The End of March

Since the last post we have experienced a few more days of winter, but spring is definitely pushing forward. My lilac has green showing from the leaf buds, I see some green on the butterfly bushes, an a maple tree is starting to bloom; and in the pots on the front porch a volunteer strawberry and some marigold seeds? Or are they weeds showing some green?

I hosted a regular meeting of the small group on St. Patrick's Day… for lunch and afternoon of quilting social. Can’t say we do much sewing… but we sure cover a lot of quilting with talk!! We meet on the first and third Wednesdays of the month for lunch and sometimes some of us actually have something to work on! Since it was at my house I didn’t have a hand project. I spent all my time cleaning and cooking. For lunch I served a Zucchini Soup, a spinach and strawberry salad and hot from the oven mini ‘mufkits’, (light like a biscuit but shaped like a muffin) with honey butter and for dessert an apple cranberry cake. Wish I had thought to take a picture.

But, since then I have been playing in and straightening up the sewing space. Remember the partially embroidered elephant from my last post? I started it in an African Folklore Embroidery class, with Leora Raiken. Well my elephant is done and I have even incorporated it in to a project! I rearranged him a little. I thought he needed a bigger ear, so I again took a few stitches out and made the correction. He has a beaded eye, although it appears to be white, it is a pink glass bead. I am debating on whether to add more beads to the piece as a whole…. I will get opinions on Wednesday. I host the small group again, it’s the 5^th Wednesday of the month, and I offered to host those… as a project day… what was I thinking?

I am working on a small quilt for a family baby. I have been working on it for several weeks. I am down to stitching the binding to the back… I am also working on a play piece, about the size of a baby quilt in pinks and grays…. Made mostly to practice machine quilting on the domestic… I still need lots of practice!!! I need to make several quilt labels, but will work on that later this week.

DH arrives home from South Africa tomorrow. I pick him up at the airport. It has been a very interesting and fun year. He left last year on April 2^nd to spend 6 months working in South Africa. He liked it so well that he volunteered for another 6 months. I have visited him twice in the last year and he came home for a month about the halfway mark. There will be more on South Africa coming up… so stay tuned.

As always….. more later… much more!