Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Summer! Spring! Summer! Winter!

The weather has been having some indecisive issues lately. On February 28th I was seriously considering to go swimming. Yes, I was that hot. I even went by the pool to dip my toes in... and two people were already there! No, I like to swim alone, thank you. Or at least with people I know.

Then the next day it was spring-ish. As spring as southern Arizona can get. It'd be called summer in Northern California. :P I even enjoyed a stroll out and saw some freshly budding trees. Yesterday was hot and humid. Brother! I told myself that if today was just as hot, I'm swimming! Today... it rain. Yeah. Real rain. Cold rain! The weather really can't make up it's mind.

But thoughts of summer are creeping back. Especially since we have a bee problem at the moment. Yes, bees like flowers and all that, and they're welcome to zoom around... but they're not allowed to build a house between the apartment walls!!!! Yup. Right outside our dining room window the bees have been steadily flying in and out of a water drain. I took a good look today and can see a fairly large hold behind the drain. Worse of all, there's a dead bee INSIDE of our dining room window. I really hope they haven't found a way into our apartment.

At least the bee problem isn't looking like this... yet.

A huge colony of Africanized bees were traveling through the neighborhood last May. You can see them buzzing around in the lower left corner of the picture and the dark mass in the center of the tree. The mass is just millions of bees clustered up and it's actually over 3 feet long. But I was making my husband really nervous by going so close to them. (He got stung on the nose when he was kid... and I never have been stung, so I tend be a little more foolhardy around bees). The good news is that they were only passing through and hopefully they made a home far, far, far away from here. :)

I've been working on more star-in-a-star for me. This is just a sneak peek of the star centers. I have all the pieces cut out though.

These stars gave me a great chance to try out the Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers. Great rulers with so many posibilities and helps miminize fabric waste.

Tomorrow is the guild meeting. We're gonna paperpiece a star. I think I'm going to do it in greens and purples. I'm supposed to bring my sewing machine, fabric and scissors... but not my iron! How does anybody sew paperpiecing without ironing? I tried that once and ended up with lots of odd lumps. Maybe I should sneak in my mini-iron and buy one of the little portable ironing pads. Need to dig up some scraps for the project! :)

Leah

5 comments:

Nancy said...

Love the block centers. Reminds me of one I did several years back that I had forgotten all about. I think I need to pull it out and maybe send it to the quilters to be finished. Would work nice for one of my nieces as it's has purple/green/blue butterfly fabric in the center of each block and different purple/green/blue fabrics for the star points.

And we skipped right over spring straight into summer! Of course around here we have 10-1/2 months of summer and the other 1-1/2 months is split between the other 3 seasons.

Laurie Ann said...

That's amazing that you've never been stung in your life! I used to play with honey bees as a kid and got stung all the time. I usually get stung about once a summer by a yellowjacket. No big deal unless you are super alergic like my hubbie. They probably provide an iron or two at the guild meeting, I would imagine.

Unknown said...

Your stars look great Leah! Mine usually end up a little wonky. I keep practicing though! This week-end I am finishing my niece's quilt and starting my nephew's. THEN I am going to do my first Irish Chain. It will be for our bedroom. I am thinking red and white... I might have to go to the fabric shop to have a looksy!

Quilts And Pieces said...

Wow! I've missed so much good stuff on your blog this week. I've been so busy I've just now had time to catch up. Instead of leaving you a ton of messages I'll just say - WOW!

Finn said...

Great bee picture Leah! That's about as close as I'd want to be..*VBG*
Love the stars, they have such a nice crisp feeling. Am anxious to see what they turn into. Good luck in your paper piecing class..*S*(I'd sneak in an iron)