!!
yesterday I spent 4 hours in part one of a machine quilting class

what a blast!

this half of the class (the other half is next Saturday) was about the materials -- especially the different battings that are currently available -- and how to use that newly acquired walking foot -- I love the walking foot! and my favorite thing was the pseudo free motion work we did at the end of the class with it

next week we'll be doing true free motion quilting -- which, while more difficult (I'm told) gives you a lot more artistic flexibility and control

can't wait

after all that fussing about what to do next to this I decided that the best thing to do was just turn that bead embroidery work into a cuff bracelet

sometimes less is more

I'll be working on the competition entry information today







and since that piece had been declared "done", I started on a new beaded piece

another bracelet in the Africa series -- this one is giraffe


we'll see how quickly I can stitch this one up