Pansy Purse Continued

Thank you to everyone who took the time to give me their opinion on that lace piece. I too felt it was too pastel so I painted a different piece and I think this is more suitable:



I have some pink MOP flower buttons that I can use by the leaves. I think that'll look nice. I'll stitch on this more later today and have another update for you tomorrow.

Opinions Wanted

I pulled the colors out of the pin for the SRE and they look a little bright to me. I like it and I'm sure not pulling all that out:



The painted lace looks a bit muted to me and it's not a problem to change it to something else since I haven't sewn it down yet. What do you all think? Does this work or should I paint another piece of lace in brighter colors? Please let me know your opinion!

On the baseball front, I'd like to thank everyone who sent me "happy wishes" for my Cubbies! It's been a long time for them. Game one is tonight but it starts a bit past my bedtime. It's a 9:00 game and I usually go to bed around 8:30. I'll lay down this afternoon for an hour in hopes of being able to stay awake through a few innings!

At the moment, I'm still trying to stay detached from the outcome. That's a bit challenging and I would just be in heaven if they went to the World Series and I'll admit, I'd be out of my mind if they won! But one thing at a time! First, the Playoffs!

Once baseball is completely over, I have no idea what to watch on television. I guess my DVD player will be going non-stop until April. Really, the only other thing I watch besides baseball and movies is The Food Channel. Which anyone who knows me thinks that's hysterical since I don't cook! No, I do not! But I love to watch other people cook. As long as it's not in my kitchen and I don't have a mess to clean up. I'd always rather be stitching!

Pansy Purse

I started stitching on this project yesterday afternoon:



Ok, so I didn't get real far but it's a start. It took me awhile to decide on what lace to use. I kind of spent more time playing in my lace dresser than actually deciding on something to use! I love to sit and piece by piece, refold all of my lace, look at my collection of appliqués and just plain organize it all. I just find it calming and peaceful to play with my stash and just appreciate having it!

Anyway, I'll have more stitching time later today so this piece should start getting a little more interesting.

New DMC Perle Cottons

Several years ago, DMC came out with a set of shaded embroidery threads which they called, "Color Variations". I loved them! Many times while stitching with them I thought to myself, these would be great in Perle #5! DMC must have been reading my mind because they've recently released these threads in Perles:



Aren't these just yummy?!!! Oooof! I wanted to share a photo of them with you before I started using them.

I don't see them listed on DMC's website yet but they are available from Herrshnerr's. Here's the direct link to the thread listing.

Flea Market Finds & New Purse

We went the last flea market of the season up in Elkhorn, WI yesterday. This one is my favorite. It's huge and the prices are really great! They only do this one 4 times per season so I felt a little sad when we left. Thankfully, there are others that run each month all year so as long as it isn't too cold or snowy, I do get a bit of antiquing through the Winter months. And we do have several nice antique malls that we go to when the weather is bad but I just love the outside fair grounds atmosphere!

Anyway, I found some nice things yesterday. First a great pile of vintage embroidery transfers to add to my collection which is quite extensive now!



I'm always thrilled when I find some that I don't have!

Next, some really nice old lace:



Vintage lace is great because it takes dye very well! There isn't any poly in it!

I also bought a couple of vintage rhinestone pins:



The tree is for a Christmas purse for myself. Now, I know you know that Christmas is not my favorite holiday but I thought a pretty Christmas purse would be fun!

The other piece is for a purse for my sister. She isn't huge on crazy quilting but she loves my peacocks with the fancy yarn tails and asked me if I could do one on a purse for her but not with CQ. I thought I'd use a beautiful fabric background, do the peacock and then add some SRE and some crystals. Yes, she does like glitter too! Anyway, I'll make that for her birthday which isn't until March.

So those are my flea market finds from yesterday! Fun stuff!!!

Something I've been looking for but haven't exactly found yet is an antique Singer Sewing machine in mint condition and perfect running order. We saw a lot of them yesterday but all needed work. Either the cabinet needed to be refinished or the treadle was missing or something else was missing. I'm sure I'll find one eventually. I love old things and I thought it would be fun to have one and do my piecing on it and then do my finishing on my regular machine. Which is also rather old as it was my grandmothers. It's one of those really good Singers from the 50's. I know I've put way more miles on it than my grandmother ever did. Anyway, an antique Singer treadle machine is something that I've got my eyes open for now. Don't you just love the thrill of the hunt?!!!

On the stitching front, I finished stitching up this little white cellphone pouch for Scott's step mom:



This is a gift for her birthday which isn't until December but I'll get it assembled as soon as I get another sewing day.

Since I only have 2 more gifts to make and a couple of ornaments, I'm going stitch up another purse for myself next:



I pieced this block back in July. The pansy pin came from the last flea market that we went to a few weeks back. It really pops against the black background! The painted lace was a gift from my friend Lula. I've been saving it for something very Victorian looking. Anyway, I plan to do this with lots of purples and plums. I may paint a piece of that lace that I bought yesterday and I want a lot of SRE on this. I plan to start stitching on this later this afternoon so stop back tomorrow to see where it goes!