Birds and Blooms

Hope those of you reading this in the USA are enjoying your Memorial Weekend!

Decided to write a post today, was going to do it tomorrow morning before going for hand surgery but I suspect I may be rushing around with last minute things to sort out.  I am dreading trying to cope using my left hand  everything is going to take at least twice as long - showering is going to be the most difficult I suspect.  Not too worried about the household chores as husband is retired and has been "in training" for the past week re housework and cooking. He's good on those things anyway as I have a number of health issues so he is used to helping out and looking after me when needed!  Also stocked the freezer with meals, every main meal over the past two weeks has been doubled or trebled in quantity and the extra amount frozen just ready to heat up and cook veggies.

I haven't really been able to get on with any quilting over the past week as I have been using the wretched splint again and I get so frustrated trying to use my cutter/sewing machine and so on wearing it. I did spend some time mixing up a batch of bird food (with great difficulty) for the finches and wax-eyes I use beef dripping, hot water, honey all heated until boiling take off the heat then add wholemeal flour, chopped nuts, mixed commercial bird seed and raisins. All mixed up put into small throw-away "beakers" and frozen. I can just take one of out the freezer for them, the sparrows have also started to eat this mix and love it, I even saw one of our tiny fantails hovering around yesterday and would love to get a photo of one for you all but they are so quick. John is making a bird table at the moment but in the meantime I just fastened a bit of board onto one of my dahlia stakes, nail in the middle, push one of the frozen meals on! The doves, starlings and mynahs get their food scattered on the ground.

These birds are a joy to watch they flit around like crazy, they are commonly called wax-eye or silver-eye for obvious reasons.

Quilting matters - below is one of the blocks for 15 Minutes Play, a result of the scrap swap with Helen and I intend to make four, I'm really enjoying this style of quilting and using the Manhattan subway fabric which was in the swap. On the subject of fabric I have been looking at the new batiks from Hoffman - absolutely glorious, I have to confess that they are my favourites. The colours this time are mouthwatering - I'm sure I could use my left hand next week to do a little ordering on line!!!

I am calling these blocks New York Blooms! And on the subject of blooms two pics below - one of the  last alstromeria blooms and of all things a daylily which is flowering way out of season, normally September is the beginning of their season here in NZ

Okay, that's me finished on this post, hopefully I will try and post again in about a week - with the left hand! Have a good week all.