End of another month already?

Where in the world has March gone to? Was it washed away by the rain? blown away by the wind?? I only just got accustomed to the idea that February was over, and now March is gone too?? Who authorized that?!

March was full of many distractions for me. There was travel, and dance events, and travel for dance events. There was miserable drenching rain and billowing winds, and there was alluring sunshine. The sunshine was particularly devious: it made me want to attempt a garden. Doh! As a result of the weather, I ended up with several plant starts that needed repotting, so now I have five slivers, dirt underneath my fingernails, quite a few containers of potted vegetable starts outside in the yard, and several flats of five-year-old seeds taking over my dining room table that decided to germinate much to my shock and awe. (The seeds decided to germinate, not the table. ...though a germinating table would definitely hold a higher shock and awe factor than some sprouting seeds, even five-year-old seeds.) Yay! The beginning of a vegetable garden for the first time in YEARS! woot! My mouth is already watering with the thought of fresh peas and lettuce and green beans this season! I hope that my plants grow and thrive and produce produce! .. it would probably be more likely if I quit nibbling on the poor things long enough for them to get established. Heh. For the past two weeks I've been making a morning round of my container garden, peeking in at all the little plants and encouraging them to grow (Pep-talks help, right?)
And each morning I pull off one or two leaves from any plants that look big enough to spare them. :) Yum! spinach leaves and lettuce for breakfast! ... except that the plants are so small that I only get about three to five leaves total before I decide that I'd better not take any more or risk killing the poor things before they get a start in life.
(Patience is not my best virtue.)

All of which means that I ended up doing less stitching than I had anticipated over the course of the month. The travel and the dance events were very unfriendly to stitching, so instead, I took my tatting shuttles along with me and I made some tatted trims. You'll spot a couple of them on this month's block. The others will most likely find their way onto future blocks.


(The semi-transparent gray mask is my attempt to obscure the blocks from past and future months and clarify where March begins and ends.)
The wedge shape makes photography challenging, so here are a couple of detail shots as well:




I also managed to create my BJP mandala for March! woot!

Gardening and spring flowers definitely influenced my stitching this month in all of my work. The crocuses, grape hyacinths, and daffodils have come up in my yard to greet the spring weather (all three crocuses, two daffodils, and five-hundred-thousand-ish hyacinths that survived the floody-wet winters, anyway.) It's the color combo of spring greenery, daffodil yellow, and hyacinth purple/blue that determined my color selection for this month's BJP. :)




I didn't get much done on my TAST postcards, even with this past week designated as "catch-up week"-- so little, in fact, that there's really not much to show for Whipped Wheel and Barred Chain... I'll have to chip away at them as I can, and show them when there's something to show. CQJP and BJP take priority, and I'm really quite delighted to have accomplished as much as I did on both of those!

Tahlia: TAST wk 8, CQJP Feb

**SO** far behind schedule! I am counting on today, tomorrow, and Tuesday to catch up a bit and make some real progress with my CQJP wedge for February.


TAST wk 8: chain stitch : twisted chain with varying angles, open chain, magic chain (with two colors threaded in one needle), chain stitch to create shapes

I think I picked an unfortunate postcard for this particular stitch, as the stitch itself is subtle enough that it was tricky to find ways to keep the stitch from just disappearing against the energetic prints! ... also, this postcard would benefit from a variety of stitches instead of just one stitch. I think I will use this realization as a guideline for my future TAST studies, and try to keep prints to a minimum when I am trying to explore the possibilities of a single stitch, and use an excess of prints only when I am giving myself full permission to embellish heavily with whatever stitch seems appropriate in the moment!



CQJP block looks completely unimpressive at the moment!! My time has been sucked up by performance rehearsals. Last night was the performance for which we were putting in extra time, and it went really well! Everyone stayed upright, and glitches were minimal! :) ... but the result is that I don't have much thread on my CQJP block yet!



What I did get finished, though, is this lovely little embroidered interpretation of the valentine bouquet that my husband got for me this year! This pic shows how I turn the embroidered patch into a free-standing applique with finished edges that is easy to slip-stitch in place on my quilt block. I am REALLY liking this technique for appliques and expect that I will use it very often in the future!



So my CQJP so far looks like this. The rose applique is just basted on for now in the space I think that it might occupy, although the embroidery on the block might change the placement of the applique, once I get that done.
There is also a little growth to my January block from the last time I posted about it. Not a whole lot of change, but a little here and there.
I do hope I can catch up again!!!
At least I can say that I am not yet getting tired of this project, and I am very glad for that! Long-term energy investment in a single project is not something that I excel at!



I would like to say that I managed to find time to create a February BJP, but I didn't. This is the BJP that I made in January that I then misplaced, so I had to make a second BJP for January! ack. ... so this is my spare BJP which will fill in for whichever month doesn't get an official one of its own. ... hopefully that won't turn out to be February, because I have some nice heart-shaped beads that I would like to use for February's mandala! .. but it's nice to have a back-up plan!
So, for now this is my progress, meager as it is, at least it's still forward momentum. . I hope to be able to put up an update in the next couple of days to show that I actually did get something accomplished in February! the month's not over yet, and I need every single minute that I can get!

Hugs all!


The picture of the bouquet from which I sketched my embroidery.

BJP January

My BJP mandala for January!

CQJP planning progress

Well, I've spent a little time fleshing out my ideas for my CQJP challenge. I really like the idea of creating a CQ peacock, and I've been using my colored pencils to see what kinds of color patterns I might want to use. Here's one that I particularly like so far:

It will be different, of course, when interpreted in cloth, but it gives me an idea of where I might start.

There are giant white circles in each fan wedge for a reason: I am thinking of creating circular beaded motifs to applique on. I made up one sample motif to see how long it might take me (on average) so that I could decide whether or not to also sign up (officially) for the BJP this year. ... but my conscience is warning me that it might be too much of a commitment to tackle BJP as well as CQJP and TAST and SharonB's journal class and everything else that I need to do throughout the year, so if I can keep my impulse under control, then I will just be an UNofficial BJP participant so that I have one element that I can drop without guilt if my schedule gets too crazy.

Today's challenge: tidy my sewing room enough to enjoy working in it and be able to find all the fabrics and components that I might need/want to use!