Oh Deer

There was just a little more stitching to do on my latest hooping of Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. I finished that up after writing yesterday's post.

Now I'm making my way across to the right. There isn't a lot of stitching on the left side of the piece (so far), and so it's easy to speed through it, admiring my progress as I go. But just wait until I get closer to the top. That'll slow me down as the stitching gets more dense.

As I was packing up my embroidery supplies, we noticed two deer in the field. I'm assuming these are relatives of the buck we saw the day before. The doe saw me through the window, but didn't run off.

Her offspring was present too, but hidden behind a bush. I had to go upstairs to get them both in the same image. Sadly, I caught the doe in a rather unflattering position.

While she attended to business, her offspring looked around for something to eat.

Oh...these geraniums will do nicely! He apparently forgot that deer don't like geraniums.

And then he looked around for something more tasty.

Spying the rose bush, he headed that direction. I tried to get his picture as he nibbled at the rose bush, but he saw me through the window and ran off.

We have just one rose bush in the yard. It was a gift from a former neighbor many years ago. Sometimes it blooms. Most times the deer eat it. When we first moved into this house, we planted five rose bushes. I got tired of tending them just so the deer could eat every single rosebud. We took them out and gave them to Erik and Mae, and then I planted culinary herbs in the same bed. Then, the neighbor gave me the one rose bush we have. As expected, the deer love it. We think of it as bait to keep them away from the rest of the landscape.

It was a laundry day, and while the washer and dryer did all the work, I got back to my quilting. Now, I've quilted the top left quadrant.

Here's how that looks from the back. It's a little hard to see the stitching on this fabric.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the quilt back is pieced, and I used up yardage from the quilt top and some that was in my stash. I think I bought this particular fabric on one of my quilt shop outings for no other reason than simply liking it. It worked out well for this quilt.

Today is a grocery shopping day. My list is fairly short, and so it shouldn't take long. I should be able to finish up the quilting today. Binding strips are cut, but not sewn together, and so that will be next on the list if I can get that far today. I see a finish in my future.