Native intelligence

We spend every evening after supper sitting on the patio, watering the flowers, filling the bird feeders, and watching the panoply of nature around us. Last night, we got a reminder of just how adaptive that natural life is.

One of the faucets on the back of the house has a slight leak no matter how hard you tighten the shutoff. It hardly drips at all, once every few minutes, if at that. It's the kind of small problem everyone has but doesn't hurry to fix. I didn't know until last night that someone had figured out how to benefit from that drip.

This little fellow sits in the dogwood tree until a large enough drop of water has formed on the end of the quick-connect nozzle. Then he flies over, perches and has a drink! Then it's back to the dogwood tree until another drop has collected. This time of year the water in the birdbath gets pretty hot in the sun. This black-capped chickadee has figured out how to get a nice cold sip.

On another bird front, I wasn't aware that a northern mockingbird had made a nest in one of our japonica bushes in the corner of the yard beside my neighbor's driveway. For one thing, I didn't know they nested this late. And all spring a pair of mockingbirds, probably this pair, harassed me in my side yard, so I thought the mockingbird families were all grown and gone.

Last week, I asked the lawn guy to trim those bushes because they had grown tall enough to block visibility when my neighbor backed out into the street. When I went over to pick up a few clippings after he had left, I found a bird's nest in the bush, now only 4 or 5 inches below the shorn top. I wasn't sure what kind of bird it was but was afraid the sun was too hot on the little downy hatchlings, so I gathered a few long clipped forsythia branch from the brush pile and spread them on the top of the bush to shade the nest.

The next day I visited the nest to make sure the clippings hadn't withered too much to provide shade. Mama mockingbird did not take kindly to my visit and dive-bombed me. She brushed through the top of my hair on her pass, then perched in the maple tree and began to cuss me out in strong mockingbird terms. I beat a hasty retreat from the side yard.

This morning, I was still worrying about the little birds, so I crept out to check the nest, after making sure the parents weren't around. At least I thought they weren't. This time, she whacked me in the back and was circling around for another pass when I hurried back to the house. I don't need to be concerned about the babies - these are diligent parents!

Latest quilts

First, the Quiltville mystery, which is finally bound and will be my mother's birthday present this weekend. I like the blue border and brown binding. It brought some of the less prominent colors out into the edges and balanced the color distribution. Love the quilting. It's a panto design that the longarmer suggested. It's just perfect.

This is one of two little quilts I made from a jelly roll, a charm pack and some neutrals from my stash. Nothing special here - just quilted in the ditch. I'm happy about how it turned out. I'm also happy I have a small quilt on hand if someone I know is having a baby. That's where its' companion went - as a baby gift for my lawn guy's son and daughter-in-law.

This is a copy of a quilt I saw in the local quilt shop, made from a half yard of the red fabric, a jelly roll and neutrals from my stash again. Love the colors and the little blue whirligigs.

This is the back. I bought a length of the orange fabric and forgot that the quilt would come out wider than 42"! So I added the stripe. Very dashing, I think.

This is BlockCentral's 2009 BOM. I reduced the scale by a 1/3, and made a lap quilt. The fabrics reminded me of the colors on my calico cat, so I named the quilt Molly.

And this is what I found for the backing. The little calico cat standing up on its hind feet reminds me of my kitty.

Can you see the cats quilted in the border?

Finally, here's my disappointment quilt. I loved the look of the sample at SuzGuz Designs, bought her pattern (didn't really need it, but want to support independent quilt designers) and hunted down the exact fabric on Ebay. I enlarged it a bit to queen size and it went together like a charm.

Then the problem happened. I took it to a local quilting service I had used in the past and had it done with an allover larger meander pattern. The quality of the quilting is so horrible it broke my heart. The tension is all off, and the stitch lengths aren't anywhere near regular. It looks awful. Here's an example. That's a 4" x 2" patch:

There are 18 stitches in that line from one side of the patch to the other. The stitches are a quarter inch long. That, and the puckering where the machine tension was off (there are several spots where you can see the front thread pulled to the back - it's really bad), ruin the quilt. I went ahead and bound it because it's a nice wide lightweight quilt we can use on our bed, but I loved the fabric and pattern so much, I want to cry when I get it out of the closet.

I want to requilt it so badly, but probably can't find a longarmer to tackle it since it's already bound. I would pick out all the stitches, but it would take weeks. Just chalk it up to experience, I guess, and never darken that shop's door again (and warn others locally about them).

There are two more quilts waiting hand sewing on the bindings - more later, and a picture of my version of "In Lucinda's Garden" when I get further along.

First tomatoes of the year

Here they are, happily esconced on my kitchen windowsill, waiting to become a primary ingredient in tomorrow's BLT's for brunch.

It's never the utility company's fault

Have you seen this news story? Some poor lady in Washington, who normally uses about 3000 gallons of water during a billing cycle, gets charged for 140,000 gallons of water for one month! The water company says there's nothing wrong with their meter and she must pay the $1181.00 bill. Of course, that's completely ridiculous. You could calculate the amount of water that the supply line to her house can discharge in a month at the local water pressure, running 24 hours a day, and it's probably not 140,000 gallons. But the water company will never admit they're wrong.

I had a little run-in with my local water company last year, nothing this dramatic, but it illustrates how stubborn the utilities can be. In one month, my water usage jumped from less than 2500 gallons to 28,500 gallons. I, of course, filed a protest, and the company replaced the meter and sent it off to be tested. You already know what the results of the testing were. Absolutely nothing wrong with the meter. But, coincidentally, the next month's bill after the meter was replaced was back in our normal range.

Like the lady in the news story, I had a plumber look around the house. No leaks were found. He commented that the crawlspace of my house would have looked like a swimming pool if there was a leak that bad. He was also sure that the line between the meter and the house wasn't leaking. It was during the drought last year, and as the plumber put it, if there were any leaks on the supply line, I would have had some grass growing in my yard, which I certainly didn't. As a visualization of just how much 28,500 gallons of water is, I used the water capacity of the jacuzzi I used to own. It was 6 feet square and the water was about 24 inches deep. It held 225 gallons of water. I would have had to completely fill that jacuzzi over 4 times a day, every day of the month, to use 28,500 gallons.

Let's apply the jacuzzi test to the Washington lady's bill. 140,000 gallons would fill that jacuzzi over 20 times a day, every day, for 30 days. Let's assume that the water pressure and supply line to her house aren't much different than my former home. I remember how long it took to refill the jacuzzi after cleaning it. It would have been impossible to run enough water to fill it 20 times in one 24 hour period.

Now, my erroneous bill was nowhere as high as the Washington lady's bill, but it's the principal of the thing. I wrote the check, grumbling all the time, because it was the only thing I could do. I hope the lady can fight it and win.

The subconscious interior designer

I guess sometimes your subconscious has to jump in and save you.

When I went to Hancock's to buy the indoor/outdoor fabric for the patio chair seat covers, I was disappointed than there was nothing with black or gray to coordinate better with my wrought iron furniture. The piece I picked did have that lovely teal-y green stripe, which is one of my favorite colors, but I worried how it would look on the gray/black wrought iron. After they were finished, I was happy with them, both in color and in how the construction turned out. Today, as I stood looking out the sliding door onto the patio, something struck me. Beside me were my tab-top drapes, with the teal and beige and gold and brown checks:Beside the drapes is my beige reading chair with the teal throw:Then I look outside to the chair covers, with teal and beige and gold and brown stripe:And further out in the yard is my teal ceramic birdbath: Perfectly color coordinated, from inside to outside. Everything you see at the window, from the inside decor framing your view to the outside furniture and lawn accessories, matches. This is kind of neat, but definitely wasn't intentional.

Sort of like an idiot savant interior decorator.

The solution to the pinch-y chair

So here's what I did for the chairs that caught and tore your clothes:

It's a seat cover that ties at four corners. It's not padded. It does work well, makes the chair a little more comfortable, and, oh miracle, didn't cost much since the indoor/outdoor fabric was on sale for 50% off.

This stuff is hard to sew. You can't iron it, you can hardly pin it, and it's stiff as a board. Hope it wears as well as it appears it will. After making several of these, I was definitely done with handling this fabric.



I thought I'd show you a picture of my balloon flower, also called Chinese bellflower (scientific name platycodon grandiflorus), which is just starting to bloom. It's just the most alien looking little thing! Below the flowers you can see a developing bud, which as it matures looks exactly like a hot air balloon. They're kind of a pain to grow because the flower stalks get 3 feet tall and must be staked. This plant started out a white flower, but crossed itself with another blue one, I believe, and turned this light purple color. Never had that happen before.

Chairs that eat your clothes

I have patio furniture that causes an unusual problem. They chew up the back of your pants. The seats are made of woven 1" wide wrought iron lattice with about 1" between the slats. Something about those woven slats can catch your pants legs as you sit down or get up and make little tears. I have never had this problem before! So I hied myself off to Hancock's today to buy a couple of yards of indoor-outdoor fabric on sale, 40% off, to make chair seat covers. I don't want chair pads with foam inside because it takes them so long to dry after a rain. I'll just make a reversible seat cover with corner ties (not even any piping, not in the mood). I've never worked with this kind of fabric - it looks like it'll be worse than sewing through steel wool. I bought an upholstery needle, just in case.