Airport art

Hello, everyone.  

I saw a new example of airport artistic decoration recently. 

This geode butterfly is really big! It's beautiful,  too.

It's also an ad for the Quinta Mazatlan, an old house with gardens that people visit in McAllen.

Wildflowers this spring

 Hello, everyone.  

This spring,  between the planted flowers,  the flowers that came up and were moved, and the flowers that just appeared,  we're really enjoying the view in the yard.

The first picture is a cactus pot we have had for years. Now that it's blooming,  every time I stop to look at it,  the little leaf bee pops up from deliriously rolling around in the pollen. I think she's afraid something will happen to the wonderful heaps of baby-bee food.

This cactus is sensitive to rot, so I have never taken it out of the pot it's been happy in all of these years. 

This next photo is a tiny thing that pops up in the grass every spring. I think the blossom is only about 1/4" across. 

I have no idea what it's name is. It's just simply pretty.

This flower, which is a little bluer than the photo comes out, is amazingly popular with the Monarch types of butterflies. It's a native, but it does need to be watered in my yard. I have it growing in a large pot and it's very happy there.

Yesterday for the first time I saw it being visited by a monarch variety butterfly.  

We're trying to be hospitable to the native pollinators, not only because they're pretty but also when food plants in the yard bloom, we hope the pollinators will find them and pollinate the blooms. Especially on the avocado tree!

A more complete look at the Four Generations quilt

 Hello, everyone. The other day I put up a photo of the quilt folded up on a rack.

Then yesterday I unfolded it onto a bed so the totality could be seen.

The large butterfly blocks were begun by DH's DGM, and work was in progress when she passed away, over 50 years ago. Some decades after that, my dear MIL found the box of squares and patterns and resumed work on it. 

One day a package arrived in the mail, with the twelve large squares inside.

The small, needle turned applique butterflies on the edge, the sashing, and the borders were added by me. And during the (failed) first quilting phase, hand stitching on a frame, DD1 took some stitches as well. Thus "four generations" participated. DD2 was too young to stitch at that time but she remembers the frame in the living room. 

Hand quilting didn't mesh with the rest of our busy life, so the quilt was put away for a while. Then last year we brought it back out and I machine quilted the rest. The scrap style binding was finished about a week ago.

Whew! 

I did add a sleeve for hanging, too! Now to find the right hanging place and put it up.

The Four Generations Quilt is Done

 Hello, everyone.

For the last months, well, a lot of months actually, the Four Generations Quilt has been slowly approaching its completion.

Now it's done!

This is only a photo of part of the quilt, folded and lying on the quilt stand, as we don't have stray extra people to hold it up at its full size for the photo.

This quilt was begun in the late 1950's or early 1960's by DH's DGM. She was working with the usual type of cotton prints for the time period and she was making applique blocks. This is raw-edge applique with the black blanket stitches both serving to hold things together and to decorate the butterfly edges. She added embroidered antennae to each butterfly. The muslin squares, each of which holds four butterflies, are approximately 18 inches across.

DH's DGM passed away before she finished the squares. They laid, unnoticed, for many years in a box, until her daughter, my dear MIL, began going through the things and found them. She took up the project, using the fabrics and templates in the box until she ran out, and then obtaining more fabric pieces from me to complete the butterflies.

One day a box of butterfly squares arrived in the mail.

I added the sashing (black) and borders (blue fabrics) and some smaller butterflies around the edges to accent the big ones. Then I tried hand quilting the project. 

Unfortunately, life was much too busy for a hand quilting project of this size, and so the quilt languished, again, for years before it was taken up again.

The first hand-quilting stitches are still there, but I finished quilting it with my machine. (Most of the quilting was by machine.)

I added the initials of the other ladies who worked with me on it to the quilting in the borders. (My DD also did some stitching on the quilt.)

It is a privilege to have worked together with these ladies of the family on this project.

In a future post, I might put up a photo of the whole thing stretched out. After enough other folks are around to hold it up!

Flower season in South Texas

 Hello, everyone.

I don't have the canonical bluebonnet pictures to show, nor Indian paintbrush, but I do have a couple little things from around the place.

The Mystic Spires hybrid salvia is still going strong from last year, with lots of new growth around the base and beautiful flowers.

Dill: a little love-note to the pollinators, and to Swallowtail butterfly babies as well!

I have no idea what this little blue-leaved, white-flowered thing is. It sprouts with abandon in the vegetable garden. After a while it gets weedy looking and we pull it.

This one appears to be a primrose of some kind. It may be spontaneous. Or it may be a completely surprising survival from some wildflower seeds that were planted last spring...and then migrated from their spot? I don't know. Spontaneity seems more likely. There are a couple of these in the garden. They have the four petals of the Oenotheras but that's all I can actually say about them.

Yes, all the cracks you see in the ground are really there. It's a dry spring, and even with regular  watering the soil just wants to crack. 

This garden also has tomatoes, some of which have flowers already, and a couple of eggplants, and a Spanish pepper variety. Separately there is a large pot with three more of those Padron type peppers, which look really happy.

Resuming an old project in process

 Hello, everyone.

When I say old, I mean REALLY old. Some of these squares were raw-edged appliquéd by DH's grandmother before she passed some decades ago. The work was taken up by her daughter, his mom, and then later the box of squares was sent to me to assemble the quilt.

The large butterflies were hand basted into place and then their edges were done with black blanket stitch. They each have little French-knot eyes at the base of their antennae. So cute!

DH had made a wooden quilting frame for quilting it, but our stage in life was not right to do a major hand quilting project--for one thing, I had never even tried it before--and the quilt was put away. Now it has come out, and will be finished with machine quilting.

The back piece was taped to the floor tiles to hold it smooth for pinning. Blue painter's tape is my friend!

Today this will be moved from the floor to the dining room table and the sewing machine set up to do the quilting. I will try to continue motifs that were done by hand years ago, but will be doing a lot of straight lines inside the blocks probably.

I had a good pile of basting safety pins, but had to buy more to get this pinning done. There is no such thing as too many basting pins!

Getting ready for Easter

 Hello, everyone.

Easter decorations are beginning to be assembled. Butterflies, besides being emblematic of the return of flowers and sunshine, are also symbols of the Resurrection: from a dead-looking cocoon comes a beautiful flying insect. Very poetic!

This is, I think, an OESD free standing lace pattern. It fits twice in the 5x7 hoop, as y'all can see, and in the next photo the Mylar will show better than in this one. (I am currently in a phase of liking the look of a Mylar layer in free standing lace. The opal colored Mylar reflects light without looking heavy.) 

 

Here is the whole flock of butterflies. I am currently thinking of adding them to a lacey cover, possibly by using beads along the butterfly's body covering a piece of wire that goes through to the back and through the substrate fabric and is twisted to hold in place. The beads will of course have to be lightweight...gold? iridescent ivory? we shall see what works.

A pretty butterfly

Hello, everyone.

On this, the anniversary of our nation's Declaration of Independence, a lighter post:

DH saw a new butterfly flying around the yard. When she perched in the palapa, he caught this photo.

DD tells us that she is a Mexican Blue-wing. She's certainly a pretty little creature!

Happy Fourth of July to all.

A new fidget

Hello, everyone.

I have made a new fidget--this time butterfly themed.

The zipper opens and closes, of course. A backing rectangle keeps the fur from tangling in the zipper coil.

The blue fur is pleasant to touch.

The pink ring turned out a little too heavy to have a long run of motion, so buttons were added to the ladybug ribbon to control the ring. (It kept trying to flip over to the outside of the fidget. I could see that becoming a problem in use.)

The yellow circle is able to turn because there is an eyelet hole under the button.

There are multiple cords with pony beads and the gray ribbon has both a narrow black tube and a larger blue one. (Not to say, a repurposed curler from a perm set.)

And on the black reverse side (fake suede fabric, so not slick) a rectangle in ivory fabric allows the owner's name to be added. This is the first time I've done this, and it seems like a good idea. It's pretty much impossible to write on the black fabric, and not everyone has printed name tapes on hand to stitch in place. Also this fabric would not take kindly to having the laundry heat-glue a tape with their hot irons.

I'm thinking of doing a collection of fidgets and seeking a place to donate them. DF had a very hard time with fidgeting with his hands and something like this lets a person wiggle their fingers without tearing up their nails and skin, or the bedclothes, or other things that come in reach.

There is still a good amount of furry fabric to work with in the stash, in various colors. And made-in-USA pony beads are suddenly in great supply in the sewing studio.

Bead stash usage: another purse charm

Hello, everyone.

This is another purse charm, all bits from stash. The colors are in a springtime theme.

As with the last one, the catch was in that three-pack at Hobby Lobby. Most of the beads were from Fire Mountain Gems--some in their Boss's Bead Bag which is a random mix. (That used to be really fun to go through but the last time, some years back, it was less exciting. Still really useful, though.)

There are 5 strands strung onto 6# Fireline. I used a wrapped loop to connect the strands to the catch inside of the cone finding. Two of the strands were designed to provide balance to the other three, which have accent beads up and down the strand, so they're just plain old mixed white/clear seed beads.

I tied the bottom bead of each strand thoroughly, strung it to the right length, and held it in one of those little spring type bead holding clips. When all 5 were strung, I tied them to the wrapped loop, dropped the cone finding onto the wire, and made another wrapped loop to connect to the catch.

Stash busting: Purse charm

Hello, everyone.

Another little stash-busting success: a dangly thing to put on purses. (It could also be hung from any other hanging point, like maybe in a window as a decoration.)

I used up some white & silver and perle bead mix, some pendants, some crosses and pressed-glass butterflies, faceted ovals, and some quartz crystal diamonds. The hardware was half-off at Hobby Lobby.

These little stash busters are fun, but there need to be more of the necklaces if there's going to be a measurable reduction in bead stash!

A pretty flower (Camino del Norte)

Hello, everyone.

Sorry it's been so long. We moved house a little while back, and did some renovation to the new place (new to us, that is) and it's been hectic.

There has been more stash busting, pictures of which are not in the main computer yet, and some gardening.

Today, though, I am putting up a picture of a passion flower blossom that we saw in northern Spain during our Camino last summer.

This is called a passion flower because the parts of the flower reminded people of the Passion of Christ. Supposedly the five stamens remind of the Five Wounds and the lots of fringe bits correspond to, um, I think it was the number of days of the season of Lent. I am impressed by the idea that someone actually counted all the bits and discovered allegorical symbolism for them. I would never have thought of all that.

The passion flower blossoms are really pretty. Even the wild unimproved native Texas version is pretty! There is a kind of butterfly whose young--the caterpillars--think it's just the best food going. They are orange and I think they have dark spines or bumps all over their little wormy bodies.

Surprise from nature

Hello, everyone.

A couple of days ago I went outside to see the morning and discovered that one of the (relict) rose bushes had an unusually fat green stem. Of course, this demanded closer inspection.

Does anyone know what this little guy is? The green "twigs" sting. I tossed him over the fence into the bougainvilleas along the road, where he can set up his chrysalis or whatever to his heart's content. But we have no idea what manner of butterfly or moth it is!

More from Estero Llano Grande

Hello, everyone.

As promised, some more pictures from our visit to Estero Llano Grande this week.

There were a number of butterflies. This one was willing to pose:

We walked back to the alligator pond, passed the first part, and went to the viewing platform at the end. No gator in sight that day!









Silhouetted against the cloud, part of the flock of pelicans. (More are above them, but they blend in with the sky.) They were wheeling around in an updraft before settling down for a late-morning rest.

A pretty butterfly

Hello,  everyone.
Today the Resin Daisies were being attended by a group of these butterflies.

Also, the Purple Martins are back again and their little apartment house is almost full. It's peaceful to sit and watch them fly overhead in the afternoon.

Walk Report: Sabal Palm Sanctuary in Brownsville

Hello, everyone.

We awoke early and rarin' to go, so we got into the truck and headed down the highway to Brownsville. (Fortunately, we remembered to bring cell phones so we could check Google Maps for the actual location!) We found the Sabal Palm Sanctuary, formerly operated by the Audobon Society, without any trouble and had a friendly chat with the nice volunteer at the Rabb House where the admission is paid. She was very informed on various birds and hot butterfly-seeing sites on the area. (It's closed on Wednesdays, and shuts down for the night at 5 pm, just so y'all know.)

The place is beautiful. It's almost an undiscovered gem. The birds are not "baited" or "staged" by the use of bird feeders, but they have a lot to say in the trees overhead. Also the fly around a lot. If you were minded to sit down for a quiet wait on one of the many benches, you could probably make some really pretty bird pictures.

The historic Rabb Ranch House

 There is a butterfly garden, unseen off to the left in this photo.

Apparently there was a lovely updraft that day!

 Don't forget to look up.

A Red-eared Slider was sunning in the resaca

 They have a number of short walks with great photo moments. This was taken from an elevated boardwalk over the water.

The palm tree had leaned over the path. Moss was growing on the trunk, too!

The several walks near the resaca are very pleasant. Assorted native plants are growing along with introduced plants that have gone wild. I never thought I'd see a bloom from a Sanseveria plant! (AKA "snake plant" or "mother in law's tongue") There are both native palms and introduced palms that appear to have gone feral. Spanish "moss" is all over the place near the resaca. There was a berry plant that I'd never seen before, called variously snowberry and David's milkberry, which is at the very northern edge of its natural range. The little fruits are really snow-white! Lovely. Also we saw a floating plant, which might have been the famous floating fern. It was cute in an elegant, understated way.

There is a native loop and a loop near the river which have a lot of potential. I understand that if there has been rain there are a number of butterflies near the native loop. The day we went, it was mostly peaceful and quiet.

This little walk is really nice and enjoyable. It is also conveniently close to Stripes locations with good breakfast tacos, gas, and restrooms. Should such things be of interest to the visitor!

We think we got in about 3 miles of walking, by stitching together most of the little routes of the sanctuary.

Return to theYturria Tract

Hello, everyone.

As y'all know, we've begun our walking training. On Monday we drove over to the Yturria tract again. The previous time we had been there, it had recently rained. The main trail/road into the area was swamped pretty close to the front. We hadn't brought wading boots that day, so we headed for home. On Monday the weather had been dry for a while.

Things at the west end of the county were really dry. And there were almost no butterflies.

One of the few butterflies. Notice how the leaves on his twig are all folded in against the wood. That's one of the native shrubs' drought adaptation at work.

 This cardinal was the only bird that was willing to hold still in the open. There were a lot of really skittish birds, though, hiding in tree foliage and shrubs while they ate berries. We couldn't figure out why they wouldn't hold still for the camera.

Butterflies galore!

Hello, everyone.

When arriving back to our gate the other day, this sight greeted me:

Can you see the butterflies?

This the a Duranta shrub. It's not native to Texas, but it fits in really, really well. And when it's happy, it sends out root sprouts, too, to spread the glorious blue flowers around a little more. There are also some thorns in there, and the blue flowers make yellow berries that are rumored to be inedible, or maybe even somewhat toxic, but I see birds having a good time eating them. This day, however, the creatures eating were a great flock of butterflies. There were monarchs, queen (I think), white ones with gray spots, and even a navy-blue one with a tiny white line at the back of its wings.

And of course, the butterflies that were such an overwhelming presence in person hardly show in the photo. (I think all the dark triangular blobs are the butterflies resting on the flowers.) They were moving around a lot, too.

Just for pretty: Butterfly

Hello, everyone.

DH is still fully engaged on the big project at the Olde Homestead. The quilt block has had only a small amount of progress since yesterday morning.

But! I found a picture from the Edinburg Birding Center that y'all might like.

Butterfly beauty for the weekend. The purple flowered thing is not actually ageratum, it's a native Texas shrub that needs a little extra water in our area, but is amazingly attractive to the monarch family of butterflies.

(Link is to a summary of the genus on Wikipedia. I don't know which of several blue-flowered ones this is.)