Fiber and Pulp

Blooming in Place

The first spring that we lived in this house (in 1987) there were about a dozen azalea bushes blooming in our front yard. Over the following summer and fall, all but one of those bushes died. I was told this was because of nematodes in our soil that infected the bushes. Whatever the case may have been, we now have only one azalea bush in our yard - planted beneath the large Blood-leaf Japanese maple tree. It started blooming two days ago and is brightening up the front of our house (as well as delighting me:).

Unfortunately, I am not 'blooming' right now - more like languishing. My throat has been sore for two days (but I don't have a fever). I _think_ I am having allergy issues due to the heavy load of air-borne pollen right now. We have had a lot of nourishing spring rain and every thing is exploding in green and flowers. My black Jeep is pale yellow when I look at it in our carport. :) I spent yesterday and today pretty much laying about the house doing next to nothing.

My son and I did manage to cook some tasty dinner (oishy ban gohan - don't have a katakana or hirigana keyboard so can't spell those words out in proper symbols; means tasty dinner in Japanese:). I am now up to 325 days on my lesson-every-day streak with the Duolingo app. Don't know if I will ever become proficient but I do now recognize about a quarter of the speech on our anime films. :)

Haven't been sewing either. I hope to be able to do something this weekend - at least some nice handwork. Just have not been about to focus or think a coherent stream of thoughts.

Linda

Earth Day 2024

We are having a run of glorious weather here in Maryland this week. On Earth Day I decided to enjoy the outdoors by taking my brother for a walk in Wilde Lake Park here in Columbia. Almost the first sight to greet us in the park was this lovely pink dogwood tree. :)

There were a lot of little wildflowers blooming in the lawns at the park. I don't know what these pretty little flowers are - gently purple to white (NOT violets, I do know what they look like:). They were blooming in patches all through the mowed picnic areas.

We saw turtles basking in the sunshine in several places along the edge of the lake. Not sure what kind they were but did not have the usual red patches on the sides of their heads that I usually see in Lake Elkhorn (near my house).

I am pretty sure this is a pair of cormorant birds. They swim underwater and catch/eat little fishes. Because they lack the oil that keeps many bird's wings dry, they have to sunbathe to dry their wings after swimming. I have NEVER seen these birds in our lakes before. I don't know if they are a common sight that I have just missed seeing or if this pair are exotic wanderers. :)

Another bunch of basking turtles we saw. I think the water was probably kind of cold (we've had a lot of rain over the past three weeks).

Can you see the Canada goose in the lower middle of this snapshot? There were a lot of geese and various ducks (mostly Mallards) on the lake - I did see at least one diving duck so there were surely some non-Mallard residents, too. I was surprised we didn't see any nesting birds but I expect the pairs were carefully hidden. The lake shore is right beside a residential neighborhood and I would think the various cats and dogs in the area would be a hazard for the nestlings.

We had a wonderful walk - only went partway around the lake (maybe a mile?) and rested in convenient benches a couple of times. The air was fresh and the area very pleasant - I was surprised there weren't more people in the park as it was early afternoon when we were there. :)

I am hoping to keep up the daily walking effort (in good weather - I am _definitely_ a fair-weather walker:).

:) Linda

Coming Weekend

Suddenly the dogwood trees are lighting up the woods with their ethereal, floating white blossoms this week. So lovely! My next door neighbor has a pink dogwood blooming in her yard, too. I love spring! :)

I have managed to do a fair bit of work on the block for the Measure to Measure project for the Folger Shakespeare Library this week. My photos are not up to date (I worked on my block all afternoon today at Barbara's house) ... but maybe you can get some idea of where I am going with my design. :)

This beautiful little piece of couture garment is from a vintage wedding dress donated by Suzanne, the project Artist. 

I backed the bodice opening with a pocket, painted with textile pigments and then over-stamped with a hand carved (by moi) bird. I beaded the bird shape. Later the pocket will hold something important to the block. This will eventually be a conceptual portrait of the heroine of the play, Isobel.

It has been a while since I indulged my love of beading and embroidery. I am truly enjoying working on this block! :)

I took a photo last night of the dinner that my son and I made - deep dish pizza. A new effort for us. :)

It was truly scrumptious! I had the last piece for my dinner tonight. Yum!

This is one of the occasional weekends I have when both Saturday and Sunday have going-away-from-the-house meetings for me. Looks like it might rain and be in the 50s all weekend, too. :P 

:) Linda

Good Heavens!

Today I saw the first redbud tree in bloom for this year (well, _my_ year anyway:). My memory says they bloom in mid-May along with the dogwoods. This year everything seems to be blooming at the same time, though. Haven't seen any dogwoods in bloom, yet. :)

The Baltimore Modern quilt guild had a Charity sew-in today at Pikesville Public Library. I took my Featherweight along, thinking I'd sew at the machine but I ended up doing hand work all afternoon.  I took seven baby sized quilts I had made earlier along to donate. I put labels on all those (by hand) and then finished sewing the binding on one of them. There were a lot of guild members there cutting blocks out, sewing at the machine and by hand (sandwiching, sewing binding, appliquing labels) ... fun! I really enjoyed the community energy of the group. We got a fair bit done, too. Several members took things home to finish and we made about 15 child sized quilts that day (plus the seven I brought to donate and two that other members brought). Not bad for four hours work!

I feel as though I'm doing pretty much nothing right now ... and I see it has been almost a month since I last posted here. Sigh. As a dairy, my blog is getting shorted. I'll have to try harder to keep up with things!

The various small song birds that come to my feeder have been ravenous this month - I am filling the feeders (I have two) every other day it seems. I hope they are nesting and raising lots of baby birds. :) I saw another bluebird at one of the feeders today. The woodpeckers and small insect eaters have finished off the suet blocks so I need to get more.

I can see one of the feeders from my cosy armchair in the living room. I do enjoy watching them every day. I enjoy watching the squirrels try to break into the feeders less however - they are very persistent! I put out some corn for the squirrels, thinking it would distract them from the seed feeders. They are definitely eating the corn but it doesn't seem to lessen the feeder attacks any. Shrug.

What _have_ I been doing? A little sewing:

A block for the March Queen Bee of my modern guild's swap group.

I chose Shooting Star by Stacey Hsu for my block, in red/white and blue. 

I've also been watching the world bloom. My Japanese maple trees are leafing out:

My son, Hugh, and I are cooking dinners regularly (when I bought my quilt shop in '99, I declared myself retired from making dinners; have only restarted in actual retirement:).

My husband says we have got the making of quiche down to a science. :)

Generally I read quite a bit - that is my favorite 'escape' activity. :) Last year I read 169 books (according to my iBooks records) - I read almost everything digitally except for my quilting books.

I made a Baltimore applique block for a secret gift quilt (shhh!), using Kaffe Fassett fabrics and have another block design to finish for a different BA quilt group project. I have a crazy quilt in progress for a group project that celebrates and illustrates a Shakespearean play (Measure For Measure).

So, my life is ambling along without a great deal of wild note happening. I am learning to enjoy the every day as precious.

:) Linda