A Week of Vacation

Thanksgiving was as nice as I had hoped. The whole family was there, including a new member. He is a very good cook! and we added a delicious sweet potato casserole to our Thanksgiving menu. Everyone enjoyed the company, no one got stuck in the kitchen for hours doing dishes, and there were no arguments or hurt feelings. Just a wonderful day!

It is amazing how much I got done last week, while I was on vacation. There are some days when I would love to not have to get up and go to work; waking up when I was done sleeping, and hibernating inside if the weather is bad. However, I think I am addicted to my pay-check, and I would get lonely for company if I were home all the time. Also, I need the exercise! It is too easy just to sit in my stitchy chair all day.

A vacation once in a while is very good, though. The first half of the week I worked on my alphabet sampler. I am very happy to be more than 1/2 way done. I even got to start the large monogram:



I am using "Colorwash Silk" for my variegated color, using only one strand. It is very fine, but I think it is covering enough. The puzzle, of course, in using a variegated color is to keep from having abrupt color changes, except where you want them. So far, so good, on this letter, but we are at the beginning yet.

Then, being on vacation and all, I had time to do some cleaning. I mentioned last time that I found some things I know I will never do. Olly asked for the Golden Retriever and the purse kit, so that will be on the way to her as soon as I get her address. Here's a picture of the punch-needle kits. They are still available.



Then, when I was cleaning out the kid's craft bin I ran across a couple of Styrofoam balls that I put in there after I started using rice hulls for temari. I put them on the table to get rid of them, and then I looked at them for several days. Someone said they used Styrofoam bases to make temari ornaments, because they are lighter and they don't burden the tree too much. So I looked at them some more, and I finally decided to make a bunch of ornaments. It is true, though, that it is harder to make a nice round mari with Styrofoam. These are very lumpy.



All four of these are the same pattern, triangles stitched on the 20 triangle faces of a c10, with gold-rush metallic thread. The thread is kind of a bunka thread, that could be stitched unraveled, but I used it whole. I love them all together. This is actually the first half of the pattern. I tried the full pattern here:



I saw it done in a bright and a pale pink, and it was a "sakura" or cherry blossom pattern. The flower showed up in the negative space. Unfortunately, the colors I had to work with don't really show up right and let you see the flower shape without doing some eye calisthenics. It still looks like Christmas, though.

I think I just about got through November without stitching any temari. Like I said, some free time does wonders. There are at least two more patterns I want to stitch in the next week. (Having time to pore over my temari books at bed-time helps a lot in picking out patterns. I think I can stitch a lot better when I dream temari.)