9th Day of Christmas

The wise men found the place where Jesus was, and they gave him gifts.



Today I was very crabby. It is the last day of my vacation and didn't get nearly as much needlework done as I wanted to. I spent all my time with family, and reading, and sleeping in, all good things, and I had no excuse to be crabby. I just don't like the thought of going back.



I did get a couple of Temari finished. The one above is one I have had planned since I started making them. It is called striped Obi in Barbara Suess' book. The base is cone thread, DMC spool metallic as marking, and the stitching is with Madeira silk in jewel-tone colors. I think it turned out really beautiful.



This is the first Temari I have stitched from my new books. This one is from Temari for 4 Seasons. The base is cone thread, the marking is a c10. The marking is DMC spool metallic. There are 12 pentagons stitched in perle #8 which form the stars. There are 12 stars stitched with 6 colors of Kreinik, three blending filament, and 3 #4 braid. I thought I had 6 colors of the "star" colors in the blending filament, but I must have used them up, or they are packed with other projects. I still really like how it turned out, and I will be exploring this pattern again with more color combinations.

6th Day of Christmas

So the Wise men found the house where the baby lay.



I had a wonderful vacation day yesterday. My daughter and I went to a shop on Belmont and Clark, "Toguri" a shop of Oriental gifts. There was a section with Japanese groceries, books covering Japanese language and other Japanese cultural interests, cards, origami papers, paper lanterns, Japanese fabrics and some obis and kimonos, all kinds and shapes of paper lanterns, and a big section with Saki and sushi sets. A lot of the pottery was gorgeous. And they had Origami and Temari books!



It was almost as much fun as exploring in a foreign country!



I found more Temari books than I could afford there! I bought four of them, and I will be going back (or at least sending my daughter there for me). I sat and studied them; I am so excited! I think they have all the titles that are available. I got Cosmo 6, Cosmo 5, Shin Shu and Temari for 4 Seasons.

We had lunch at Ann Sather and shopped at a couple of used book stores. Then we went back to my daughter's apartment and spend the afternoon hanging out. I read my new books, and we talked and had tea. I had a cup of Key Lime pie tea. It was better than the Carrot Cake tea from the same company.

4th Day of Christmas

So the Wise men went to Bethlehem.



My Christmas present from DH was tickets to see Screwtape Letters at the theater. DH was convinced that he would sleep through it, and the weather was iffy, but we had a wonderful time. We ate at an Irish pub (I had shepherd's pie, and DH had meat loaf). We had hoped to eat at Tango Sur, an Argentine restaurant that was on the same block as the theater, but when we poked our nose in the door we heard "at least an hour wait" so we didn't.



The show was excellent; very stylized, but still very faithful to the book. It only lasted 1 1/2 hours, and DH didn't nap! The bad weather held off until we got home, so all in all it was a very successful date. I hope we can go to the theater together again.

2nd Day of Christmas

Magi from the east came to Jerusalem. "We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."



Opening presents is a lot of fun. The headwear has been de rigueur since our daughters were little. C didn't participate this year, because she has a new haircut. She looks so grown up!

Christmas Day!

Christ is Born, God with us.

Advent, Day 24

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

Advent, Day 23

Here are a couple more angels. These are also MarBek angels; I used to wait for them to be published every year. They kept getting bigger and more ornate, with more specialty fibers, and I kept getting less and less time to work on them. I have files full of angel patterns that I have not stitched.







Since I bragged about Flickr yesterday, I guess it is only fair to say I just about had to show you my unenhanced pictures today. The editing software didn't want to work at first; I have to tell you, it was ugly!

This is my latest Temari, and I lost sleep over this one. It is a c8 division, which is then divided into 2 overlapping tetrahedrons (there are 2 sets of 4 triangles making a solid shape). I figured it out from a picture, but only after marking it once, beginning to stitch, and then pulling all the stitching off the mari. I think I was on the right track, but the first triangles I stitched were uneven. I was trying to use some DMC d'or thread, and it shredded, so this ball is marked with an inconspicuous pink #8 perle cotton. The finishing stitches are done with DMC #5. I am going to look at this one for a while yet; I think it may still need some bling. I might try to outline the inner and outer edges of each triangle with some metallic.



Jake (the dog) got a hold of it when I was out of the room; my family realized what a disaster that would be and rescued it. Thanks to their quick thinking there were only a couple of threads that needed to be adjusted. Thank you!