Progress on CQJP 2012 and some beaded flowers

Progress on my Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2012 is not so great. I'm still working on May: Barefoot Girl. But I'm enjoying it and getting some good advice from the women in my EGA crazy quilt interest group.

This block's theme is another memory from my childhood on an Iowa farm. I was a barefoot girl in the summertime and sometimes so early in the spring my feet would be cold, but not cold enough for donning shoes. In summer the soles of my feet would get so tough I could race over rought terrain without any discomfort. And bare feet are very useful for climbing trees. I spent a lot of time in trees, eating mulberries, challenging myself to new heights and just sitting and swaying. After a rain, bare feet in the mud are a delight and help to dam up runoff rivulets.

I confess, I've never given them up. I still have my shoes off as much as possible. That could be why yoga is my exercise program of choice after walking. I don't wear shoes when I go into my backyard or visit the neighbors in theirs. And, I'm particular to have my shoes as comfortable as possible when I must wear them.

Here is my progress on my CQJP 2012 Barefoot Girl block. The photo of the girl is not me, but it could be. I found the image and the one of the dangling feet on the internet. I regret to admit I can't find them again to attribute them. I definitely will start making a habit of recording attribution for photos I use in the future.

I need to finish needle painting the cows and add a branch on the right to support the cat face (suggestion from Susan of my CQ group). The end is in sight. Following is a close up of the chicken group in the foreground.

I indulged a diversion while I was in Portland, Maine, to visit my my 9 year-old granddaughte, Lorelei (and her parents) during her school break. I took along the new-to-me book, The Beaded Garden, by Diane Fitzgerald, Interweave Press, 2005. I made a few of the flowers from the book with no particular use in mind. Lorelei gave it a try, but decided it wasn't for her. The beads were too small and she didn't want to try size 8 which I had. Here are the flowers I made while listening with Lorelei to Jim Dale read Harry Potter on audio.

Something Special from Peru

In July I took the trip I had been dreaming of for years: an Amazon River Cruise and Rain Forest exploration. I loved it. The weather was perfect, it was less buggy than here in Maryland, the trip leader was excellent and fun, lots of wildlife showed itself and the villagers (riverenos) were friendly.

I had my eye out for embroidery, of course. At a gift shop at an archeological site outside Lima, before we even reached the Amazon watershed, I found my favorite piece. Yes it's a  mountain scene and I didn't visit the mountains, but I had to have it anyway.

You can see it is applique and embroidery with stumpwork. Just up my alley. I will use it for pointers to add figures to a years-old UFO I have, if I ever get back to it.

Below are close ups of some of the stumpwork figures  on it.

 

 

In Iquitos, the headwaters port on the Amazon, there were other embroideries for sale that I wish I had bought. Ah, well.

Southern Spring, CQJP 2012 April Block

Oh, me. This isn't the end of April, is it. It IS the finish of a flowered block inspired by spring in the south. I'm a native of Iowa. When I moved from there in 1970 to Raleigh, North Carolina, I was delighted with the blooming of  shrubs and trees in the spring. Azalea, dogwood, redbud, apple, pear, and cherry blossom. And it goes on all summer with magnolia, crepe myrtle, mimosa. Just plain beautiful. I now live in Maryland, where it is still the south and I am still delighted every spring.

 The photo on this block is of the pink dogwood in front of my house. Mine is the the house in the foreground with the big picture window for viewing it. The tree is very old. I don't know how many more years I will have it, so I savor all the more the pink beauties it blooms each spring.

March CQJP 2012 Block

Yes, March brings the spring equinox and this year it was really spring when it came.
In Iowa, where I grew up the daughter of a tenant farmer, March 1 was moving day. Farm leases began on March 1 so moving in could be finished in time to prepare the fields and plant the crops. Of course the old saying about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb or vice versa was based on a little bit of truth about the iffy weather. In my fifth grade year, my sisters and I were snowed in with my Aunt Sarah's family for three days when a blizzard came during our move. My parents were snowed in at the new farmhouse without everything hooked up. I wish now I could ask details about how they managed, but alas they are gone now.

My March Crazy Quilt Journal Project  block remembers moving day, this time without the blizzard. The daffodils are blooming in crocheted glory and forsithia adds it's bright yellow to the day. The family dog makes the move, too, representing the livestock that goes. The year of the blizzard, our old dog Bud, made the trip, but didn't stay. He made his way back to farm where he had spent his life until now. He had actually been my Grandparents' dog and we had lived on the home farm after they retired to town. My Dad made arrangements for him to stay there with the people who moved in behind us.