The Hummingbird Ballet

Several times a day at the hummingbird feeder, a dance is performed as the hummingbirds ( 10 at last count) zip in, around, and to the feeder to sip some hand-made nectar. Turf wars ensue. Some of the females take turns luring the males away from the feeders so they can feed in peace. Sometimes the males gang up on the females to chase them away: other times they battle one another. All the fighting frenzy and jostling for a perch position creates an arial ballet that continues all day, with short intermissions.

 I sat on the deck the other day and took the following pics in about 15 minutes' time.

a male between two females
his green colouring is darker, and his face and neck appear black with irridescent  red

a female with her tail fanned out
it seems as though the fanned tail is a challenge

here you can see the flash of irridescent red on the male's neck
this is a close-up of the pic below

this is a young female
her green is very light but still irridescent

this male is challenging the female

two males feeding together

I sure don't need to watch t.v. for entertainment!
I was changing the feeder the other day, and heard the buzzing of a hummingbird at my back. It drew closer, buzzed over my shoulder and hovered over the feeder, checking me out.
Startled, I froze, and watched the female as she perched on the feeder and began to eat. My hands were still on the feeder, and my face was less then a foot away from her. Definitely a WOW! moment!
She took several deep slurps, and watched as a second hummer flew close. It was not as brave as the first, and left before landing. After several minutes, the female had quenched her thirst and flew off into the trees, and I then returned indoors to watch them from the porch window as several hummingbirds converged on the feeder. The ballet began again.

I hope you have the joy of watching birds wherever you live.
Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz

TAST and WIP's

TAST this week is the Pekinese Stitch and I've started a CQ block with a cute pic of my granddaughter, and I thought it would be the perfect spot to add some lacy looking stitches. Can you say pretty pink pekinese?

Jewel is pretty with a flowery pink headband and surrounded with layers of pink fabrics

here's a better look at the pekinese in Wildflowers Primrose thread. The colours are lovely, I think

I can see in this close up that I need to work on my tension.......
I have 2 layers done, and I'm thinking of adding at least 1 more........

The first Christmas stocking for the StitchMAP swap is finished. The theme is silver, and I'm pleased with how it turned out........

on the second stocking I added some silver buttons with a silver flower charm

here's how it looks so far.........

stocking three may just have a silver shisha on some silver fabric....it looks like a very, very fine mesh

I added some silver jingle bells on silver beaded 'rope'

silver stitching and beads

a silver and white bead trail on lace

stocking #3 so far

I've been knitting a little dress for baby Jewel
here's the front all finished, and I'm almost done the back ......... since I don't know just how tall she is, I'll wait until after she arrives before I knit the dress together.......

only 2 more sleeps until our daughter, her hubby, and Baby Jewel arrive!!
I'm so excited!!
I expect to be quite busy enjoying the family, so I may not be able to post regularly. Although I have a couple posts prepared for when my company is here, I may not be able to reply to your wonderful comments, but I'll be thinking of you.
I know I'll miss reading your blogs and seeing what you're creating, but I'll have lots of time to catch up once my company leaves mid-October, to return home to Australia. But while they're here, I plan to enjoy every moment!
Wishing you all weeks of stitching fun, good weather, and happy, creative days!

Thanks for visiting.

Hugs from Suz

TAST- Cast-On Stitch

 I've been working on some Christmas stockings for a swap at StitchMAP and thought it would be a nice surface for TAST this week.


I used a cream silky, gimp-like thick thread with a strand of DMC silver thread to create some flowers and leaves.

french knots for the flower centers

cream on cream is hard to photograph, so I had to magnify these quite a bit....

here's how the stocking looks so far


the theme is silver
 though some of the fabrics look quite gold in the pic, they are more of a cream colour.......


I'll show more later as I make progress on my swap stockings

Hope you're having a wonderful stitchy week!


Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz