Raccoons named "Annie"?

hmm, so it would appear

this was the eye painting project day 1

I used a micron pen to draw around a template so the eyes would all be the same size and shape

each of these has had two coats of white paint (mixed with textile medium) applied

this picture was taken when I set them aside to dry (since the temperature in our house is only about 62 degrees, it takes paint a while to dry)

I hope to get the rest of the eye painting done today

there has been some playing around with the embroidery stitches on my sewing machine

I learned several things while doing this

1. these use a lot more thread than you would think just looking at them

2. its not all that easy to keep them exactly straight in line with the edge of the fabric because there is so much motion built into the program that creates these

3. there are a lot of these stitches all built into the machine itself -- I've barely scratched the surface is seeing what they are

the biggest upside of this exercise is that I have another Christmas project complete -- I'll explain more of what it is after I give it to the intended recipient

this is the result of my picking apart the red coat

as I write this these pieces are going around and around in the dryer having already been through a hot wash with a lot of blue jeans that I keep on hand for just such projects

when they come out I'll iron the pieces and start thinking more seriously what else I'll put in with them to create that hand bag

the picking apart wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be -- I got it done pretty quickly between finishing the knitting on one Christmas project and starting another one last night in front of the TV

I'm not sure exactly what I'll be working on today -- more on the trees, more on the Christmas cards, more on the knitting, and thinking about some other items that have been on the back burner for a while since I wanted to finish the Christmas projects first

into the fray!