The Midnight Peacock Handbag

I've had so much trouble posting to my blog! Yesterday, Blogger was down for maintenance but today, I just couldn't get it to load in Mozilla no matter what! So I'm trying in Explorer! I hope this works because I really enjoy blogging!

Ok, enough whining for now! I'm sure my readers who have been with me for awhile remember this peacock design:



Well, I decided to finish it into a handbag so this is what it looks like now:



I'm not sure why, but this took me hours and hours to do the finishing on. I guess I always choose to do things that require alot of handwork. The handle is wire which I wrapped in braided metallic cord (yes, I did the braiding) and then I felt it needed beads so I hand-strung the beads and wrapped them and then I added some twisted cording just because I liked the way it looked.

The fuzzy yarn is hand-worked too. I can only do very simple crochet but couldn't figure out how to crochet with this stuff at all! So, I hand-sewed some braided gimp around the crazyquilt piece, then I attached the fuzzy yarn by weaving it in and out of the loops on the gimp. It took a long time but I love the way it looks! It's so pretty and very sparkly!

I've listed this in my shop. I know many of you liked this piece so maybe someone would like to have it.

I plan to do the finishing on the Rose Garden Peacock and the Autumn Peacock next week sometime.

For this afternoon though, I think I'll go park myself in the middle of my sofa and stitch on my mom's Christmas gift. I did work on it a bit last night but didn't get very far. Had to stop several times for laundry and dinner. Too bad we have to eat! I'd always rather be stitching!!

Cross Stitch Booklets For Sale

Been cleaning out some things again and decided that I've probably stitched everything out of these pattern books that I ever will, so I've packed them up and listed them in my Etsy shop:



Here's a huge lot of cross stitch booklets, a couple of kits, and a few leaflets. There are 27 booklets, 2 small kits, a couple of chartpacks and a few small pattern cards. Also, a hard covered book titled, "Gifts Of Good Taste" published by Leisure Arts.

Most of the booklets are by Sam Hawkins but there are a few others in here as well including a Stoney Creek. There are 2 Valerie Pfeiffer chartpacks, a Lizzie Kate leaflet, a Mill Hill Bead kit and a few cards by The Sweetheart Tree.

Lots of stuff here to keep you stitching for months on end!

I think I can ship this Media Mail for about $5.00. If you'd prefer Priority Mail, just let me know.

I'm hoping maybe one of my cross stitch readers can use these. I do accept PayPal too.

Update On Moms Christmas Gift

I spent a good few hours stitching yesterday and made some progress on this block:



Remember, photography is not my medium! Ha, ha, ha! Anyway, you can see the necklace now that I have to work into this. It belonged to my grandmother. It's not tacked down yet as I'm not sure this is where it will stay. I've just kind of been playing with it in different areas trying to figure out where it will work best. The appliques aren't tacked down yet either for the same reason.

I'll be working on this some more later so I should have another update for you tomorrow.

Crazyquilt Christmas Ornaments

I spent the morning doing the finishing on these ornaments that I made last week:







I've added these to my Etsy shop in case anyone would like to have one. The blue santa ornament is sold the but the other 2 are still available.

Back from Galena

I'm back! And I wish I had a ton of nice pictures for you to see but unfortunately, the minute we got there, it started raining! And it rained all day on Saturday. Sunday was a little better because it was sunny but it was windy. Terribly cold wind. And then yesterday, it was cloudy and cold. We actually left a few hours earlier than planned because I got tired of being cold but we did stop to take a couple of photos of the countryside on the way back:





I wish there were something I could have done to these pictures in my graphic software to make them look a little better but I think you can certainly tell that it was a cloudy, dark day.

The scenery is actually breathtaking! And I think my camera takes panoramic photos but I can be a bit "technology challenged" at times and it didn't occur to me to figure out how to do that. Galena, Illinois actually looks like photos I've seen of Ireland. Just rolling hills as far as the eye can see!

Scott offered to take me back in December for my birthday but I'm not sure I can tolerate the cold then. I asked him if we could play that idea by ear.

BTW - if you're waiting on an email reply from me, I'll get those emails out as soon as I can. I'm having email issues due to a problem with my ISP. As soon as that problem is resolved I'll send out my replies.