Weekly update, part 2: finishes, a start, OMG, and reading

 

See the previous post for this week's wildflower photos!

I finished the pomegranate mug rug for my friend who will become Bat Mitvah on May 31. ("Jewish tradition teaches that the pomegranate is a symbol of righteousness because it is said to have 613 seeds, which corresponds with the 613 mitzvot, or commandments, of the Torah. For this reason and others, it is customary to eat pomegranates on Rosh Hashanah. Moreover, the pomegranate represents fruitfulness, knowledge, learning and wisdom." Source:  Chabad.org) 

It arrived on Saturday, just in time.

  She sent a picture showing it in action. 

# # # # # #

Barb of MB Services did a great job quilting Grassy Creek. I picked it up Monday and bound it this week.  It will be a raffle contribution.  94 x 94 is a big quilt!

I used a vintage print (red) and a rummage sale bargain (9 yards for fifty cents!) for the back.

# # # # # # # #

I achieved the two parts of my declared One Monthly Goal.  Part one was to piece the back for this quilt. I did that and finished the quilt. 

Part two was to assemble the blogs for the comfort quilt I am coordinating. There were many block-makers. I managed to make all the blocks fit. 

# # # # # # # #

Last fall I worked diligently to bust my 250+-yard CW reproduction stash.  I barely made a dent, as you could guess.  I tossed usable scraps into a box.  This quilt by Etherington and Tesene caught my eye. They used truly little scraps -- their units are 1-1/2". I took their idea and made 2-1/2" units.  

The gold strips and the green inner border are not CW prints but they work well with the CW palette. 

 # # # # # # # #

Just one book this week -- but it was a good one! (My husband read it first and kept saying, "You're going to enjoy this." He was right.) 

Caracaras are western-hemisphere falcons native to South America documented by European explorers (Darwin) and colonists. On the Falkland Islands the striated caracaras are called Johnny rooks. They are curious, intelligent, and sociable to the point of being pests. Jonathan Meiburg describes their present status on the Falklands, further north in Guyana, further inland on the Altiplano, and life in captivity in nature parks in Britain -- all of which he traveled to. He also writes about their evolutionary history with hypotheses about their future. Oh, yes -- he fits in a lot about the Argentinian/British naturalist and writer W. H. Hudson. 

"The researchers who study our planet today live in an age as full of insights and discoveries as the nineteenth century, and it must be maddening to be confronted again and again with the fact that many people simply don't care. Every scientist I'd met seemed to wonder how often they'd have to repeat that there's far more to learn about the world than we already know, how much of it lurks in the guise of the unimportant, and that all it takes to break new ground in the pursuit of knowledge is a desire to do the hard work of seeing. (p. 260).

Meiburg writes wonderfully. Now for a couple of National Geographic features and a PBS Nature about the caracara!

Linking up with One Monthly Goal, Oh Scrap!   Monday Making,  Design Wall Monday