I know I'm busy when it's a shock to walk out my front door to the mailbox and discover that all of the plants (good and bad) in my front yard are a lot bigger than I remember. The zinnias are getting old and need to be pulled out. I have some weeds and baby trees that have got to go. So what did do? I took pictures!

I took this picture at eye-level. This is a big sage — I'm not sure exactly what flavor. I love this plant! It's a few years old. I cut it back at the first freeze and it comes back the next year. It's not exciting until this time of year. The last time I looked it was at knee level.

I saw clumps of red naked ladies. I have a vague memory of planting them and it's nice to know they're still there. 

This bush is not exciting. I think it's a Hawthorn… I planted it 15 years ago. After 3 years of nothing, I did my best to kill it for another several years. I finally gave up and just let it be and darned if it isn't getting big now. We put that Chinese pistachio next to it 3 years ago… maybe they like each other! 

I have an out of control area of salvias on the dining-room side of my yard. You may remember that earlier this summer I thought I was going to lose them all because of a pesticide overspray from my neighbor. I suppose what didn't kill them made them stronger. I'm going to have to dif up a lot of them when it is cooler and wetter.

But right now, they are pretty and the bumble bees are ecstatic! I caught one in flight:

In other news I've been baking. A lemon cake for Jack's birthday/pool party that is this afternoon. It will be at our house but I'll be absent for most of it. I already had plans for another party (which makes it sound like all I do is party). I and some friends are hosting a party (thankfully not at my house) and I'm going to work on the set up this afternoon. I made cookies and toffee bars for that party which takes me to where I was going with this: I had to separate several eggs. I used the water bottle separation technique (WBST) and it works so well that I now have a water bottle set aside for this in my cabinet. I thought you might be interested to know in case you haven't tried it yourself yet.

I've been making flowers from hexagons to use as flower centers. Are they cute or what!?

I find that I really like to fussy-cut the fabrics for my hexes. It's just fun to see what they look like as they come together. Here's a closer look…

I made these with the 1/2" papers which you can find here on the site. The bigger flowers in the first photo were made with 3/4" hexes. 

It's funny. I did English paper piecing 20 years ago and then let it go as I moved on to other things. I have re-discovered how much fun these are to make and to use. Linda was right – these are a great take-along project!

(And speaking of hexes… I finally got my computer to shape up but now I can't make some of my fonts work in some programs. It's making me a little bit crazy. I lost Arial earlier today and couldn't read any of my emails. Thankfully I got that one working again. Computers – I love them most of the time.)

I'm happy to be home! However, I came home to a cranky computer. I've spent most of today with tech support. I did learn a new thing (who knew my actual computer had a cache that ought to be emptied once a month!) but I was unable to do what I had planned to do today. Deep breath. Sigh. I did not go ballistic at the tech support people :-). But now it's OK.

On the home improvement front… I painted a couple of brass fixtures for my friend, Laurie, at Habitat for Humanity. They have a bunch of these in their warehouse, different styles, and they want to sell them. She asked if I could make people want to buy them… Imagine that you have a dated, brass fixture like this:

You can spray paint it! I used the paint I had. This is a matte white – I think it would be more fun in gloss, but this is not bad at all.

This is a different fixture in gloss red:

I would use round bulbs. There is more that you could do but it's dinner time and I really am hungry :-). I think you get the idea. My message to you is: spray paint!

I took pictures of patterns yesterday and this morning when I was out walking. These are all patterns in metal and I thought I'd share:

If you've heard me lecture, you've heard me say that I pay attention to what I see because I often see something interesting. Some of what I see might be good in a quilt. The diagonal lines (above) could be quilting or piecing lines. It looks like the size of the diamonds might be different above and below the squares. The designs in the squares could be applique! The scalloped line at the edge is nice as well.

I loved this manhole cover. Look closely at the way new lines are added to the wedges to the outside of the circle.

This would be fun to piece.

And then there's this one. I've posted it on flickr, facebook, and tumblr (see, I'm using all of my current social media platforms!)

What got my attention first were the circles. Then I read the words. Sanitary sewer… couldn't that be a very clean sew-er? That's us!

I had some time this afternoon to work on my tumblr page. Oh, please click here so that I don't think the time was spent in vain :-). If you don't follow me on twitter, instagram, or facebook, you'll see the photos I've posted lately. The tatooed chicken is sort of worth a look. 

A short story about the chicken… it's big and up on a sign pole in a not-so-lovely part of Hot Springs. I had to circle back to take the picture. A patrol car was parked underneath the chicken and I was pulled into a scary-looking liquor store parking lot in front of him, with iPhone out snapping photos. I wondered what he was thinking… but I just had to get a photo of this tatooed chicken! The print you can't read under the wing says 'Don't be a chicken' — meaning just go ahead and get a tatoo. I didn't.

I've also started a show & tell group in flickr. This page has real fun potential. Again, please do click here. I've posted the first photo. Click, add your photos to the group. Come back often. I'm going to love seeing how you use our patterns but I think you all will enjoy seeing what gets posted even more!

Enjoy your stitching tonight. I'm going to come back to the hotel after dinner, turn off the computer and sew hexagons together.

I'm in Little Rock, eating breakfast and getting ready for a day of teaching. I'm looking forward to it – the ladies in the class are very nice and they are excited! I think we'll all have a good day.

I just saw this video on The Quilt Show site and had to share because it almost hits home. I've been working in the last few days to be more connected social media-wise. I'm trying to figure out how to mesh facebook, flickr, tumblr, twitter, and pinterest with my life. Just setting up all the accounts so that they talk to each other is making my head hurt. I've spent some time with my head in my various iDevices but I can thankfully report that I have not taken any photos of my food!