back to the Africa piece

over the weekend I spent some time working on the pieces of the Out of Africa series

I had done all of the rubber stamping a couple of weeks ago, and the detail (that I put in with Copic markers) on the gazelle block got finished just before we went off to my daughter's for the 4th of July weekend

Saturday afternoon I pulled out those markers again and did the work on the elephant and the giraffe

unfortunately, when I pulled out the zebras panel and the marker I needed for it I discovered that the black Copic has gone the way of all markers -- after at least 5 years of ongoing use for many projects and a very dry climate, it had given it's all

a trip to the local craft store is in order -- the trick will be to restrain myself to only that black marker (heh, well, I'll try to be that good!)

the branched fringing on this is coming along

just normal straight fringing is pretty time consuming, but branched fringing even more so

the instruction goes something like this: *run needle through the next bead on the edge of the piece, pick up 13 seed beads, one striped bead and one size 15 bead; run needle back through the striped bead and the next 3 seed beads and pull up tight - one branch formed; pick up 13 seed beads, one striped bead and one size 15 bead; run needle back through the striped bead and the next 3 seed beads and pull up tight - second branch formed; pick up 10 seed beads, one E bead, one striped bead and one size 15 bead; run needle back through the striped bead, the E bead, the 10 seed beads; skip the branch, run needle through the next 10 beads; skip the branch, run needle through the next 10 beads, pull up tight -- one fringe created

repeat from * for as many times as it takes to fringe the entire bottom edge

at this point I'm really glad I decided to turn this so I'm fringing along the short side of the shape!

progress continues on the other quilt projects -- there are now 38 aspen leaves stitched down on the trees piece (and I'm thinking as I work on it that I always seem to be working on this huge piece when it's HOT!)

and there are now 3 of the petals quilted on the cone flower piece as well as the background spaces between those

work continues on the Christmas sweater piece as well -- 8.5 inches worked and I'm in the second skein of yarn

time to get busy -- laundry to wash, lawns to mow