One Third Done

I have completed the CQ side of the hand bag.  It has been slow going as I don't CQ!  All those seams, so many new treatments to think up!  Goodness how I admire the CQ ladies. I have one tiny seam at the bottom to do after the bag is put together.

 This has been cropped to what will show when the bag is constructed.  The other side will have a semi 3 dimensional dragon wallowing in his hoard.  I have not designed the handles yet, the bag has to hang flat.  Hmmm, a mechanics dilemma....

Another delicate beauty has unveiled herself.  This one bloomed last year for the first time.  Some kids were climbing around the air conditioner trying to get to the roof and broke off two stalks of blooms....so sad.  There are drawbacks to living right downtown!

Spent a boring Saturday evening with DH.   We were in the emergency room at the local hospital!  I did a dumb thing....as I was handling the knife I said to myself:  "This is how you cut yourself Dummy."  Well Dummy cut herself!  I have a deep stab wound in the web of my left hand, near the thumb.  (Truly odd to look under your skin and see meat!)  We went in to see if it needed stitching.  NOT!  They glued it shut!  The marvels of modern medical science!  I am now learning how dependant we are on working opposable thumbs!  Imagine that!  I have had to take two Tylenol 3 with codine so I can continue typing.  I have a short pointer finger on my left hand and the reach for the t is painful. 

I am such a wuss!  We bought a dozen consolation donuts on the way home from the hospital! We stayed up until 2:30 a.m. watching old Frazier episodes on You Tube.  I am well and truly consoled.  Haven't had a late date like that with DH since we were young!

Nap time....see y'all.....

Well Along aka A Good Start

Spent the better part of Monday with my stitching group.  Good fellowship, good friends, and lots of hints and tricks and new techniques to explore.  I took along my second commissioned bag to work on as it is mostly paid for, and long overdue.  Our group disciplinarian has admonished me sternly about finishing this bag.

I am really getting ahead with it though.  It is to be more outrageous than the last one and to be two sided.
The first side is a crazy quilt block.....that is Crazy Quilt To The Tenth Power!

The background is all ties and the predominant colour is purple, ties again.  I am amazed that I can think up so many things to do with purple.

I love my stash of buttons, they can be tarted up quite nicely, especially when you have a stash of flower shaped sequins which stand up beautifully on little stalks of seed beads.

SIDEBAR:   We had a group of young college people

over on Saturday.  One of the young ladies who

  had never been here before looked around in    

total jaw dropped amazement and said "I've      

never met anyone who canned buttons before!" 

I am still laughing!                                             

And last but not least the ubiquitous spider.  He is made with beautiful big faceted Amethyst beads. I am using a lot of Amethyst and Ruby beads on this piece as well as Swarovsky crystal bicones and flower shapes, and will be using some Sterling silver as well.

The yellow centre was TOO YELLOW and fairly screamed.  I toned it down a bit with some free motion machine stitching.

I am trying to be a bit smaller and flatter as I get out to the edges of this block, I am thinking of wear and good mechanics here.  But it is so hard for me to be conservative.

I got home about six o'clock and watched 'our' Grackle steal two more worms which he ate, and then came back and very daintily removed the grass clipping mulch and picked out a morsel that had been previously buried (I watched him bury something else the other day.) There must be a pair, and they must be feeding babies, although it seems a bit early.  He must be the gobbler and she must be the stasher.  We stitcher women are good at that.

The pair of house sparrows were back again.  She lit on the fence and chirped at him, but he must not have been in the mood for love and just flew away.  They put on quite a show the other day, but he is a rude fellow and kept pecking her on the head.  I certainly would have told him where to get off!   Oooohhhh, bad pun!

I weeded part of one perennial bed for two hours, and picked some rhubarb and baked a pie.  I was righteously exhausted when bedtime came, but what a wonderful day.