Winter Daffodils

W: the kite surfer is on the previous post!

Hi everyone....hope you're all having a great week. Enjoying all that leftover guacamole still? Day old buffalo wings? Yummers, dude.

Anyway. I'm a little under the weather so instead of babbling on tonight I'll just show you my paperwhite narcissus, remember I planted the on MLK weeked , 2 or 3 weeks ago?

So amazing, to me....in a beachcombed large glass bell jar/ dome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

love

 

 

          lizzy

 

          ~~~~gone to the beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Porch Quilt : Winter

A Little Porch Time quilt

Hi! Oh my gosh, it is windy!

I hope to show you this very cool video at the end here. Despite the days' sunshine, I just want to stay indoors and hide.

Yep, the kitty has it right! I feel like I don't get much done but Oh I am tired.
It's the wind! That's my excuse.
And I need an excuse because I feel like a little kid who did not finish her homework. Today is the  day to show our progress on Lori's "A Little Porch Time" quilt along.
Actually we---I ---was supposed to get this baby finished, but no.

Lori said she'd love to see our quilts anyway, so here goes:

 

  

I did the stems on the borders. Partially. That is it. I figured out that dark brown birds will work on my mud border....and I patched together the ''remember me'' block ground for the backing, using my NYC fabrics. Pink beach combed template.
That's it...not a good show and tell :-(

I had estimated that the borders were about 25% of the total labor here...so doing the applique in one month, or even two was a [failed] challenge. I had hoped this would be a good January project but now I realize I rarely sit quietly and hand sew. Only on the beach, in the summer, where there are no chores, no calls, no post office runs.  I can't do fine hand sewing and watch TV, so it's senseless to think I'll sew during my favorite shows, the only time I sit and do nothing, usually.  For a few discouraged days I seriously planned to put the quilt top away, folded up with the un-stored as yet beach chairs [H. Sandy?] by the back door. I'd save the darn borders for next June, when I could knock them out happily in a couple sunny afternoons.

But I do love working on it and so I have been trying to pick it up some evenings when one of my kids is home, eating their supper...we sit in companionable, or so I believe, silence....he watches golf. I sew on my Porch quilt...for half an hour. Maybe we both think about hot carefree summer days?

 January is  a big month for me on Ebay and etsy, as I make and list many hearts and Valentine-y things. And you know how I love make-it-do  inspirations.

These hearts have little pockets on their reverse sides---a friend who wears gorgeous bespoke suits gave me a tattered suit jacket, for the fine wool. [oh his shirts!].....

But what I loved were all his fancy little hidden pockets in the ombre grey-rose silk lining.

A secret message to one's Valentine.....

And this was from a thrifting expedition that I haven't shown you guys yet. A souvenir shell box, once marked Miami Beach. 

I removed the writing...added a felted wool pad inside, for a pincushion. An old photo, a silk rosette [remember these, that awful vest?]...and we have a Sailor's Valentine of sorts.

Last make-do... an almost new but discarded bolster/ bed pillow. The child wanted memory foam, not primaloft. Instead of throwing it out, I took some unused batik  cotton , sewed a tube.

Squished in the bolster and tied the ends with linen twine.

A draft guard for my damaged deck door!

Good thing because here is the scene outside that door and window---

crazy guy on a sail surfboard, 50-60 mph gusting wind



love

           lizzy

    gone to the beach ................

 

 Lori's Blog:  Humble Quilts Lori's quiltalong/ porch quilt

 

there is a linky at the end so you all can see other quilters' versions of The Porch

 

 

Winter Beach

Hi! Let's go for a walk!
I was watching treasure hunter videos on You Tube the other night! Very inspirational, lol. And since the wind died down a little I could get out with my cameras.

You can see the path to the beach is already rebuilding itself, above.

My town is helping the dunes rebuild by piling up discarded Christmas trees. The branches attract sand and the dunes repair themselves naturally.
I was surprised to see so many trees.  I often think I am the only person around who buys a real once-live Christmas tree, in this age of prelighted green plastic. It's also kind of nice to think one's tree, once admired and treasured, then just tossed aside, can have a second life rebuilding the beach. Cool.

This isn't a very pretty picture, below---unless you think about what was here just a month ago. This is where that huge storm debris garbage dump was! Many trucks came just before Christmas and hauled the junk away in only a couple days. It was many football fields' worth of, sadly, the remnants of peoples' homes.

....

Heading west, far away, I could see this red thing! [just to the right of the brilliant security light which is actually another mile or two beyond and marks a washed out dangerous stretch of beach.]
See it? Big as a mom-van...whatever could it be?

 

 

No! It is the red channel buoy, still here. There is a red flasher out 10 miles in the shipping lane, so I thought this one had been hauled back out to sea.

But no. Either it isn't ours, or it was easier/ faster right after Sandy to just put a new one there. Its timed red flasher warns large ships away and marks the entrance, to my east, to the inner bay and fishermen's marinas. It contains a computer operated light sequence, and broadcasts information like wave height, air and water temperature, wind velocity. 
It sends out information to ships that lets them locate their safe routes in our surprisingly treacherouse water.
You'd think it was valuable enough to salvage, wouldn't you? Well unless it is from South Jersey or somewhere far....

 

 

Then the early winter sunset began, catching me by surprise a couple miles from home.
You'll notice the sky and beach get lighter again as the sun peeks beneath the snow clouds, before the final dusk.
.
I'll just let the pictures talk, enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then...the full moon, the January Wolf Moon, rose in the eastern sky...

 

 

 

 

And as I headed home in the near dark the first fluffy snowflakes began to fall. Pink snowflakes....happy sigh.

And hot tea...

love

        lizzie

           gone to the beach

PS   This was the only treasure:

Isn't it so cute? But too heavy to drag home. Look at the darling handpainted bows---even on the seats!--- 
and white weathered wood.

They seem to be old stadium seats that someone redid as a country kitsch, shabby chic bench. .  Too bad I have nowhere to put it...

 

***don't forget to click and supersize the photos!