Oh, Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Babies Roam...

Click to enlarge and see the babies up close.

So I live among some very eclectic farmers. Sure, there are the usual horses, dairy cows, beef cattle, pigs, chickens, sheep, etc. But we also have a neighbor with a zebra, a zonkey and a camel. Another neighbor has miniature horses. There are llamas on the family farm and some down the road. But the animals that are the most intimidating to me when I am out taking my morning walks are the buffalo. Yes, my husband's cousin raises buffalo for buffalo burgers in restaurants (I think it is an "out west" thing). When I am walking along the roadside in the early morning hours and these big beasts are right along the fence line, eyeing me and snorting, I admit that I feel very vulnerable. But I had to bring my camera along this morning so you could see the new babies. Aren't they cute?

And speaking of babies, today is my youngest grandson's second birthday. The family is celebrating on Sunday and I am trying to get this quilt ready for him. I don't usually use such bright colors--except when I quilt for kids.

 I didn't originally have the dark blue sashing, but I thought the quilt needed depth. When I had the blocks made and the cornerstones cut and everything on the design wall I hurried into town to the LQS to try and find the shade of blue I wanted. In the entire shop there was this one piece and it was one of those prints that has four wide stripes running the length of the grain. The stripes were 10" wide and only one of them  was the color I needed. There were only 2 2/3 yards left on the bolt. After carefully calculating the sashing I needed I determined that if I made absolutely NO mistakes while cutting I could barely make it work. When have I ever made no mistakes while cutting? Well, the quilting angels were watching over me. I cut without error and I have two 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch pieces left. That is it!! I think I was holding my breath while I cut. I'm glad I did it because to me it makes a world of difference in the quilt. As you can see, there was a lot of fussy cutting for this Dr. Seuss quilt.

Speaking of grandkids' quilts, a couple of years ago I made my oldest grandson a Disney "Cars" quilt, which also involved careful cutting. When I had it finished I realized that his two-year-old little brother was going to want one, too, when it was opened at Christmas. I took my scraps and did some "crumb" type piecing to come up with a second quilt, but I just tied this one. There wasn't time for anything else.

A couple of months before that I had used some Flower Fairie fabric that I bought on ebay to make a birthday quilt for my granddaughter. My daughters loved the vintage Flower Fairie books when they were young and my granddaughter had also been taken by the delicate illustrations, so she loved her fairy quilt. Besides--it was purple!!

The color on these photos is really poor. The colors were soft, but not quite so washed-out looking as this makes them appear.

This gives you a closer look at the fairies, but they still look too washed-out.












That is it for today. I am happy to have you drop in.  Thanks for your comments. I enjoy hearing what you think.

That shadow front and center is my head. Great photographer! This is from the road in front of the bee garden next to our home--but that's a story for another post.

'Til next time, from the little mountain valley where the sagebrush grows, and where we finally saw sunshine and blue sky today,
Janet O.