Undercover Maker Mat

 I have been wanting to make a mat with pockets to put under my sewing machine when I'm at retreats and my sewing groups.  I found an orphan butterfly block that I made last year to test a swap pattern and realized the designer of this block also had a free mat pattern!  You can find the patterns for both the butterfly and mat at Lillyella's website here. 

You can also use it as a sewing machine cover as well!

Tim took me back to the Heron rookery on Sunday so I could take more photos.  There wasn't a lot of activity as all the chicks are still quite small and you can only see the tops of their heads when they are resting in the nest.  This time I just picked one nest that I could get a clear view of and kept my camera on a tripod focused on that nest.  This is what I was looking at for 30 minutes, I could just see the fuzzy heads of the chicks so knew they were in there.  I was hoping this adult was waiting for its mate to return with food.

My patience paid off!  We saw a heron approaching and all of a sudden she stood up tall and stretched her neck out! Yah I picked the right nest!

Then all three chicks popped up and were very excited!

Here comes lunch!

It was now the other parents turn to go catch some food!

I just ordered a new 2x teleconverter for my camera and hope it allows me to take closer clearer photos of the herons when we go back to check on the chicks in a few weeks.