Back to Basics and Learn a New Technique, Week Seventeen

Plugging away on Floral Alphabet but little else accomplished this past week...

Back to Basics and Learn a New Technique, Week Sixteen

Five more letters done:

And 32 9-patch blocks:

And I finally mounted my first three Bead Journal Project pieces:

Back to Basics and Learn a New Technique, Week Fifteen

Four new letters on Floral Alphabet:

And I started piecing blocks for the guild row-of-the-month challenge - 9-patch blocks in two colorways are half done:

Some are a bit wonky but at this rate, I'm pretty sure I have spares!

Bead Journal Project - my March page

Better late than never, but then, can you just picture seed beads flying in every direction as I hacked and coughed my way through that month-long viral attack?

I KNEW what I wanted to do and it wasn't the usual green is for St. Patrick's Day... I don't really relate to St. Patrick, having very little to no Irish heritage. But I am one-quarter Welsh and March 1 is St. David's Feast Day in Wales. And one of the symbols of Wales is the daffodil (St. David's symbol is the leek but somehow, beading a leek didn't appeal to me. Besides, the Welsh have adopted the daffodil as a surrogate for the leek, since daffodils are in bloom in March in Wales and the word for daffodil in Welsh is Cenhinen Pedr (literally "Peter's leek")! 

Another reason for daffodils is that March 13 in this county is Daffodil Day for survivors of cancer. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PAR/PAR_4_Daffodil_Days.asp And I have several friends who are dealing with that disease.  So daffodil it is.

Another symbol of Wales is St. David's flag: a yellow cross on a black field. Not the red dragon one usually associates with Wales but still it makes appearances in parades and celebrations. If I had planned ahead, I would have put the yellow cross on the fabric first but I wasn't thinking (I blame that on my cold again). So I had to deal with it AFTER the daffodil was beaded. And so it had to go off center... but that's OK. I prefer asymmetry.

May I present Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant

Back to Basics and Learn a New Technique, Week Fourteen

Averaging a little less than three days a letter, here is my progress this week on "Floral Alphabet":

OK, I've decided...

It will be "Floral Alphabet", designed by Permin of Copenhagen and published in two parts as a chart in "Just Cross Stitch", March/April and May/June 2009 issues.

Back to Basics and Learn a New Technique, Week Thirteen

Nothing to show today since Garden Sampler is finished. I need to decide: will it be an Ink Circles chart (I have the fabric but need to pull the floss for two of them), a UFO (I still have a few long-term UFOs in my cabinet) or that Just Cross Stitch Alphabet Sampler that I stitched the letter "M" from (I have the fabric and the floss already pulled). Or maybe something altogether new... Hmmmm!

Of course, I COULD cut the fabric for the guild mystery quilt or even my Unstarted Quilt Project. To say nothing of actually stitch some of the blocks together... But that means I need to spend time in my basement craft room and it is so beautiful outside...

And I NEED to finish the March BJP and plan the one for April. It is April 1, after all!

A quandary!