Old butterfly pattern used again.

The Holocaust Museum Houston is asking for handmade butterflies to be submitted for an exhibit in 2013 remembering the 1.5 million children who died in the holocaust. My embroidery guild is participating by collecting butterflies made by members and sending them in. I made mine from an old, probably 1960s or 70s pattern I have used in a couple of crazy quilts. It always gets interest from viewers of my quilts, so I used it again, making it about 6 inches (15 cm) square. It is DMC floss on a piece of hand-dyed cotton cloth that was given to me several years ago.

Snake, Pink Garden, Jedi

Oh, how can it be a whole week gone by since I returned from visiting my daughter's family in Maine. Daughter and her husband were very busy with work, so I mostly hung out with my 6-year old granddaughter, Lorelei. What a pleasure. She is an enthusiastic Star Wars fan at the moment. Here she is in Jedi costume. I put a video of her singing "My, my, this here Anakin guy" on facebook if you're inclined to view it.

While there, I finished this crocheted snake for my great-grand nephew Kyan. Crochet is such an easy traveling project compared to cq embroidery. The snake is about a foot (30.5 cm) long.

I have also worked on my Pink Garden wall hanging. The light pink flowers on the left are from instructions in J. Marsha Michler's Motifs for Crazy Quilting; the button flowers above them are vintage buttons from Accessories of Old (now in Frederick, Maryland) and the darker pink flowers on the right are from instructions on Honey Bee Bliss website by Mellissa.

Now this project is not easy to work on while traveling. I need to get some portable ones in progress. I have an idea to make an ABC book on values. For instance, "A is for All of Us. Aren't we awesome!" I have some fabrics cut into 10 inch squares for this and a few ideas sketched in a notebook, but it's not ready for traveling yet.

I have a fair amount of travel on my plate this summer, including a train trip to California for the Embroidery Guild of America National Seminar in San Francisco. That begins September 5, but I'm leaving in August to visit a friend near San Diego and spend a few days in Long Beach, California beforehand. I love traveling by train, especially in a sleeper. Lots of needleworking gets done. At seminar, I'm taking two 2-day workshops in stumpwork by Lynn Payette. One is on a variety of techniques and the second is "California Poppies." There is a picture and discription of it on page 26 of the seminar brochure. I'm looking forward to this. Somehow my interest is tending toward 3-dimensional work as evidenced by the Pink Garden.