Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Not so quiet week

Well, I thought this week would be quiet but it's as busy as last week. I hired a part-time assistant today for the summer. Jacob has already helped immensely. Yay!

I was exhausted this weekend and didn't do much. I can't seem to get up enough gumption to work on the Take It Further project this month. I'm happy with my plan and want to finish it, just not enough to pick up a needle right now.

I did some stitching on the needlepoint pincushion while working the conference on Friday and Saturday. It's coming along. It's a really nice exercise in how colors change depending on angle and stitches. The same colors worked next to each other but with a different stitch look quite different. I'm not sure how I like the color combination. It's taken from the backing fabric, which is also an interesting way to select colors for a geometric project like this.l

This weekend I played with felt. First, I made these dolls. They try out an idea I'd been considering for a while and use my new Cartwright's sequins. The faces of the dolls are large flat paillettes with one hole at the top. They're iridescent and change from pink to purple to green depending on the angle as you look at them.

I plan to send the two smaller ones to Pat at Gatherings for her Comfort Doll Project. I think the mermaid may be a bit too big for that. I drew on faces and attached the sequins to the dolls using shisha stitch. They were a lot of fun to do and I made all three this weekend as I sat around.

I also made the two bottlecap pincushions shown here. One is supposed to be a strawberry. Hmmmm. The other is for my niece, from her graduation water-bottle cap.

I'm becoming a connoisseur of bottle caps. I like the ones from my husband's juice. The ones on our water bottles this weekend are a good size. A bit deeper than most. Many are too tall and narrow or wide and shallow. My sweetie now saves all of the pull-tabs from our soy milk cartons so I can use them for finger pin-cushions. Never ending fun!

2 comments:

Jane said...

I like your comfort dolls and the sequin faces, what a cool idea! I like the pincushions too.
I'm smocking this week. I have to get going on the dress, or she will grow out of it before I get it done! That happened with my daughter (smocking as well) so no excuses!
I would love for you to drop by with silks! LOL
Jane

Lelia said...

oh M!!!! Beautiful faces on those dolls : ) They are great!!

I'm struggling to lace up my needlework over cardboard -- to mount on wooden needlebox. Stitching done a while back -- and the linen seems to have a mind of its own : (

Once laced in place, I planned to use the doublesided sticky tape & plop in place.

Should be much easier. Maybe difficult b/c I've never attempted before!