Saturday 8 October 2011

Tidying up the scraps - and a poor magpie

After finishing my quilt yesterday it was time to do a bit of tidying up in my sewing area. I had these little triangles left over from a previous quilt that have been sitting beside the sewing machine waiting to be turned into half square triangles.
Once sewn together they had to be trimmed to a uniform size - 1.5"  While I was doing this there was a huge hullabaloo outside. Some bird was making an incessant call that I took to be a young bird trying to get attention.  That last part was quite true but to my horror, upon investigation, I saw 4 magpies beating up on 1 young magpie. I do understand that magpies have a very strict order to their lives, and young ones must always be obedient to the parent, even in adulthood (why doesn't that work for humans??), but these birds were trying to kill the poor thing and no matter how hard he called, his mother nearby could do nothing but coo out to him. Even when he tried to fly away they chased him. They ended up in the backyard 2 doors away, and his screeching became muffled as they sat on his throat. My daughter went and split them up and eventually he found his way to a tree in our back yard where he licked his wounds - and he was quite beaten up. But he could fly.
After ensuring the young magpie was okay (for now at least) I returned to my half square triangles. There were 44 in total, now added to my stash of little squares to turn into an art quilt one day.

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