It has been a beautiful spring here in the MidAtlantic region - lots of lovely flowers (the paulownia trees are flowering now) and the waterfowl pairing off to set nests and raise little fluffy ball babies. :)
I have been massively buried in taking care of my brother and my niece. There have been some happy times, too. A couple of local guild quilt shows to attend ... beading with my niece (who is a past master at stringing pretty baubles!) ... a few days here and there of sewing ... some lovely walks (until this past week when the weather turned unseasonably chilly and wet).
Here is a string of beads I composed in progress. I did finish it and a bracelet to go with:
We bought new summer sun hats one afternoon while shopping and I mugged for a photo to check them out (the color varied between the two a bit - one was beige, the other pinkish ... I chose the pink):
We went walking at Centennial Park one afternoon and Kim brought along one pair of her fans to Flow with:
We went to the long-postponed quilt bingo by Baltimore Modern quilt guild. My friends Barbara, Patty and Kim came with me. I got to see a quilt I made three years ago for one of the 'special' prizes. I collected blocks I had chosen from guild members and designed/assembled the top; other members quilted and then bound the final quilt. I love it! You can click to enlarge the image - take a look at all the great novelty prints used for book covers. Fun!
This past weekend I attended MidAtlanticMod quilt retreat in central PA, sponsored by five of the region's modern guilds (one of which was Baltimore). I had been to MidMod before and enjoyed every minute of it - and this time was even better. I had been feeling pretty left out of sewing as I had so little time for it lately - so it was a delight to be able to devote myself completely to nothing but for four whole days. :)
I got some happy progress made. First I spent a couple of hours resewing and refining the drawstring bags I had made several years ago to carry the various tools and accessories with my travel machine, Blue, my Featherweight. No photos, though. :)
Then I worked for almost two full days to make the first month's block of the Shoreline b.o.m. - the Tulip Shell. If you can imagine it, I improv foundation pieced this pattern:
The designer intended the shell to be made from just one fabric print but I decided to make mine more 'realistic' with assorted stripes. :)
That was so intense and fiddly, I decided to work on another block of the 'month' (I think it is actually two block a month?) I'm doing, Call Me Crazy. I managed to make the first two blocks and am really having fun with this - trying to work some novelty prints into my bright/happy batik assortment.
Oh, I almost forgot. I also participated in one of the collaborative projects at Mod - we had two. The one I worked with was themed around the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School of Architecture. Here is how it ended up:
One of the people who worked on it won the top (@robinbirdrobin on IG). I made the block in the upper right with the slanting red-brown strip (the roof of a famous house), the brick patchwork set in the lower left, and I sewed a number of the units together. I would have loved to win it! :)
So, things are flowing along. I will try to do a better job of keeping track of my life and recording it here - my memory is very visual and I tend to completely forget events if I don't write them down.
:) Linda
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