Back to Basics and Learn a New Technique, Week Nineteen

Another row of letters... basically just the letter "z" and the borders left:

Also finished April's Bead Journal Project last week *and* cut the fabric for the April installment of the Black Swamp Quilter's mystery row-of-the-month project (beginning to worry that I won't have enough of my dark red, dark green and yellow solids to finish this piece...)

April Bead Journal Project - a little late

I struggled with this one. trying to avoid the usual "April Showers" theme, especially since it practically didn't rain at all here in April and was the warmest April on record to boot. So we got April flowers with no showers!

The irony is, it's raining a LOT in May!

Anyway, here's is "April Flowers":

Back to Basics and Learn a New Technique, Week Eighteen

More letters on "Floral Sampler" but that's all this week...

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