Mid-March Miscellany

 

Special note: I was deeply touched and comforted by so many sweet comments about Baby Mo. I never realized he was such a beloved feature of my blog. Thank you all so very much for your condolences. Today I have dense fog, cannot even see the dunes--and high wind warnings. You'd think the wind would blow the fog away but so far no. 

Very chilly and wintry, but by way of keeping busy, spring cleaning has commenced in a lackluster sort of way.

March 17! The Oystercatchers should arrive.

I've been watching for them despite the fog. I assume they do not get lost.

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One of the amaryllis has two plump stalks with buds. I think it is Big Red. I rush to look each morning for a hint of color. The other three or four just leaves.  I'll nurse them along for a few years to coax them to rebloom.

I have been walking most days, trying to avoid [a hopeless endeavor] routes that Mo and I took daily for twelve years. Found another clump of snowdrops and maybe?? some daffodil sprouts.

This weekend I made a Minnie Mouse inspired doll outfit for my little friend who is going to Disney World for spring break.

I can't show it to her, as I luckily found out last night that the trip is a surprise. Oh I'd have spoiled everything. I don't know how her mom hides the planning and packing for a long trip, but she does.

Still have not chosen a new quilt project, though fiddling aimlessly with Boardwalk strips still. This is the inspiration pic, to remind you.

A boardwalk, if not The Boardwalk:

I'm also trying to catch up with my nature journaling.

My little July to December book was so neglected. Saved and sketched fall and winter leaves. 

A blobby-, shapeless  shell!

Layering images so does NOT work for me, what a mess. The pages need more thoughtful planning. Or ''skip, don't overfill'' the weeks/years?

I enjoy leaves, but--yawn?

Two issues for me with nature art journals are: if one doesn't draw and paint almost daily, all skills are lost. And my vision is so wonky---crooked flowers!, and my hands shake. See the correction?

So poor skills are setting me up for bad results. and Two: the barrenness of nature diversity here on my little sandbar island. I had hoped for some spring hikes to mainland nature areas for inspration and specimens but with ticks so prevalent, I get wary. Can't even pick up a bird feather or eggshell because of bird flu, huge warnings almost daily are posted

To jump start my interest and skills, I got this little workbook as a belated Christmas gift to myself. So sweet.

The book's outline drawings are so simple but so good.

 

I'll see how I do! 

Have a great week.

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach...

or not [love fog, hate getting lost in it though, especially with post blizzard beach instability and remaining snow drifts. I'll put a beautiful other year pic instead. ]  2017

PS I  hope readers who commented about Mo will continue to comment now and then. I do take joy in connecting to friends here. All are welcome withe the usual kind, respectful, positive caveats, of course.

Goodbye, My Dearest Boy : Baby Mo is Gone

 Baby Mo - 3-19-14 - 3-07-26

Yesterday I lost my best friend, my dearest constant companion of almost 12 years. There's a hole in my heart, in my world.

Dear Mo, no one could have ever loved you more.

love and kisses, mommy

''You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

You make me happy when skies are grey.

You'll never know how much i love you.

Please don't take my sunshine away."

[our song]

goodbye, my darling boy. We'll meet again somewhere in time, a sunny beach, a deck overlooking the ocean, filled with joy and sunshine.

lizzy

Blue Baskets and the Sidewalk Shopped Delft Bowls

 

Hello, hello---March is here. Those who think this means spring has come must live on another planet. Or continent, at least. January and February I was all about minimalism, not a quilt to be seen here [the try-out fragment doesn't count],

...except the subdued sorrow of Winter Marsh on my bed. It's ''busy'' but dark and very soft and warm, so it got to stay.

But now it's March. I extracted a few small quilts to bedeck the pine bench by the back door.

Old Blue Baskets,

layered with Julie Porter's Baskets of Blessings, a covid winter sewalong from that not so long ago  winter when we isolated and had only internet friends and online sewing groups for companionship and comfort.

I added  Blue and White Snowballs  mini, one of my earliest rescue and redo little quilts. Still loved, though it is fading badly.

I needed to move the amaryllis off the floor and onto the bench where I could see them develop each day. So far one has a bud. Maybe.

The delft style pots were dumpster scavenged over the years, the McCoy planter is from my dad. I think it had a small Christmas cactus or his giant one outgrew it.

The grocery guy finally brought me tulips yesterday! I ask every week, lol. These are from the NJ grower who does the delivery right to your home, anywhere in the US. These are a bit cheaper, 9.99 for ten stems--but the delivery ones are better quality, fresher. I was thrilled  when I found this bunch on my kitchen counter with the bag of food.

Later, when refolding my ridiculously huge stack of little quilts, I kept these two pretties out to enjoy.  I'll tack them up in the sewing room maybe for a while. [fear of fading]. They must speak to my German/ French/ Swiss roots.

Do you watch Dr Henry Gates' PBS genealogy show Finding Yor Roots. I always imagine if I was the person he investigates. But---my family is boring. The Swiss ones were  cheesemakers who came to the USA, recruited by Kraft to make Swiss cheese, late 1800s.  A French g-g-g-great aunt was brought here to make couturier ball gowns and wedding dresses. Her sister, a ggg-grandmother, was sent by their well to do father to keep the seamstress company, to go to college, and to find a husband. A cousin cousin's German-American dad was a jeweler in Chicago, 1880s? And so on--little lives, little people. Most of us are immigrant stock, aren't we? I see my ancestors' northern European roots in my love of what is so often called here in quilt groups, ''eye-popping color", though no one else in the descendants has displayed similar traits. My mom's fave color was chic beige/ khaki/ neutrals. Jeans were exciting--blue! And when i was very little she had a red denim skirt, oh my.

TQC postcard mini by me/ TQC colors

a FB Marketplace find, an unfinished top.

Today was drippy ploppy rain, chilly, but not frigid. The blizzard's snow in its tenth-ish day, lingers on. Ugly, isn't it.

The snow melted enough me to spy some snowdrops. It's too cold and soggy for them to bloom though.

I cooked before my IV day and weekend to follow.  Small amount of a new ham salad recipe I invented. Diced ham, bleu cheese, diced celery, dried cranberries, walnuts w olive oil mayo. Using up opened bags in the fridge.  I had a bite for dinner and it was quite delish. edit: the power went off when I got home from the clinic. It's 40* today, but the house gets very cold, very fast.

Talk to you soon.

Have a great weekend. (Springfield OH Flea treasures from my brother and SIL.)

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....