Square Root Day Squared....

I am sure my family is laughing their heads off at me.  I am nearly hopeless when it comes to math.  Well, I can add, subtract, multiply and divide but don't ask for too much in the way of higher math.  I think it is because I went to 7 different schools from k to 5th grade.  In those days schools didn't test the kids to see where the gaps in the knowledge was.  And I'm pretty sure there were BIG gaps in my knowledge.  That's my story and I am sticking to it.  

But since it is still square root day - 3/3/09  here's another 9 patch to ooh and ahh over.  It is one of my favorite quilts even though it is getting a bit worn.  This is another quilt that Sharon and I made together.   The side that is over the bannister mirrors the side showing. It is a beautiful quilt if I do say so myself.  We gave it to our church in Columbia to auction at a live auction about 10 years ago.  DH went to the auction to support the church while I was in California visiting.  I'm not sure how it happened but he ended up buying the quilt to the tune of $190.  Wow! And it is only a lap quilt.  Sharon and I liked this design so well we also made a miniature version of it that we put in a silent auction at our quilt show.  It went for about $100 if I remember correctly.  Amazing.  Now, the quilting is coming loose on the lap quilt.

We chose to machine quilt it on the diagonal.  And, anytime someone tries to anchor their feet and then pull it up it pops stitches on the back.  Now when I do diagonal quilting I almost always use a rounded zig zag stitch.  (I don't know its real name -- it's used for knits mostly.) But it gives a nice look to the quilt and so far, the stitches don't pop out.  

The birds and squirrels have been missing from the bird feeder and the ground under the bird feeder as of late.  Well, until the snow storm yesterday.  This little guy's face is covered with snow because he was rooting around in the snow looking for some of the seeds that fall from the bird feeder.  He's a pretty timid squirrel because when he saw me looking out of the window with my camera in hand he scurried across the yard and up this tree.   I was lucky enough to see a squirrel jump into his nest when I was visiting in Maryland. (no camera around to capture it...)  Squirrels have big, messy nests.  I've been looking for one in our trees but so far haven't seen any. Hey, I'm not going outside in 10 degree weather to look for squirrel nests.  

I have the border quilted on the Nickel mystery.  And, I was figuring the amount of fabric I needed for the binding. (see notes above re: math ability.... I needed my calculator... which kinda belies the concept I can do the 4 basic functions...) Perhaps tomorrow I will get that done.  Time will tell. 

BLOGGING hint of the day:  I go crazy trying to get the pictures where I think they should be. And, sometimes as I fuss around with spacing I lose the picture entirely.  It vanishes.  After way too many months of blogging I figured out I could go to my internet program, which happens to be Safari on my Macintosh, click on Edit> undo typing.  If I hit it a few times the photo usually comes back.  YEAH -- no uploading the pics again.  I know the pics sit in some location but I haven't been able to figure out how to get it from the photo site to the blog. One of these days I'll figure that out... 

Happy quilting all.  Bonnie (and another happy birthday to Jenny.... :)