Quilt Quack 14

Nothing much going on last week...or this week for that matter.

School e-learning and working.

Eat, sleep, repeat.

This photo quacks me up because I thought I had all of my ducks in a row.

Turned out that one was hiding in the corner.

Silly duck.

The ducklings are growing like weeds.

They’re almost getting too big for our tank.

The three oldest ones had enough feathers to be evicted.

:)

That leaves five ducklings in the house.

They're all the same age.

Pekin ducks, the yellow ones, grow faster than other ducks.

The darker ones are our Welsh Harelequins.

They're so pretty!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I quilt during my lunch break at work.

Here I managed to sew a hexagon wrong side up.

You'd think it would be easier to not make mistakes when hand sewing.

Apparently that's not the case.

Oops.

In my defense, I hold them like this to sew them together.

It's easy to flip one the wrong way.

All fixed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I’m trying to get into a quilting groove.

Sometimes it’s hard to sit down and quilt.

Dwayne and the boys are super good at making sure I get time.

I just don’t always use my spare time to quilt.

It took me about four months to hand quilt my last full-sized quilt.

I need to get down to business!

I found this cool Celtic border template.

It fits perfectly between the blocks on the top and bottom borders.

I will need to figure out how to make it work on the side borders as they are a little longer.

Yay! Two sections done.

There are four sections across the bottom

Basically, I've almost quilted half of the bottom border.

Quilt Quack 13

It's time for a Quilt Quack Chronicle!

This is the back of my hand sewn hexie table runner.

You see the circle in the middle?

It's a template made out of freezer paper.

The little hole is to help make it easier to remove the papers.

I'm glad I read that tip just as I started this project.

Sorry about the bad photo.. but you can see how I removed my papers.

I poked each paper with an orange peeler.

It worked really well.

The pile of papers that were removed from the perimeter.

I had already removed the middle ones before I started attaching the border.

Now my hexie table runner top is done.

Woohoo!!!

It took me roughly two years to hand sew this.

I should say I started it two years ago.
It took so long because I didn't work on it all the time.

A little here and little there.

I really enjoyed this project.

I find it relaxing. I love that it's portable too.

I intend on starting another hand project just as soon as I pick a new one!

For now this project is going in the "to be quilted" pile.
I've got another project that's in line to be quilted first.

:)

__________________________________________________________

On to the ducks... actually it's more about the chickens this time.

I did throw in a couple of duck pictures because it is a "Quilt Quack" post after all.

We finally got around to adding a second run to our yard.

We needed a second one for several reasons.

One of them was being able to confine the chickens in their own pen when needed.

The two runs are next to each other along the north side of our property.

We're excited to have more options for our animals.

I'm mostly excited that I can keep them off my porch!

I despise the chicken bombs. 

They have a bigger pen than the ducks.

We may switch them someday in the future.

The chickens aren't too happy about the new arrangement.

They pace the fence and run to the gate if someone shows up.

The white one will try to run past you to get free.

I did't have the gate secured enough the first day and five of them got out.

It's been fixed and they haven't been out since.

Eventually they will get over it.

I'm also hoping the egg production will increase.

We seem to have several free-loaders!

This is a rare find in the duck coop.

They are very consistent in laying by 8 AM.

Like clockwork. That's why we don't let them out until after 8.

However, they are not so consistent in a nice neat nest. That's a chicken thing.

Ducks are very messy.

We get about 8 duck eggs a day.

We have 11 hens but not all of them lay every day.

This is how we typically find duck eggs.

Usually only part of an egg is showing and you have to dig to get the eggs.

Sometimes you can't even see the eggs at all until you start digging.

They are almost always buried. At least they put their eggs in the corners of the coop!

Then there's the occasional "oops" egg laid somewhere in the yard.

It's like an egg hunt every day.

I'm not so sure what is so good that they all forage in the same spot.

They have been doing this frequently in various areas of the yard.

I'll look out and they're doing this.

Usually they're scattered while they forage.

Quilt Quack 12

I know this is neither a duck nor a quilt but it was a rather pretty rainbow.

The colors were really vivid just before I took this photo.

I'm about to embark on a new adventure in my quilting journey.

This is a 15 pound bag of poly pellets.

They are safe to wash and dry.

I'm attempting to make my first weighted quilt.

I'm a bit excited and nervous all at the same time.

It should be fun.

The young man to receive this blanket loves the movie Cars.

This will be the front.

I'm not cutting it up into fancy piecework.

I didn't want to cut into Lightening McQueen and his friends.

:)

The recipient also happens to love mustaches.

I also happened to find some fun mustache fabric for the back.

I bought my first bolt of batting!

I was price shopping and came across this deal.

It happens to be perfect for some of my projects.

I will try to take pictures as I venture my way into this uncharted territory (for me anyway).

It's supposed to rain all weekend.

We'll see how much I can get done. 

 ______________________________________________________________________

Last but not least, here is a picture of my in-law's duck, Ducky.

He roosts with the chickens.

Silly duck.

Quilt Quack 11

It's been a long time since there was a Quilt Quack post!

We now have 13 ducks (11 hens and 2 drakes).

Our lone Pekin bachelor (not pictured) has a date for freezer camp.

AKA he's getting butchered today.

The ducks were following me around thinking they were getting peas.

I didn't disappoint them.

This is Hazel, our youngest hen.

I think this might be her first egg.

When they're this size, they are called "fairy eggs".

This is probably the smallest fairy egg we've ever had.

Ironically, it weighs about the same as the quarter.

The Runners are typically skittish even if I have peas.

Connor still loves his chickens.

___________________________________________________________________

I have had several successful fabric shopping trips at our local thrift store.

I have lots of fabric to sort and wash!

This pile had plenty of cut squares and yardage.

I found some fun prints on my most recent trip.

Cow, zebra, blue flames, galaxies, and several others.

I have finally decided on a blue border for my confetti table runner.

Now I need to cut it and pin it in place.

I will hand sew the borders to the hexagons.

Just one of the many blocks I'm making for one of my current projects.

My goal is six of these per week.

I am hopeful to have the top done before November.

I have a couple more quilts in the planning stages as well.

Quilt Quack 10

It's time for the Quilt Quack Chronicles.

I'm going to update on the current quilt projects and the ducklings.

I know you can hardly wait!

So much has happened in our little duck world I'm not sure where to start.

Our adult Khaki Campbell hen with the broken wing healed enough to go back with the flock.
She seems to be doing great.

We put our younger KC ducks outside as they had almost all of their feathers.
A few days later the hen ended up with some leg issues.
We brought her back inside and doctored her as best as we knew how.
Sadly, we had to cull her because she was getting worse.
So now we have one adult KC hen and one 8 week old KC drake.
This gives us the option of hatching some KCs next year.

That left us with four ducklings in the house.
Have I mentioned that they grow fast?
Have I mentioned that Pekins grow faster?

They were 4 weeks old in this picture.
The Pekin is quite a bit larger than the Runners.
It's hard to believe they all hatched on the same day!

Same ducklings at 5 1/2 weeks old.

Like I said, they grow fast!

Around four weeks of age the hens usually start quacking.
Drakes don't quack, they mumble.
We ended up with two of each.
We decided to take the two drakes outside. Our plan is to re-home them.
Too many drakes to hens can be a problem.
The hens will stay inside for a little while longer hoping
to prevent whatever it was that happened to the KC hen.
The hens quack a lot and they're LOUD! Can't hear the radio or TV loud.
I'm not sure how much longer we'll keep them inside...


_____________________________________________________________


I have three (OK four) quilt projects I am actively working on.

One of the projects is a secret one so I won't share too much.
I am in the process of adding photos of my fabric to my quilting software.
This will enable me to design it with the fabrics I have.
It helps me to visualize it.
It also estimates how much I need of each fabric.


Next up is my forever project. The hexagon table runner that I've decided to name Confetti.

For a while I had a falling out with this quilt.

It can get monotonous doing the same thing over and over without fast results.

However, I finally finished sewing the last of the individual rows.

Woo hoo! Progress!

Now all I have to do is add rows.

This seems to have sparked some motivation to work on it more.

That and I managed to hurt my lower back again.

Not much to do (or should do) but sit and quilt.

So this is the state of the confetti table runner.
Not including the current row, I have nine more to go!


The Village quilt is the third official project.
I know I keep saying it but I love this one.

 I have 80 houses so far.
The top three houses in this photo have doors from a door swap I participated in.
It's like each house has its own personality.
I can't wait to have this one done.
It's going to be so cool and crazy!

My pieces for this week's 8 houses all ready for sewing.
If my back cooperates I might do this today.


The other project I'm working on is a "leader and ender" project.
You can read about it here.
I forget to update it because it's done as I sew other things.

I'm making these wonky log cabin blocks.

No measuring or squaring up until it reaches a certain size.

Then I square it to the size I want and put it in a box.

I have ten finished blocks so far.

I've got fourteen I'm currently sewing.

Eventually I'll have enough for a quilt.

It's kind like making two quilts at once.

Quilt Quack 9

This time the Quilt Quack post will be light on the quilt and heavy on the quack.

It's been quite entertaining around here with all of our ducks.

It's our version of March madness. ;)

First up is the quilting.

I'm still plugging away at the Village Quilt and posting my houses on Instagram.

To date I have finished 56 houses.

It has been so much fun being a part of the sew-along.

I have my pieces cut out for all of the remaining houses.

I divided them into piles of 8 and put them in baggies.

So each week I grab a bag and start sewing.

Yes, I know there's a door that's upside down.

I did this on purpose. I'm actually surprised I haven't done it by accident yet!

I made a couple of mistakes in the first few batches of houses I did and chose to leave them like that.

One house has a door that is wrong side out. It's light colored and hard to see.

One of the egg houses has its eggs pointing down instead of up.

I didn't see it until I went to sew the sides on and decided that I'd

just match the sides instead of re-doing it.

Besides, it won't be that easy to find it among the 131 other houses.

It will give the quilt some extra character.

As if the crazy houses aren't enough!

I also sewed this baby quilt top.

I still have a desire to make charity quilts for the local pregnancy crises center.

This one is for the baby that Dwayne and I lost between the boys.

I'm hoping to have it quilted sometime next week.

_________________________________________________________________

How are the ducklings you ask?

Cute as ever.

Ducklings grow fast.

They are one week old in this picture.

This was taken yesterday at 10 days old.

Their tail feathers are starting to grow.

We started giving them peas.

It's funny to watch the chaos when peas are involved.

Our Khaki Campbells when they were about 3 weeks old.

Same KC's at about 4 weeks old.

They have reached what we lovingly call the ugly duckling stage.

They look like someone beat them up.

One of them is quite a bit noisier than the other one.

It's not peeping as much but makes a louder pre-quack kind of noise.

We're really hoping to hear a loud quack soon.

That would mean it is a hen.

As if we didn't enough ducks in the house, we have this one too.

This is Brownie, our adult Khaki Campbell hen.

Somehow she broke her wing.

So we're attempting to help her.

She's still laying eggs everyday.

That's a plus.

She grumbles quite a bit when we need to go into our utility room where we keep her.

Whenever anyone goes in there you hear a loud quack.

The other day Nolan went in forgetting she was there.

She quacked and I heard him say, "You startled me, duck!"

I think the feeling was mutual.

If you're counting: 4, almost 2 week old ducklings; 2, 4 week old ducklings; and one adult hen.

It's like a zoo.

It's our March madness.