Shira is growing like a weed, none of the dresses I’ve made her fit anymore. For an active girl who loves dresses, knits is the way to go.
I made these two, can you guess which one is her favorite?
Yup, the longer, fuller, frillier one. She made the headband, one of these days I need to start teaching her how to sew.
Love the dress with the sparkly sneakers.
Back view
I did have to shorten the sleeves. The whole dress is a little big, the sleeves were way to long. She won’t outgrow this one too quickly.
Lets take the picture by the fountain she said!
How is this pose? Great! Yup, there are always shorts underneath, so when she bounces and cartwheels she is still covered up.
Back view.
Both patterns were intended for woven fabric. I removed the seam allowance in the back and sewed them both up very quickly on my serger.
I had taken the serger to a sew day, never again, even though it was in the case, the case tipped over and a small plastic piece broke, serger still works fine, but I can’t go around having my machines break, it will be the featherweight or nothing from now on.
Leah
There must be crevices with snow year round. We are used to this from the Sierra Nevadas. These mountains are half as high, but they are much further north.
We stayed in a small old hotel/motel, but look what we have. Lake front view, Chairs and ducks.
What are the Adirondacks without some good old Adirondack chairs???
Even better in rainbow colors. We took a boat ride, to view the ‘camps’ from the water. In this neck of the woods, camp means a very large expensive summer home on the lake.
Justa kid out enjoying the lake on his unicorn.
In other locations we saw the taxidermy of Elk and Moose heads. This fellow was cute. The town of Lake Placid is very nice, enjoyable to walk around.
There is a Jewish Synagogue in town, mostly closed for the summer. 
The wedding itself took place up on top of Whiteface Mountain. We were bussed up there and were a little surprised at how hot it was. We were warned it could be very cold and windy.
Look at that view!!! That is Lake Placid beflow us. No wonder the couple wanted to get married up here.
It did.
This is what you get for all that rain, lush green, huge flowers and hops. Yes, these are hops, I hope they end up in someones beer.
where I keep my eyes open for interesting things.
Pretty entrances.
and pretty pots with flowers. 
The hollyhock is blooming. 
Here it is May and there is a slight rain, I grabbed a picture of a cat.
He jumped down and wrapped himself around my feet. Now you can really see the rain. 
He followed me down the street, and only stopped when another cat came out to defend his territory.
Because my grandson has a ‘thing’ for ‘mingoes’ I had to had to take this picture. Flags are everywhere. 
Since the US embassy opened not far from here, this is a common sight as well.
I am really enjoying hand applique these days. This one has some tiny parts, which might be overkill, but it’s good to know I can do this.
Although I’m not interested in more of this. I went to the designers’ website, I wish her well. But one set of flowers like this is enough for me. Not because of the difficulty, but because this kind of design simply isn’t my style
Appliqued the black circle to a brown background. It came with a tiny print for the back, that just felt too busy for me.
Close up of my work. Did I say how good I feel about my workmanship?
The paper inside is supposed to dissolve when washed. It worked! I hand washed this with Soak and it melted away.
Bought a cheap pillow at Big Lots, cut away the cover and voila! A new cushion. I’m not that big on pillows, but what can I say, my house is filling up with them…
I think I mentioned that I was concerned about having enough background fabric. So I bought a new background, it’s the top blocks. I think I like the brighter yellow tone more than the khaki. I know I’ll do something with the blocks I already made. Something else.
Have I mentioned I’m appliqueing flowers in some of the rings? Take a closer look at the upper right-hand bird, The outer ring is done in the light blues only. Except, once you step back from the quilt, it doesn’t really show up. So I decided to add some birds.
I only have three of these light blue rings and wanted more birds. Here is the quilt top finished, with eight birds. Hopefully, they are scattered in a pleasing manner over the quilt top. 
This is an opportunity to use my appliquick tools. Here is the first bird. I think it looks just fine.
Here is the final bird, maybe you can’t tell, but I feel like I’m getting better with these tools. My tiny circles are rounder. I know, it won’t matter, the quilt as a whole is lovely. 
I do enjoy mastering a new skill and with all these birds and circles, I feel very very comfortable with the appliquick tools now.
I can’t say I love all the birds equally, I’m luke-warm on this one.
The flower here is probably too big.
The bird is fine, the vine, too big. But I was practicing making vines, and I’m pleased with how it came out, even if it’s a bit big in comparison to the bird.
Just right! As I said, I’ve had fun with this and am really in the mood for a major applique project, something like a Baltimore album, but not with all the old-fashioned blocks. We shall see. This needs to be quilted and I do have other projects to work on, not full-size quilts. Also, now that the weather is warming up, I want to get back to sewing some more garments.
our resort, Ramons’ Village, is lovely. Cabins set in a jungle like,e setting, as small as the property is, we’d get lost at night trying to find our cabin. Here is the view down the path to the beach. 
The beach, this island really doesn’t have much beach, this resort built out a sea wall and imported a lot of sand in order to create a large beach. 
The colors are pure Caribbean. 
some structures need help.
Old anchor 
School is one block up in town. They have an hour and a half lunch break. Some kids go home, some hang out on the beach. 
Christmas isn’t quite over, I tried hard to frame the elf, Jesus, the church and the palapa in the background. Sort of tells the story of this town in one shot. 
Many buildings in town are painted brightly, every street sign has a fish atop it
The whole area is tiny, so seeing the back of houses is not unusual. If you think these people are poor, take a look at the air conditioning unit. The tropics take their toll on buildings quickly. The traffic is like LA but with golf carts, bikes and a few vans. 
I have no ice what this caveman in the traffic circle represents. 
we rented a golf cart and with a young couple we had met at DuPlooy’s we drove 10miles north to Secret Beach. It isn’t secret anymore, but the last 4 miles were on a very bumpy dirt road. There were a lot of people here. Because of the road condition we didn’t want to stay for sunset, so we went back and stopped at a place called the Truck Stop. A bar and food trucks all in shipping containers. They had an area for games, they show movies outdoors on Wednesday nights. It’s only two years old, but it is thriving. 
They are on the lagoon side, so this is no joke. We didn’t see one, but other people told us they had. 
someone’s heaven.
It was the perfect place to watch the sunset. 
Goodbye to Belize and a wonderful vacation.
Here we are on the Macal river, with a canoe and no guide. Joel went up to ask where he is, he’ll be right down. Nope, he never showed. Our salvation came in Roxanne, the resort accountant, although she had never canoed down the river she was game. So were we, let’s go on an adventure.
A group of canoes came upstream, luckily for us, we were going downstream. 
We had to navigate some rapids, being in a metal canoe meant we scraped up on some rocks and had to avoid low hanging branches. No one fell out!
Cows grazed along the shore. Roxanne told us her story. She was born in San Ignacio, due to an aunt in Tulsa OK, she was able to go there and study accounting. Now, she is back home, working at DuPlooy’s.
A tiny waterfall. We joked about her job description. How this can be an additional part of the job. 
Over two and a half hours rowing on the river is a long time. By the end, the river was wide and flat and we were tired. Of course we were thrilled to see the bridge that indicated that we had arrived! Just make it under the bridge and we are there. 
look who else came out to greet us, a very large male iguana. He is yuuuge!
We landed. 
we made it safely. We wore the life vests, for whatever they worth. Roxanne otoh didn’t have one. Ah Belize.
Since this is her hometown she now became tour guide. The resort sends everyone to a certain restaurant in town, that is where the oars and vests are stored. That is where pickups are arranged. I’m sure the food is good, but we wanted local. 
So we went to her favorite local place, yup, just as good as Benny’s. Then she borrowed her moms car, and we drove back, seeing her home, her elementary school and her moms restaurant. We would have gone there, but it’s closed on Mondays.
this is a small archeological dig, but just right! To get there we needed to cross a river. 
we crossed on a hand cranked ferry. 
For years I toured the Central American gallery at LACMA, so I know how little we know about the Maya. I take information with a bowl of salt. At this site most of the structures or this Temple were rebuilt. People won’t come to visit an area that only has faint footprints of buildings. So they rebuild. 
The smooth rocks are original, the jumble of rocks above are what was rebuilt. Clearly the Maya took more time and effort. One of the ideas about the smooth stones is that they burned the limestone, ground it to dust and then created smooth bricks. That takes a lot of clear cutting and burning trees. So no, the Maya weren’t great stewards of their environment. 
These glyphs are reproductions, based on the remains they found. Gives you an idea of how tall the Temple was. 
This would never be allowed at the bigger sites, or heaven forbid in the US, very different rules here. Just so you can see how high up we are:
There is a small ball court. There are so many theories about the game, I think it was just a precursor to soccer.
A very compact site. There is a lot more to uncover, but it’s not clear there is the money to do so. The Mayans were a very stratified society, rulers, who could read and write. Middle class who did most of the higher level work and then the masses of hard working laborers who did all the manual work. So as the surroundings were degrading, society fell apart. The lowest class probably melted back into the distant forests, with the skills to survive. The other classes, not so much. With them was lost the lore and The ability to read and write. Many claim to be descendants of the Mayans, genetically, they are, but none of the culture survived.
On our way back we watched horses go on the ferry, then it was on to the best restaurant for rice and beans and stewed chicken. These foods are common throughout Central America, yet each country has it’s own spices and flavors. The Mayans May have had beans, but no rice (Asia) or chicken either. They probably ate the local rodents.
A visit to San Ignacio, the nearby town. You can see what I mean by bright colors. A three story building is unusual, I was wondering, is this Art Deco, or Mayan influence? I’m going with Mayan.
The colors! The population here is one big melting pot, native, African, European, East Indian and Chinese. They all seem to mix. One the surprising things was to learn that there are. There are Mennonite and Amish communities as well. Most of the Amish are up north, we did see one woman with a long blue dress and a Mennonite with her tiny bonnet and floral dress. 
Love the name of this street. Just around the corner we stopped for a rum tasting. We got a history lesson along with many tasty rums. I do enjoy visiting local distilleries when possible. Who knew rum was so good on its own. 
The Macal river, the bridge was built in 1949, the other side is Santa Elena, but they operate as one town. 
So glad we didn’t stay in this ‘hotel’. 
A row of typical houses. Especially the unfinished second floor, that is a hallmark of third world countries. I like how the blue house on the corner fits into it’s unusual shape, especially that roofline. 
A church, the countryside is full of them, every denomination is represented. 
English is the official language since Britain controlled Belize till independence in 1981. Most people speak a Creole or pidgin. I just Love these signs.
We were greeted by a Goddess and by Rosie. This is the way I see her every day. No work for her.
More garden statuary.
These fearsome Collared Aracaris get first choice at the fruit. 
Only later can other birds join in. 
A Kinkajou is tempted down most evenings with bananas. 
30 years ago this area was stripped bear for farming, but wasn’t doing too well. The DuPlooy Family bought the land and painstakingly brought back the jungle. Along with the lodge they have created the biggest ecological garden in the country. 
some of the flora in the garden.
Jungle and bridge.
Bamboo is not native to Central America, it thrives. Look at the tunnel it creates. 
The beach, and the cliff on the other side of the Macal river.