One: A Felt Snowflake Banner
When I took our
Advent Calendar down, our window looked so bare. We'd had the calendar up for the month of December, and before that, our
Thankful Banner. I decided we needed something wintry to hold us over until February, when I'll make a Valentine's banner, and snowflakes seemed just the thing. (Note the lack of snow outside; I'm
fine with that. If you average this January with last January, when we got 30" of snow, I think it's all working out.) I hadn't quite decided how to approach it when I saw the
January Stitchalong at Feeling Stitchy would be couching. I haven't tried couching before, so I figured I would.
These snowflakes are far from perfect, but they're still kind of cute hanging in our window. I used felt from my shockingly large stash of the stuff (although this is a blend, not pure wool) and some silver craft cord. I drew the six main lines on with chalk, using a guide so I got the angles correct, and then I just winged it from there. I folded over the top edge of each square and whipstitched it down so I could string it along some cord for hanging. We all (that's me and the kids) think the third one looks like a six-armed sea star. Oh, well. I had to do three different snowflakes because no two are alike! At any rate, I really like having a seasonal banner hanging in the window. I'm going to try to keep up with it.
Two: A Dream/Wish Jar
This fulfills the weekend assignment for the
Creative Courage e-course. I will admit this is not usually my thing. It's not that I don't have wishes or goals or ideas and so on, I just generally keep them tucked in, not on display. I'm struggling with the course, to be honest, because I was hoping to clarify what my goals might be, and I feel like I perhaps should have started already knowing. And also, things like meditation and visualization and wish/dream jars are not quite my style. But I'm trying. I threw a whole bunch of stuff in there. I'm sure they won't all happen. I think I'd be overwhelmed if they did, actually. And really, I was trying to focus, not spread a wide net. I probably did this all wrong. But the circles are pretty, aren't they?
Three: The Next Embroidery
Now that I'm done with making holiday gifts and whipping out
blankets in record time, I really want to embroider. This is just a peek because I need to actually begin embroidering it before I show it in full. At this point I've tea-dyed a piece of white linen and used an iron-on transfer pen to transfer a drawing to the fabric. I must have done it correctly this time; it's much darker than the last time I tried. Actually, really dark. I hope I manage to cover up the lines. I'm trying a different type of image for me, and I'm excited about it in the way you can only be excited about something that will either be really amazing or a huge fail.
4 comments:
I think I might have trouble with that wish jar exercise too, but I admire you for being open to it as part of the course.
The snowflakes are lovely... and the peek of your new embroidery project, intriguing!
I miss the lights hanging up in the house when they come down each year. One year, I bought little plastic covers for a string of white lights and kept the window lit all year. There were hearts and shamrocks and peeps (for easter) and flowers. I don't know where they are at the moment.
Most of the time, if you wash your embroidery gently when you're done, any marks showing will wash out. You have to be careful to use colorfast thread though.
I guess the way to look at the wish jar is that it might get you thinking about things and directions in a more focused way. Not all of it could ever happen - who's the comedian who said 'we cant get everything we want, where would we put it all?'
Your embroidery looks like it'll be intricate!
Hey - I love your blog - and I know the "wish jar" idea might sound a little too "new agey" at first... but it really does help to get your wishes for the future down in writing and it's maybe a fun way to explore doing this :) Hope you are enjoying the course so far! xo
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