Quilts of Valor Meeting

I was able to make it to my Quilts of Valor group meeting this past Friday and had a lot of fun catching up with what the ladies have been working on.  Several quilts came back in from the volunteer longarmers, including these:

This one was made from blocks made by volunteers from all over.  There was a Challenge from the Quilts of Valor Foundation and another one from the FL State Fair.  These blocks were assembled by a member of our local group.  She did a great job (as did the quilter!).

Wouldn’t the design of that last one make a great scrappy for any occasion?  Linking up to Quilting is more fun than Housework’s Oh Scrap!   Feel free to jump over and see other scrappies at her site, just for fun.

My thrill of the week (not) was coming across an alligator whilst walking my dog and day dreaming as is my custom.  The dog stopped and I looked over to see what she stopped for  -  we were about 10 feet from a 5-foot alligator that was apparently leaving the cypress swamp to visit the pond across the road.

We beat a leisurely, albeit a trifle hasty, retreat backwards to a safer distance (and me without my camera or phone, of course) and he slinked away back into the swamp with a little hiss acting annoyed that we had interrupted his sojourn.  But a skittish alligator that didn’t stand his ground and was willing to run away is a good alligator in my book.

The following day we saw him on the bank of the pond, so apparently he made it safely across the road later.  This time I had my camera, but when he saw my shadow he went into the pond.

Good alligator!