why doesn't it smell like melted wax?

or at least that was the question from the DH --- observing that the fabric I chose to use for the lining of the bag looks like I've been melting crayons 

 my sister commented that the fabric goes well with all the disparate parts that I had to work with in the beginning 

sometimes my little "color brain" just goes crazy and decides that with all that color already in play you might as well throw in the whole box of crayons! 

 I'm kind of stuck on this project now -- I ordered some cool cat charms to use as zipper pulls and "buttons" on the bag, and I've reached the point that I need to have those in hand before I can continue -- since there will be no more mail delivery until Tuesday, I'll be doing other things at the sewing machine until then

 I did a good bit of frog stitching here (a phrase usually reserved to tearing out of knitting projects, but appropriate here too) -- rip it! rip it! 

new beading has begun, using a mixture of blue beads in some closely related shades of blue, but some beads are matte finish, some are shiny, some have rounded edges, some are tubes, and there are a variety of sizes 

to take this picture, I added the three slices of shell that will fill those openings so I can get a better feel for what it will actually look like 

better I think 


 
 the stitching on this is complete 

next step is to put the "sandwich" together

of the pieces I've done for the Visioning Project, I like this one the best

and I think that it's a good sign -- it means that each piece is progressing


we woke this morning to a very fine sprinkling of snow on the ground --- so far this year that's been about the extent of our snow storms -- but it is a lot colder than that shirt sleeve weather we had on Friday!