What's a 1-armed, nearly-blind woman to do?

What's a 1-armed,  nearly-blind woman to do to keep busy for another 3-4 weeks in a cast?  What I am doing might surprise you as it certainly surprised me...  In 2009 I started Robin Atkin's Bead Journal project and my initial plan was to do a bird  a month  and finish it as a tribute to the Dept. of Wildlife's "Bird Weekend" which they held in my garden for about 10 years...

I started with great enthusiasm and finished four parts, partially  finished two more and by then working with only beads became too tedious and boring so I packed it up and put it under my bed.  But nine years later when I started thinking about magpies I dug it out with renewed interest

The bluebird was about 90% finished so I gave it a try.  I need help threading the needles but learned long ago is all you need  is to run a needle through a pile of seed beads and they just jump on the needle.  All the outlining was done and it is very bumpy and random so being precise is not an issue and I was able to work in short spurts and finish the bluebird.









The quail was the other partially finished one and it  is about 80% done and so I am starting on it.  I should be able to finish this by next week.  I can only work in short segments of time as not only do my eyes tire, but the two useable fingers poking out of the cast get sore.  But it is so pleasant to have something different to do for a bit in the evening and I was ready for a break from the jewelry.

Even if I don't finish the last one, these six would be enough with pictures to make a great memory piece.  I never dreamt this project would ever again see the light of day again after all these years...





And the last one is a momma robin and has not a single bead on it....  It would give me a real boost to finish this project as those weekends were so special and I still have all the pictures.... so I will probably give it a try anyway and with luck could finish about the time the cast comes off.  You can read more about the bead journal project and class here.




And as I kept thinking about it,  I realized I'd never actually done a block with a magpie....only thought about it and the calendar block I thought was a magpie was actually a red-winged blackbird for the month of August. Just a little memory glitch again.