progress and an actual finished object

after picking out all the basting on this project, then drawing the shapes on the back of the Wonder Under, I've now started doing the fusing part of this project

the whole point of this is that I want it to look like a black and white photo, and I'm a lot happier with the way this is looking than it was the other way

(nope, it's actually not a piano -- but all those little black rectangles were pretty "fiddle-y")

I might mention here that any idea that fusing is less time consuming to do than applique should be totally dismissed right here -- the drawing, the cutting the pressing is time consuming, and after all the pressing is done comes the actual stitching -- around each and every little piece (and yes some artists do that on the sewing machine, but I'll be doing it by hand)

crawling along at tortoise pace
when I got tired of standing at the ironing board working on the fusing I did some hand work

the flap for the hand bag is now decorated and lined and top stitched

ready for attaching to the bag

the magnetic clasp piece is attached too

so now its on to creating the straps for the bag -- getting closer to getting it ready to use!


the third pattern panel in the afghan is complete

progress to 10%

plodding along




and another pair of mittnz actually complete

when I got to this pair I was down to not quite enough of the blue yarn to make this larger size, so I went through the bag of "odds and ends" and pulled out the little ball of variegated yarn that went well with the blue

I considered doing the ribbing with it, but decided in the end that I liked the idea of stripes better

in the end there was a piece of yarn about 8 inches long that wasn't needed

and I'm 45% of the way to 11 pair!

today I'll be looking in the "odds and ends" bag to find something to go with the pink yarn that there isn't quite enough of

sometimes these "scrap" mittnz are the most fun because of the challenge of using the different yarns in an attractive way --

today we are holed up in the family room with the space heater -- it is frigid here -- below zero with high humidity and a lot of wind -- I made a trip outside to pick up the newspapers (why on the coldest day are the newspapers out in the street!!??) and put an envelope in the mail box to be picked up -- one more trip outside later to get the mail will be the extent of our venturing outside

brrrrrrrrrr!