A quilt interlude: The Power of Two.....

(I'm double posting today....my nature post Bugs, Bugs, Bugs..... follows)

Our quilt guild challenge this year was called "The Power of Two".

The rules were to get a quilting buddy and created 1 or 2 quilted projects that go together with the theme of "Two". You could only use 2 colors and were to work together on at least part of it. Last night was our "reveal" at the guild meeting. I think you can guess which project I was part of :-)

My quilting buddy.....Mary A......and I joined the guild the same night and have been known as the "Mary's" ever since. So we used the familiar nursery rhyme that every Mary hears her whole life as our theme....."Mary, Mary......how does your garden grow?" We worked both together and apart on similar vests. The top picture shows the front of hers and the back of mine. Now we can wear them when we go to quilt shows together!
This picture is the front of mine and the back of hers. It was a lot of fun and the idea was to foster friendship, as well as create something.

Here are some more pairings.....table runner and table topper by two very talented appliquers.



Tea for Two! These ladies were very creative and even added a label on the back with tea bag tags hanging from it! Really pretty!

These two created a "sock" quilt to be raffled off at their church.....great idea!

They took the "power of two" literally and multiplied!

Mother and daughter worked together on wall hangings for their den that represent God coming down to the parents (the mother's quilt) and the two daughters in the other quilt! They are new quilters and learned a lot working together, and ended up with a great project!

These two ladies created matching tops with the colors reversed! Both ways look beautiful!

Two friends worked together on a raffle quilt for their church....beautiful!

They said they really enjoyed working together and talking mostly :-)

These two are old friends and did very different projects (everyone interpreted the challenge differently, we found out)

Earlene added some blocks to Lois's quilt.....

......and Lois gave a "helping hand" to Earlene with her Bowtie quilt :-)

These two attempted to learn some new things together and learned that patience is very necessary in paper-piecing .......

.......their not quite finished projects

These ladies traded this baby quilt back and forth working on it and it will be donated to our Angel Quilts service projects. Wonderful!

Everyone had fun and some new friendships were created as well as beautiful projects. Some were old friends, but many of these ladies had never worked together before.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs.....

Time out for bugs......I've been seeing some interesting ones lately! A new damselfly at my home pond (actually on my lilies). I think it might be some sort of Bluet, but can't seem to find the exact match anywhere I looked.
(Tom, in Ohio says it may be a Fragile Forktail....thanks, Tom!)

This and the following shot are of a damselfly in the woods at St. Paul's Nature Preserve. No idea on this one. I find damselflies really hard to identify!

( I posted this one on BugGuide.net to see if they could identify it and the guess is that it is Argia Apicalis Blue Fronted Dancer female in the brown form. I think that I'll just photograph them and not worry about what they are....this is too confusing!)

Same as above

This bee just fascinated me watching it walk methodically back and forth across this flower gathering pollen! It's pollen sacs are so swollen, I can't imagine how it will fly away :-)

Busy, busy bee

Fat bags of pollen and a lovely flower

As I walked through the woods, all of a sudden I saw these bright mettalic green beetles on the path in front of me! I looked this one up.....Six Spotted Tiger Beetle.

(I guess with two of them that makes it a 12 spotted :-)

Had to throw in a few dragons even if they are the same kind I've seen regularly.

The Eastern Pondhawk male.

Eastern Pondhawk female

Another pondhawk male, but I liked how it looked on this green covered log.

Color and texture in the wetlands.....

It seems to me right now that there is a lot of color and beauty in the marsh at the wetlands. My eye focuses a lot on color and texture.... The Great Blue Heron against the yellow flowers and the green grasses....


......stalking a fish.....

.......strike!

.....a small reward for the effort.

I like all the different types of grasses and plants growing in the water.....colorful and great variety......short, tall, smooth, rough, willowy, sturdy

green on green

yellow on grey......smooth and rough

pink and green......smooth and bumpy.....even disease can be beautiful in a plant!

I call this tree trunk "the needle's eye"........I'm sure you can see why!

I could probably thread that one pretty easily.....if I were taller :-)

orange and green

shades of grey and green and yellow

white and green......I love these......so do the bees!

My lone goose......its never with the others .

Maybe it will find a mate in the young ones that are still there.

.....there are a lot of new geese to choose from!

grey, black, white, blue........ripples

There were more lovely and colorful things, but I'll save some for tomorrow in case I don't get anything new today :-)

Jacquie Lawson card.....

I hope this works: http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=1528761879590&source=jl999
If you have never seen any of the lovely cards created by Jacquie Lawson, here is one she made this year for the 4th of July. I thought all you birdwatchers would like the birds in it! I pay for a subscription to her cards and can send them to whoever I want, but I don't know all of your e-mail addressses. So hopefully, I am not doing anything illegal by posting this link. Be sure to view the scrapbook of state birds at the end and find your own :-)

Lilies, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, sunflowers, and a mystery plant.....

My double orange lilies are opening and I had to post a couple pictures! Look at all the buds on them! I'll be enjoying these for many days....

.....up close double orange.


I was surprised by this dark red one showing up, too. I didn't know I had transplanted any to that spot.

My red bellied woodpecker showed up while I was trying to photograph sunflowers, so of course I photographed him, too. He really wanted me to go away, so he could eat the suet.

My sunflower jungle is beginning to get out of hand. I should have my husband take a picture of me standing in the middle of them. A lot of them are taller than I am! Trying to drag the hose through without knocking them over is a real challenge.

OK.....this following plant was at the wetlands and I just love its fuzzy flowers! I have no idea what this thing is, so I hope someone out there will tell me! The bees really like it too!

Here are the flowers in multiple stages.

Thank you Sandpiper at Sandpiper Place ! Button Bush it is! This is what I love about blogging. So many nice people ready to answer your questions and share their knowledge!

(I'll post more wetlands flowers and such tomorrow)