March days

The happy news around here is that it is finally warming up!  Yeah!  No more freezing walks to the crosswalk at 7:00 in the morning bundled up so much that I waddle!

In  fact, this week I even managed to take John out IN THE CAR and we went for a longish walk around a nearby dam.  John is not much of a walker and he doesn't particularly like car rides as they only end up at the vets for him, but I thought a change of scenery would motivate him to move a little faster and maybe teach him that cars aren't terrible things.  

It sort of worked!  John pouted in the car but was interested to find us parked in a new-to-him place and he trotted along happily and enjoyed sniffing.  He even got to bark at a few passing dogs.  I hope we will be able to do this jaunt again.

I saw M-san yesterday!  It has been over a month since we did any sewing together but she texted me to ask if I wanted to see (and photograph) her Happy Village quilt that she had been making before she gave it to her aunt whom she was expecting to see next week.  I said "Yes!  Of course!" and M-san came over yesterday and we went right back to what we'd been doing before Covid plowed through our prefecture (still here unfortunately but the numbers are getting better.)

Ta-da!  My Happy Village is on the left and M-san's is on the right.  I tried to get fancy and put an odd border of sky and forest and sea around my seaside village and M-san added birds and a boat to hers.  I LOVE HER VILLAGE!!!!!  I really felt like I ought to take lessons from HER!!!!  Look at those beautiful eye-catching colors!!!  Look at her wonderful cut-out trees!!!  

It's true, that most of the fabric is mine but I think the last time I saw this I had told her to add rooftops and windows and trees and handed her some tulle and told her to go at the quilting.  I certainly didn't expect this masterpiece!!!  

The whimsical gold trees add a lot to her layout (my fabric, I'd never have thought to use it this way).  The quilting she did is AMAZING!!!  I kept looking at both our projects to see what made hers so eye-catching and I realize that she used a much thicker black thread throughout all the overstitching while I had tried to hide my outlines by using a very thin neutral colored thread.  Her black thread makes her village seem like something right out of a children's book!  I so love this!  And she really did a wonderful job with all the window details.  BRAVO M-san!!!

A colored pencil drawing I did of a sunflower as the sunflower is Ukraine's national flower.

And yesterday was March 11, in Japan, 11 years from the Great Tohoku Earthquake.  I went back and read a few of the blog posts I wrote after the earthquake and relived my thoughts and experiences 11 years ago.  My friend, Lorraine and I had spent the first couple of days comforting each other, there had been axiety for everyone and I was housebound for weeks afterwards.  I remember how fabric colors and sewing kept me happy and motivated...  

I still keep in touch with Lorraine's family still though sadly she is no longer able to write to me anymore.  I see many similarities between how I felt unsettled after the earthquake and how I've felt during this pandemic but there have been so many blessings in-between and I'm sure there are many more waiting for us all.