SAL and Secret Stitcher gift

This is a picture after 4 rounds on the Stitch-Along temari. There are two layers of pink, and two of yellow. This ball is looking very busy. The final layer will be dark pink, so a lot of the yellow will be covered up. I'm working on the 5th round now, and have 2 more to go after that, but I'm afraid I will need a shoehorn to get the last pink round in.



Right now it doesn't look like much.

On Tuesday at guild meeting I received an envelope with silk floss in my favorite colors.



Plus a little needle threader. The silk threads are so luscious, they make me want to start a new project with them Right Now! Thank you so much!

Memorial Day Stitching

I'm working away on my Stitch-along temari, and it's coming along well. I'm working on the fourth of what I expect will be 7 rounds, so I'm not quite 1/2 way. I am getting into a nice rhythm of stitching, though.

I do have a couple of finishes to share. C was bustling around on Monday, and asked me to help her cut out this paper flower (for a present for mama). I offered to help her and asked if she wanted to make that flower with material for mom; that sounded really good to her. So I cut out the flower, pinned it to 2 layers of felt, and used it for a pattern to cut out the felt. (Red for the flower, and green for the back of the flower.) Then I drew (with ball-point pen) a circle on the flower, and we picked out some red thread to sew the circle. She did really good on the red side, going down, but it was a lot harder to get in the right place from the green side, going up. She also was a little sad that the red thread showed up on the green material. She was hoping for red on the red side, and green on the green side, but soon became reconciled.

She was very proud when we got done, and very happily presented this to her mom.



Her brother was being a pest while this was going on. He kept on saying "It's a flower! It's a flower!" loudly, spoiling the surprise for mom (who was sitting across the room). C was very sad that the surprise was spoiled, but kept going.

I finally asked P "Do you want to do it too?" I was surprised by how quickly he jumped on the band wagon. I guess he had been feeling neglected. I suggested he make "a guy" so he quickly drew the pattern and cut it out. (Playing with superhero and Lego guys is one of his favorite things to do.) We worked things a little differently. I traced the outline of the guy on the felt (red and green were fine with him too). P picked black for the outline. He stood near me to do the stitching, but turned away from me, so he could be sure to do it himself.



He did an excellent job! When he was done with the stitching we cut out the outline, and he immediately put the product away with his treasures.

I'm hoping they had so much fun they will want to do it again! I sure did.

Decision Portrait

In March I read a blog post here talking about an art project Susan Lenz was working on about decisions people make in their lives. She had a wish list of decisions she wanted to illustrate, so I contacted her and after corresponding sent her this picture of myself.


She used it to make this portrait:

(copyright Sue Lenz)

You can read what she says about 2 breast cancer decisions here:

Decision Portraits

I am very honored to have my decision (made over 18 years ago) included in this series.