What to Do?

I started this set of little toolies when we were on vacation over the holidays.  I was using Kreinik #4 in a blue color from my stash.  I had two spools and thought it would be enough, but ran out before finishing the pin cushion.  I thought I could buy another spool when we got home.  Unfortunately, I haven’t found it in any of my usual shopping places. In the  meantime, I went ahead and added the beads to the other pieces.

 

The other blues I have in my stash aren’t even close to the original I was using.  I could set the pin cushion aside, and finish the other pieces.  I could use a blue that doesn’t match for the rest of the pin cushion, then finish them all.  I could put all of it aside and work on other things until I’m able to find this color.  What to do, what to do?

Work in Progress Wednesday

I’ve finished the first layer of stitches in silk for the dragon body.  Next, I’ll overstitch each of these stitches with one strand of Accentuate to give the dragon some sparkle.

 

The little garden was my take along project this week and I made a good bit of progress. 

 

I put no new stitches in the RSN garden this week, but hope to have something to show next week.

Work in Progress Wednesday is something of a support group organized and coordinated by SharonB for those working on large projects.  Check out the comments on the most recent WIPW Pintangle post to see and encourage stitchers with WIPW projects.

Take a Stitch Tuesday 97 & 98 - Shell Chain and Beaded Shell Chain

Two more stitches this week – the Shell Chain and the Beaded Shell Chain Stitches.  I tried them out with perle #5 (yellow), perle #12 (black), and DMC metallic (silver).

Shell Chain

Beaded Shell Chain

Here’re all my TAST samples so far.

 

If you are interested in learning new stitches or seeing what other stitchers are doing with these stitches, check out SharonB’s Pintangle blog.

Monday Morning Star Count - the Big Picture

 

Here are my three big flower chunks.  I had to rearrange and turn the strips around several times to make sure the same fabric wasn’t touching.  After I join these three into one big quilt top, I’m going to add a few flowers along the top and bottom to even it out a bit.  I’ve been back and forth about how to finish the edges – borders or no borders.  I saw a beautiful flower hexagon quilt at Grit's Life with borders.  Last week, in the comments, Liniecat  pointed out a no border hexagon quilt at Michele Made Me.  Elita listed this tutorial for finishing hexagon edges.  I like the no border edges, but my quilt is very large. It would mean a lot of hexagons for the backside, but would look nice.

Remember this section that doesn’t fit in with the rest?  I’m going to make it into a table runner, with this backing fabric and try out the no border edges.  Maybe I’ll have something to show by next week.

 

I’m linking up with Jessica’s epp show at Life Under Quilts.  Check out the other epp projects and join in yourself! (Monday comes to Japan 14 hours before the east coast of the US).

The Disappearing Snowmen
In most places, snowmen disappear by melting.  Here, they disappear when it snows again.  These are the snowmen I posted about yesterday, after it snowed overnight.

 

A Walk on a Sunny Day

It’s so nice to go for a walk on a sunny winter day.  Look at all these snowmen I found near the train station.

 

On the days when snow doesn’t fall, people take advantage of it and try to clear away some of the snow that’s on the ground.  Most of the time that means scooping it up into trucks.  There’s no room to push the snow to the side of the road.  This was near the Culture Community Center.

 

Near the library, the street was closed so the machines could chop up the snow and shoot it into trucks that were lined up, waiting to be filled.  It took about three minutes to fill a truck, then another took its place.

 

People have to shovel the roofs to prevent them from caving in.  It’s also common to cover first floor windows because the snow can break them if they aren’t.

 

I hope you are enjoying a sunny day, too.

Graduate Art Show

(This says 2013, but it really is 2014 here).