I need your help

Recently my mom gave me these beautiful lace trims (except for the largest one, which was a thrift store find). Most of them were handmade by my father's mother, the rest are vintage machine made ones. They are of different lengths and widths. I brought them home, gave them a bleach bath, hung them to dry and ironed out all the wrinkles.

The thrift store runner is in use at the moment, but as for the rest of them... I have a couple of ideas, but I'd like to hear how you would use them or what kind of ideas do you have for me, if lace isn't your thing. If possible, I'd like to not cut the handmade ones.

New pic of Winter's Eve

As promised, here's the latest pic of my Winter's Eve, the SAL I'm doing with Nicki on Mondays. I got all the little eyelets done on the border and worked a bit more on the green leaves.

Winter's Eve progress

Just a quick post to show you where I am on WInter's Eve. Working on part 3 at the moment. I'll get back to it on Monday, the actual SAL date, although Nicki might not be able to make it.

Coasters

In my last post, I was hoping for rain and now we have it! DH thinks I'm nuts for wanting it to rain, but at least Christine seems to share my view :) Besides being good for nature, and washing that horrible dust off, it's now almost 9 pm and there's a good chance it'll still be raining when I go to bed. I love listening to the sound of rain. We live on the highest floor so can hear the rain on the roof.


Today I went rummaging in my fabric stash, took out my sewing machine and made these. They are coasters for my friend who has her birthday on Saturday. I followed these instructions. They were easy to make, until I got to the part where I had to flip them over, but I managed that too. I think my problem was that I used fabric that was too thick.

Spring

The snow melted over a month ago. It's been warm, then cooler again, and now it's really warm (for spring that is), close to 20C. It hasn't rained a drop in all that time, so nature is still pretty much sleeping, but the sun has lured out some signs of life and spring.

These flowers are blooming in great quantities all over the forest. The ground is still pretty much covered in leaves from last fall and these are like little jewels scattered on the brown and grey ground.





And some trees are unfurling their leaves! I hope it will rain soon. I think the landscape will turn green in no time after that.



And here's a WIP pic of the ripple blanket. It's 44 inches (111 cm) wide and at the moment 10 inches (25 cm) long.

New fabric and WIP

The fabir is new, the WIP is not :)
I finally got the fabric that I ordered with the Silkweaver's GC Christine gave me for my birthday. It's Lugana and the color is Smoky Blue. A really beautiful blue color. Here it is with the Waterlilies and Kreiniks that are used in Mirabilia's My Lady's Garden. Aren't the Waterlilies yummy?


And here's a WIP pic of Grace. The back is done and the front halfway. I had thought I'd had more done by now.. But I'm still loving it :) The colors look a bit dull in this pic, it's quite vibrant in real life.

Been busy

I've been busy in a good way and in a bad way. And I've been tired and lazy. I've been a bad blogger and a bad crafter :) Or rather, when I've been knitting or stitching or doing something else with my hands, I've been working on my bigger projects and there's nothing new to show you. A week ago on Monday I did stitch on Winter's Eve, but so little I didn't think it worth a photo. This past Monday I was madly knitting away, as it dawned on me on Sunday that my cousin's baby girl is going to be one-year-old tomorrow and I just had to get her a present in the mail today. I knit her a small hat. And as it happens, forgot to take a picture of it.

So all I've got to show for you are these smaller than small Easter chicks I did recently (the directions adapted from Martha Stewart). This week, I think, I'm going to be showing you WIP photos of the various things I've got going. Maybe that'll be an insentive to do something :) I'm probably going to do a bit of sewing as well. I've got the material for another apron and I think I'd like to do a skirt too.

Happy Easter!

Easter eggs

I had a wonderful Saturday at my great aunt's house with my mom, cousin and aunts. We decorated Easter eggs using a Ukrainian method. In it you cover the egg in melted beeswax in different patterns and then dip it in a color mixture. This can be repeated many times thus creating complex (or just simple, like mine) patterns on the eggs. Finally, the wax is melted from the egg. Unless you want to use the gold dust, which is dapped on to the wax to create an embossing.

You can read more about the process and see beautiful eggs here (or just google "Ukrainian eggs"). On that site the directions have you using a special "pen", but mine are mostly done with pin heads and small cut feathers. Anyway, the basic method is the same. You dip your instrument in the melted beeswax and put it on the egg in places where you want the color that is currently on the egg to show. Then you dip it in another dye and repeat.