No Ivory Tower and batting dilemmas

I finished my Keep It Simple (stupid) quilted wall hanging earlier this evening. I sent it off to Dijanne Cevall and will await her go ahead to see when I can post it. I have to say I'm not entirely pleased with it...I used a new batting, Quilter's Dream Green.

This batting is made from 100% recycled pop (or soda depending on where you're from) bottles. It has a faint green color (not exactly the best choice for white sateen) and is as flat as a pancake. I wanted a polyester batting because I was going to use pearl cotton threads hand stitched in it and I wanted to be able to needle easily. My usual batting of choice is Thermore, although I have used a number of others successfully as well.

While Thermore is thin, it has loft. Dream Green is VERY VERY thin and has no loft. So....I used two layers. I did some bobbin stitching which was good, but when I went to do the running stitch, that second layer made it really hard to needle. I'm also a little concerned that over time it will beard.

I will use this for garments and table runners, but it isn't my first choice for hand quilting or for anything which you want to have some loft or dimension in your quilting.

Since I'm waiting to hear from Dijanne, and also from Judy from the Quiltart list to have the ok to share the two pieces I've done this month, I thought I would share something else from my back yard.

The top photo is one of MANY globs of dirt which appear in my back yard in the spring. I was mystified as to what they were when I first moved here, until Melissa, my friend from Louisiana came over and told me that they were crayfish (or crawfish depending on where you come from) towers and that this is one of the main reasons they earned their moniker of "mudbug."

When I peered down in this one, you could see the reflection off his eyes. Unfortunately the camera didn't catch this. The bigger the tower, the larger the crayfish. They build these towers quite quite some distance from the little creek at the back of the property. I'd guess up to 50 feet from the creek bank. They really like my yard, but I suspect it is because I don't use pesticides.

I tried to figure out which crayfish it is. I suspect that it is Cambarus sp. "paintedhand crayfish" or the rusty crayfish Orconectes rusticus. I'm not sure which because both of them are native to this area and both of them dig. I have found one in our swimming pool and another in the goldfish pond, but I would have to compare them side by side with the named ones. The rusty crayfish has become a problem in some areas.