Quilts, Birds, and a Bumblebee

Last week we went to a local DNR area that is known for being a bird migration hot spot. We were hoping to see the White Pelicans again, like we did last year. We were in luck--we found a small amount of pelicans.

There were also loads of Sandhill Cranes flying over us. These are just a few.

And then there were thousands of birds flying toward us overhead. We determined that they were snow geese and we just stood there forever watching more and more fly in. Again, this picture shows a very few of the amount we saw.

Eventually we decided it was time to leave, but before leaving we decided to cross the road to see if there were any pelicans in the pond over there, which is where we found them last year. There were not, but we were lucky enough to have a pair of endangered whooping cranes fly right over us. Whooping cranes are winter birds for us, and according to Wikipedia, there are around 800 birds in the United States. Wow!

You can see that this bird had two bands and a tracker. We had such an amazing morning!

I've also been busy quilting. I quilted my 365 Challenge quilt that I made in 2016. Since this quilt is really busy, I quilted an all-over loose feather pattern on it for texture. I still have to bind it. This is going to be a pretty big job since it's 90" square!

I also quilted my first customer quilt! Isn't Carol's quilt just gorgeous?

While I was busy quilting, my daughter was busy making a themed mole for her chemistry class. She chose to make it look like the Transformer Bumblebee and named it "Bumolebee". She did almost the entire thing by herself!

In the "of course nothing can be easy" category, the casters on my cutting table appear to be reacting with my vinyl flooring in the sewing room. They are leaving an oily residue all over the floor. They did not ever leave grease in the carpet upstairs. Also, the two-foot extension piece on my Juki frame is a different size than the original frame pieces. We thought we had it all shimmed in place and everything would be okay, but whenever any of the wheels hits the area around the joins, it makes it really difficult to move the machine. Sigh. I need to call Grace about this. Big sigh. Sometimes I really hate my machine and its weird quirks--or is it lack of quality control? I don't even know. The machine itself is great; all the other parts are not so much--electronics, frame, encoders. I am mentally compiling a list of things to consider when buying a long arm. Maybe I'll share it here soon.