Japanese Nights

This is one of my round robin blocks, from Sue M. The theme is Asian Nights, and she wanted Japanese. I put in a temari pattern first, but it didn't look good, so I ripped it out and replaced it with ribbon cherry blossoms and scattered beads about. Then I made a sashiko leaf. There wasn't much room between the motifs for an elaborate seam treatment, I went with a simple beaded fly stitch.

Fair Maiden Is Now Truly Finished

Yesterday I taught the last of the four sessions on the needle purse. Well ... I thought I was going to teach about putting it together, but it didn't work out that way. Since I was teaching the finishing, I thought it was high time I put mine together. Here it is closed; I used ribbon instead of twisted wool for the close ties. I like how it came out.

And here is the inside. I also made it so the rings are removable. For me, that makes the piece more functional.

Car Stitching

Last week when my husband was driving, I managed to do -some- stitching in the car. On top of working on an afghan, I did more of the four way continental stitches on Poirot. Never truly easy because of the rayon, I did have to stop stitching on some bumpy areas of the road. At least I got something progressed on the way to Seminar.

More Temari

This was the other temari I started at seminar. We had to make the balls from scratch before stitching. I really like the colors on this one and will be finishing it soon. The design is called maritime stars. It's a combination of kikus

and swirl stitches. I did three panels of swirl stitches at my face to face meeting on Monday, so you can tell they go fast.

I Get a Kiku Out of You

So my first class was temari, and here is proof of what I did on the second day. The star shapes are called kikus, or chrysanthemums, in Japanese. With the experience of the day before, it was pretty easy to do. Each of the star faces of this ball will be different.

This is the beginning of the second face. As you can see, it has a different color from the other one. That's not the only difference - you'll have to see it as it progresses.

And here is the book my teacher Barbara Suess wrote about temari. I bought it at the merchandise day and she was kind enough to autograph it. Her instructions are really clear and easily followed - and she has a new group correspondence course for temari from EGA.

Flowing Heart

This was the second of my two day classes at EGA seminar. It's Heart of Gold by Meredith Willett. It's basic English goldwork with some other metallic threads, and I loved the design outside of it being pink from the time I first saw it. Two students in the class were prescient enough to ask for color changes before the seminar; I was not one of them and ended up with the original. I still like it! So I got some of it done and I really like the look so far. I'll be making some changes as I go - like putting a dragonfly in the middle. This too will go into my rotation soon - as soon as I finish a couple of things.

Berries for Me!

This was my Wednesday class at Seminar. It's called Berries for You! and is a design by Barbara Jackson. I got fairly far in class and she kept telling me I was doing well. Since she told some others it might be a good idea to do some frogging, I guess I really was doing well. The design is pretty and we're using Heathway and Gumnuts yarns on it. This should be a fairly quick finish when it gets into my rotation. I'm looking forward to working more on it.