Life at Pieceful Thoughts

Life at Pieceful Thoughts has been pretty quiet lately. We’ve done a little traveling, spent time with family, and have been taking walks and naps. I haven’t been doing much sewing, other than the improv fish, but more on that in a bit.

We are trying to get more fruit in our diet, and while I know that fresh fruit is better, I’ve been baking up this fruit crisp using frozen fruit.

It’s a recipe from my good friend and fellow quilter, Tracie. It’s so easy to make and easy to reduce the recipe for two people. It’s very tasty over a little vanila yogurt.

My kids gave me yellow roses for Mother’s Day. Aren’t they pretty?

That photo was taken on Mother’s Day, and they are still looking pretty good so I’m going to enjoy them as long as I can. Wilbs has been enjoying them too, tasting the leaves from time to time.

Okay, the improv fish project. This is the only quilting I’ve been working on for this entire month! Moving those blocks around from the layout I had in this post took some time, then adding in the spacer fabric as well. I was working from scraps, so it was tricky finding spacer fabric that was large enough and that matched the other fabrics. I wanted to keep the movement from light background to dark, and I think I did okay on that. It turned my quilt room into a terrible mess, so it feels good to have that cleaned up now!

This is the finished quilt top. It has not been squared or trimmed yet; I think I will wait to do that until after I have quilted it. For now, I have set it aside because I’m just a little bit tired of fish! I haven’t measured it, so I can’t even tell you that. It’s just a little bit wider than it is long, but I think it will work. Hopefully I’ll get it done soo (but no promises because you know I get easily distracted).

When I haven’t been in the mood to look at fish, I’ve been looking at birds. I was very excited to see a Red-headed Woodpecker appear the other morning.

With his appearance, we now have a pretty full slate of woodpeckers in our backyard. I have seen Downy, Hairy, Pileated, Red-bellied, along with a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, so the Red-headed just fills out the group. He came back yesterday and was a bit put out that there was no seed in the feeder.

I’m excited to see him because I haven’t seen them for years. While they are not rare, their numbers have been down, so it makes me happy that he has shown up. He’s aggressive at the feeder, though, so most of the other birds stay away when he shows up.

A little Indigo Bunting showed up the other day. They are such pretty little birds!

And the Baltimore Orioles are back as well!

How does Wilbs feel about all this bird activity?

This photo was taken one afternoon when it was around 80 degrees and humid. The past few days have been rainy and downright chilly – we turned the heat back on last night! Hot or cold, Wilbs loves his naps. He only wakes up during the day when I head to the quilt room, because he knows there are snacks. A few nibbles, and he’s back in his bed, zonked out.

And that is Life at Pieceful Thoughts lately. It’s a pretty contented life, and I’m grateful!

Wendy