March Quilt Block

At the beginning of the year, I decided to embroider a panel to represent each month and then at the end of the year I'd combine all 12 together into a quilt that documents my life in 2020. January, February, March, and April's quilt blocks are done and I'm slowly but surely catching up on the rest! I'm actually in the middle of May's, but I ran out of the shade of floss I'm using most and I gotta get more 😬Oh, but that does mean I can show you March now!

On the first of the month, I write a couple sentences about what's on my mind, where I'm at. Then I search through my magazines for images that represent or correlate to any major themes I wrote about. In this case, I felt like my thoughts were trying to spin out away from me, so I was working in my garden to help keep me rooted to the present and reality. I cut out the image of a straining man because he looks like he's being pulled up into the sky while he's pressing his palms down hard against the earth to stay grounded-- like my brain, trying to keep my crazy thoughts from flying off. The sprigs of leaves growing through his hands and mouth are literally rooting him to the ground. All the background greenery is my garden, I guess (It's just visual filler, honestly), and the lemons are my free-floating crazy thoughts that are always just... there. Lurking. Waiting for me to walk into them. 

With a drawing program, I traced the figure and added some literal roots growing though his body because, listen, subtle I ain't.

Then I traced that outline onto some fabric. (Cintiq background is the same picture of Mosh I've been using for over a decade now)

Next up, I experimented pairing my little figure with different background fabrics. As you already know from the  image I shared at the top of this post, I opted for the last green paint-splotchy one. 

And then... I embroidered.

Because I had fallen behind, I did a bunch of the quilt captions together. 

They read:

Feb: Lemony Snicket, our potted lemon tree, blossomed and is producing tiny fruits for the first time.
Mar: I worked in the garden to keep myself rooted while my thoughts want to spiral into the abyss.
Apr: Quarantine with Matt is actually really nice. I feel so grateful for so many things right now. 

Ta-dah! Donesies!

Of course there's always things I wish I could change, I know I could do better, but I tell myself to just let it be done and move on to the next. 

Here we are, the first three months of my year! 

Just nine squares to go.