So, okay...It's March again. sigh......

March. Not my fav.....
 Except for the "winter is lousy" bit [I adore winter!] I think Dorothy P. said it well:

Summer makes me drowsy
Autumn makes me sing.
Winter's pretty lousy.
But I hate spring!

                                                           Dorothy Parker

And yet....

The page above is from my ongoing Nature Journal. The current book is in its sixth or seventh year.

And here's an art journal....

Yeah, I'm a bit of a beach/nature nerd, I admit it. As you all know, beachcombing is a big part of my days, years round. It's great excercise, right? No treasure to be found on a Stairmaster thingy at a gym, is there? And I just love a treasure hunt! See:

This is what the native Americans used for money...

Wampum...softly rounded polished bits of clamshell, still found on the beach.....

                            

And you all know about me and seaglass and seashells... 

These are some of my collecting boxes for very special finds...

an Altoids tin, with pretty scrap....

and tiny containers inside....each little box marks a special day or trip, or summer's finds...

A tiny glass and aluminum box of oystercatchers' hatched eggs....below:

A small pocket box, ugly but useful, it stays in my beach bag or cargo pants pockets...

Here are some of my art journal pages....You maybe can see how these subconsciously translate into my quilts, like on the previous post?

                

My mom went through a French stage, got me making the captions in French, oooh la la and lah-di-dah!

My smallest collage book....just 4 inches square.

Wonder what March will bring me... last year, a table?

not really, I resisted!



This year---the sailboat? A blue glass float.....

               

love

        lizzy  

gone to the beach...

Log Cabins and Shipwrecks

I love random quilt blocks....Recently I re-found  this clipping in my mess of paperwork, saved from a whole year ago...

[no copyright infringement intended, etc. From Quilt Sampler, Spring 10]

I thought it would be a fun change of pace after carefully sewing my HQ doll quilt....
I gathered my own palette:

I love the colors Jean Wells used

but I could never use them in my home or sell them...so I went with blues....

But I'm not sure these work. They need narrower strips, more solids (don't have!), more contrast....more---ooomphf?
                     

These are 5", smaller than they look in the pix, so here's w/ my scissors for scale:

I originally planned to widely scatter the blocks on a white ground, with maybe even some very small blocks, 2" & 3"; bright turq machine quilting in a seashore/ seashells pattern for texture.But again...better on dusty aqua?

                            

I also clipped out this ad, thinking this might be a fun use of the blocks, tweaked somehow.....
                                    
As the author says, small blocks are a good way to audition fabrics and ideas...I don't think these blocks made the team, do you?

 But it's good to change gears, do something unstructured, I told myself. So instead of cleaning the closet where I store my book collection---I went to the beach!

As for Shipwrecks! Bummer, my camera's USB cord broke and none of the dozen or so in the house fit! :-( So I 'll show you the cute but sad sailboat that washed ashore yesterday---someday.)

love

               lizzy

"gone to the beach"

Frivolous Fridays

Hi everyone! You know how lots of blogs have "days"--with links? Pink Tuesday, blue Monday? And that's cool, I love them...but here at the beach we solo and have "friv" Fridays (sometimes followed by Sloppy Sundays?)....

Anyway....Yesterday I dragged myself away from the  websites of Pugs of Color and  Funny Farm Pugs (OMG! They are so cuuuute, who knew?), avoided the lure of the beach and drove myself off over the bridge to Trader Joe's to grocery shop.

TJ's has about the worst prepared food you can imagine (eeew, last nite's Pad Thai! Lean Cuisine seems gourmet in comparison) but I wanted to stock up on their delicious cheeses, and nice fresh veggies for the weekend. I always try to choose one, new-to-me, cheese. This week I got French baby swiss...hhhmmm.....(rubbery?).

Threw in a box of [irristably yum!] Sea Salt Brownie Bites with the butter lettuce and radicchio, the artichokes and the Brussel sprouts and trail mix. These little chocolate morsels are perfect for apres beach hike, just one!---with a cup of Stash peach tea.

But what TJs excels in--and, I admit it was my reason for going there: the flowers! Just fabulous wonderful flowers. Cheap! They had rose buds the size of a thimble! Pots of iris and daffodils! Rainbows of tulips. Pink and grey velvety weeping pussy willows. Sweet tender lavender in 5" pots, ready to bloom, only 5.95!

But I finally decided on the hyacinths. They are so sweet, so rare. They smell so springlike. They are so frou frou. They look like ruffled baby dresses...and the colors! Oh my.

Sorry the pix are wonky! I may repost tomorrow when the sun comes out. Today was so dark! But warm, so no complaints from me. Treasure tomorrow on the tideline?

And tonight, grilled cheese on TJ's yummy sunflower seed bread, butter lettuce salad with pear vinaigrette, and homemade soup (yeah, I learned my lesson w/ that Pad Thai!)---a perfect end to a stormy day.

Have a great weekend! Quilty stuff maybe tomorrow?

love
              lizzy

                 gone to the beach...