Yes it is May Already!

I have some catching up to do.  Time seems to be escaping me altogether these days.  As I watch my
mother living in slow-motion, I feel as if I have been slowed to her pace and that is so unlike me.  I struggle with wanting to move faster, live faster, experience more and do more, yet I am caught in her web of Alzheimer's dementia.  The house is getting messier and we overlook that.  I will not beat myself up for not being presentation perfect, and I keep my own sanity by being creative when I can.  I tick off the months with my mantle changing.  May has heralded the arrival of many cardinals, and I feel as if I was given a special gift to be able to see there bright red beauty of cheerful crisp songs each day.  I fashioned my pair (and yes I know that I made two males) out of cardboard and pasted some old quilting scraps on and outlined with a Sharpee.  The birdhouse if also cardboard.  It was in my new waffle iron box, and just the perfect size to make into the house.  I fashioned after birdhouses my father used to make.  They were little crooked houses with an off-kilter roof and had crooked chimneys.  Very charming and he loved making them.  I wish I had one now just to place on a shelf somewhere.  My fiber art Earth mother is by an incredible artist friend of mine, Louisa Brown, who used my scraps to made her.  I have a house full of her early painting work, and this is the only sculpture project I bought from her.

The red necklace is done.  I finished it a few weeks ago, but consider it still unfinished because I want to make a few layers to wear together.  I delayed over decisions for a focal piece.  What finally won out was a design that my sister, Melanie Renn, did for a Valentine greeting card many years ago.  I scanned the card and scaled down the image to fit the matchbox, which is lined with a scrap of red calico and a snippet of paper doily.  The piece came alive at that point.

Ostebro.se

The strawberry tunic is still in the mental planning stages.  Sometimes having something you consider precious is a drawback to moving ahead with re-creating a new life for it.  The fabric is a quilt top that I began when I first learned I was expecting my first child.  I had grand ideas of creating an heirloom baby quilt and traced strawberry designs over nearly all of the yard and a half of fabric.  I was new to embroidery like this, and used ONE strand of floss to do complete cover of the berries and leaves.  It was a far from practical idea, and by the time I delivered, I had only finished two areas and part of another, and I decided that if I kept at it, it might or might not be done for a grandchild.  Since patience is not usually one of my virtues, and I like to complete projects in a timely way, the quilt top got packed away, and surfaced very infrequently over the years.  My son just celebrated his 44th birthday a few days ago, so this has been hibernating a very long time. I fell in love at first sight with this tunic I saw on Pinterest.  It looks as if the floral design was drawn on after the garment was made, and a dash of paint added.  It seems a perfect way to create the old baby quilt top into something I would consider beautiful and useful.  So, I am considering how I will be cutting into the fabric and making the best use of the embroidery.   My thoughts are to do a white tunic over a red petticoat.  ...Maybe throw in some green and embroidered lace trim.  A new challenge arose while I was shopping fabric a few days ago.  The white is not white any longer, it has yellowed a little with age.  Also, most fabrics are now being manufactured in China, and are "crap."  They are sleazy and feel terrible even when they are 100% cotton.  I do not trust the dyes and other chemicals they use at all.  Prices are high for this garbage, and I don't intend to use it!  I will do what I can with my huge stash of real cottons, linens, silks and wools from now on.