Fish Under The Sea, Old Lace & More!

I'm still here! But I've been busy as a bee trying to organize my stash better and get some finishing done. And I've done alot this past weekend!

Starting off with my Fish Under The Sea purse:



It's completely finished now and I've decided that I can't part with it! It sure looks different as a purse than it did as a stitched piece. I won't get into all the little details of the finishing but as you can see, I added a tassel which I made myself and then added some silver bugle beads with more seashells on the ends. I used it yesterday morning and will admit, I got alot of weird looks. Those looks from other women that say, "who the heck does she think she is?!!" Ha!! I don't care. I think I'm someone who prefers pretty one-of-a-kind purses to plain ole boring store bought ones! That's who I think I am!

So now, my next big project will be this purse:



I've titled this one, "Girl With A Kitten". And yes, I'll most likely keep this one for myself too. I just fell in love with this vintage photo when I saw it at Art-E-Zine. I don't download much from the internet, but I just love hand-tinted vintage photos of pretty little children with animals, esp. cats (that's a surprise, right?)! I hope to start on it later today.

In the meantime, I also did a bit of antiquing over the weekend and I have to confess to you another weakness that I have, vintage lace! I can't help myself, I buy all the old lace that I find. I can't stand to see it laying around in an antique shop, not being enjoyed. Esp. the hand crocheted lace but I feel that way about all of it!

The problem is, I have a chest of drawers in here that is full to the brim with vintage lace! So, I have decided, that when I find it, I'll buy it, wash it, hand paint it and offer it in my Etsy shop to other stitchers who don't have access to it or who don't want to mess with the dyes. And yes, it does get messy!





What you see here, is only 1/2 of what I've hand-painted this weekend. The other half is hanging on hangers on the rod in my bathroom drying. I finished up this morning.

As soon as I got home with this batch of lace, I hand-washed it and started painting! I don't use a traditional dye pot method. I hand-paint each piece one at a time. I like my lace to be unevenly dyed so that's why I do it that way. I'll be spending the rest of my afternoon, heatsetting and lightly starching it. And tomorrow morning, I'll start packaging it up.

I have tons of stuff to add to my Etsy shop as soon as Etsy is up and running again. I just checked a few minutes ago and they don't have the new version of their site running yet but I'm sure it'll be soon. I have some beads, some needlework books, lots of quilt fabric in case I have some sane quilters who read here and then some new things I made. It'll probably take me hours to list every thing so I'll most likely add a little each day. I'm still on dial-up!!

So, that's what I've been doing. I have more finishing to share tomorrow but in the meantime, I'll off to iron all that wonderful old lace!