Huipul from Central America

I was reading Allie's blog earlier this week. She's on vacation in Mexico, and met a friend who is collecting Oaxacan embroidery, with beautiful pictures. It sure would be wonderful to be in a warm, sunny place right now! but Allie's pictures reminded me of the Huipul from Central America my mom gave me from her collection this summer.



It is a tunic, with embroidery around the yoke (this section) and around the bottom of the hem. Isn't the embroidery beautiful? It is done by machine. I just wish I was the right size to be able to wear it!

Sunrise

The sky was so beautiful this morning, that I pulled off to the side to get a picture.



I'm so glad the darkest part of winter is over. A couple of weeks ago I watched the sunrise on my way to work in the morning, and the sunset on my way home. Fortunately at work there is plenty of daylight, but it is still depressing to spend all the daylight hours at work. Now, just 3 weeks later, it is beginning to stay light until after 5 PM!

Garden Temari

I finished this last night, in fact, I stayed up past my bed-time to put in the last stitches. This is a pattern found in "Temari for 4 seasons" on page 14. The mari and the marking are in the same color, the mari with cone thread, and the marking with DMC perle #5. I really like the effect of "hiding" the markings, and I am going to be doing this more often. The green stitching is with Caron Wildflowers, which is an overdyed thread about the weight of a perle #8, and the white is regular DMC perle #8.

The division is c10. There are 12 stars made up of 5 triangles each, but the triangles also form larger hexagons, and the way they are linked together makes them look a little like chains. It is very interesting to study the ball and see how everything fits together.



I don't like the color combination as much as I thought I would. I think a light green in the same family would have given the definition I was looking for without as much contrast. The white takes away from the idea of leaves, which is sort of what I was going for.

We are "enjoying" another snowy day here, south of Lake Michigan. When I opened the outside door this morning, it had to sweep snow out of the way to open; this is above a 3 inch step. The roads were treacherous, but the woods were beautiful; I guess you pay for your pleasures.