Marsh Meets Its Deadline! That Extra Day was Great!

 

Hello, hello! It's Leap Year Day! Well, as I edit this it's actually March 1st. March is mid-winter here, so no birds and bunnies and flowering trees to be celebrated anytime soon. The March wind is notoriously frigid and snow often happens through til April.

Just to clarify: The quote refers to a particularly sad time for me, the winters of Covid, when my best friends moved away, when we lived in fear and isolation. It wasn't very long ago, was it. But the rest of the song lyrics is "...here comes the sun,... and I say, it's all right..." [Here Comes the Sun ~ Beatles. I used to sing it to my children.]

My Big project for January and February was to finish piecing my Winter Marsh quilt top--and Yes! except for  a final press, it is done.

Some ideas I had for the final frame borders---I love this taupe ''weedy'' print. Should it be a narrow ''stop'' border, an inner frame? [no] 

Here we are trying the project on the bed for size. It is intended to be a utility quilt, but not huge. I 'll add just a final narrow border, I decided.

Back in May when I set this project aside for the summer I ordered small cuts of various plaids for the final border. Of course now ten months later none were available.

Almost any would have worked, only the brown---echoing marsh mud and ancient drainage canals---was glaringly wrong.

Many nights spent browsing. I loved this floral, would it be a charming contrast to Marsh's somewhat chaotic center? It has acorns and leaves, the colors ore great. Nope, long out of stock!

Or how about this one, a dead-leafy batik? On sale! Good if I wanted a 6 to 8" border.

What to do. 

I decided to embrace the chaos and went with using ALL the blue plaids,  4 1/2" strips somewhat plus the Moon Phases at the top, all randomly sewed together. [Works for me, costs nothing. Square it up and move on!]

Now the back: I am stymied by being unable to prewash the backing, no water or plumbing here at the moment, day three. The deep blue  needs to be washed and fluffed, it's a hard finish flannel and test swatch in my bottled water shows bleeding. EDIT: This backing is dark indigo BLUE, not purple; plaids that some readers are seeing as purple or lavender are also blue.. So pls imagine BLUE. I can't fix it bec the photos look blue on my monitor and in my photo edit apps.

I've had this flannel print for years, always knew it was intended to be Marsh's backing. It's Mason jars / mayo jars? with fireflies, a childhood favorite. Symbolizes summer to come with the sun, after Marsh's dark sad winter. I love seeing the fireflies in the marshes and dunes on summer evenings.

Oddly until I took these pics I never noticed the jars also have leafy twigs inside, for the lightning bugs, I guess. So sweet.

In my late night fabric musings I also found this lovely shot cotton[warp and weft are different colors] to be the binding. I like both color ways, hard to  differentiate on my monitor, which means the expense of buying a yard of each. I think choice number one is too green?

or

I also recently found this very XXXL men's shirt on a thrifting adventure. I hesitated, shirts cost more than fabric now! It was $19.95 at Goodwill.

But I knew I'd regret it if not taken so I did bring it home as an option. Quilting and thrifting in the 21st century are not frugal pastimes, are they?

So, pat on the back,  I finished as planned. I like a deadline even if self imposed! But next week I have the IV clinic and won't be able to sew. So Marsh will again be delayed on its way to the quilter. Liberty Pumpkin and Parsonsfield will go along and also be quilted. I am wanting things done and over. My next big project is to finish Silent Night [stars, snowman...], put aside two or three years ago when my vision suddenly got so bad. It too is a dark, very dark! blue-black winter quilt.

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Mo is here and glaring. He knows it is almost walk time. 

The floor is NOT dusty, it's the lighting. That's my story!

No cooking this weekend due to the  Plumbing issue. I hope by Sunday I can do my food prep for medical recuperation days. This is a make do gathering bowl this week instead. I was drying the seaglass from the narcissus, organizing a storage shelf w the blue birds. Only three more weeks til my Oystercatchers return, though these are sandpipers, return in July. Four more months til summer.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...