Blizzard Purse

We woke up to 6 inches of snow this morning. I'll spare you the disaster photos! Honestly, is there a rock somewhere with some written law on it that says it HAS to snow in Northern Illinois in December? The news people mentioned this morning that they thought it was so pretty outside. Excuse me? Pretty is 80 degrees and sunny! This is a sloppy mess!

I can't say that I don't like snowflakes. I just prefer artistic renditions of them as opposed to having them in my reality:



I guess in some ways, this purse is kind of a poetic joke! It's no secret that I'm intolerant of Winter. The snow, the cold and the extra hours of darkness get to me. By the end of January, I usually have cabin fever so bad, I can't stand myself! I thought it would help to have a special purse just for that month. Calling it "The Blizzard Purse" is my sense of humor trying to make light of what I find to be the most annoying and inconvenient time of year. I will have a Winter house in Florida some day!

So on to what I did here. I used a combination of Carol Samples "Dream A Seam" Templates as well as my Waste Canvas technique.

The seam at the top between the two pieces of lace was one of Carols Templates. Once I had that stitched, I lined up a piece of waste canvas over the top to do the Fan Stitches. I have this thing about perfect fans!

Anyway, I used another of Carols templates for the Cretan Stitch and then I free-handed the Lazy Daisy stitches. The Buttonhole stitches were done with the templates and then the snowflakes and the fans at the bottom were done with Waste Canvas.

I really want to experiment more with the templates but that will come in time. For now, I'm doing my best to focus on anything but the weather. If you're interested in the Dream A Seam Templates, you can find them at Evening Star Designs.

I've been collecting snowflake sequins and buttons. I also have some flower appliques that resemble snowflakes so I plan to pull those out later and dye them in shades of blue. I'll probably add glitter to them too. I want this purse to be so sparkley that it's blinding to look at in the sun! If we ever see that again!

And speaking of snowflakes, I must tell you, I'm addicted to designing Biscornu's! I haven't stitched a-one yet but I absolutely love doing designs for them. I just finished a set of 4 Biscornu designs with snowflakes, each one in a different pastel color. I'll have those ready soon. In the meantime, I have to clean up the driveway. Argggggg........