Ditching Stitching

Hello and Happy Sunday Everybody!
I am posting a quickie about a non-stitch related project that was a lot of fun.  Thursday evening, I decided to get out the bracelet kits that I got form French General and give jewelry making a shot.  It was so much fun to do and so quick!  After just a few hours, I ended up with four beautiful bracelets.  It is so nice to work on a project that can be done in one day every now and then and I had so much fun that I had to go back to the FG web-site and look at the rest of the bracelet kits.  I was good though; I decided to pace myself.  They have a photo of a gorgeous turquoise bracelet, but the kit is sold out (which is probably good...).  Anyway, here they are; the three thinner ones came as one kit.  The thicker one with glass raspberries is definitely the favorite and I have already worn it out. 

 

The next jewelry adventure is this button bracelet kit that I have had lying around for 2-3 years now.  This project will probably take a little bit longer to get done.  The base is stringed beads and from that, bead fringes are added using needle and thread to weave the fringes into the base.  There is a lot of beads and buttons in this kit, so I think that I need to wait for a day when I am fully awake and alert to do this.  I can totally see myself accidentally flip over the bead bags and spread beads all over the house.

 

I am always a bot concerned about using beads.  No matter how careful I am, I always lose a couple and I can only guess that most of them end up in the carpet somewhere.  Seeing that the parrots like to take a frequent stroll across the living-room floor, plus they love to chew on just about anything they find and can get away with, so glass seed beads are best not sprinkled across the floor.  

You can't imagine how hard it is to make a parrot spit.  They are stubborn and those beaks are designed to hold on to whatever they found. If you manage to bend the tiny mouth open, you'll find that they love to "hide" things that they don't want to share under their beaks...  Good times!  ;-)

I did finish up the mini bell-pull with blue birds from Fremme on Wednesday.

 

I mentioned that I was thinking about making it into a pillow.  Here below are the current thoughts and comparisons.  I like the last fabric choice best, even though the first two choices would make more sense, since they are home decorator fabric.  The three latter fabrics are made by the Japanese fabric design company Echino.  If you are not familiar with Echino, check out their fabrics!  They are gorgeous - classy, trendy, colorful, simple, cool!  The best source to have a peek at Echino's collections is probably Etsy; here!  I was thinking that I'd try to finish the pillow this weekend, but that will likely not happen.  I have too much fun cleaning the house and doing laundry....  ;-)

I did also pull out an old WIP; a really long bird bellpull from Eva Rosenstand.  As you can see, not a whole lot of progress has been done on this one.  If I stick to it, I know that I can get it done within a couple of weeks, since it is a huge piece of linen, but with a relatively pretty sparse amount of stitches.  I stitched up the mate last year and I know where I would like to hang them, so I really should focus...
I have not forgotten the Richmond sampler - I promise!  The "pale" sunflower is now golden and I have almost completed one out of the four border sides.  Those queen-stitches take time, but it looks great!  All in all, only 3 sides of the border and the rest of the text (with the missing silk floss) left to do!

  

Well, time to get going.  DH and I are going out on an adventure.  I'll tell you more about that another day!

Take care and Happy Stitching,