Sparkle

Happy Sunday, all! I wanted to show you this cheerful fish. I spent last weekend on Cape Cod and found this guy advertising a dentist's services. I'd go to this dentist based on the fish alone. I think whimsy should be rewarded!

I think winter brings out the wish for bright and sparkly in me, so I put aside most of my historic stuff and got out the glitz. You may remember this rose; it's Rose Marie from Blackberry Lane Designs. I stitched it once already, using the called for DMC and a few glittery threads as embellishments. It may be hard to tell from my photo, but I'm using glittery threads for all of it this time.

And I picked up another project that combines bright, cheery colors, blending filament (not charted--I just added the filament to Santa's hat) and eventually, loads of sparkly beads. It's a nice easy-going stitch--two threads of DMC over two threads on 32 count white linen

I also wanted to work on this Valentiney project and had the perfect cut of Lakeside in Porcelain. I'm using an overdyed silk that's missing its band but is the perfect color of deep pink. It's a JBW design from last year.

I decided that I wanted a more truly Valentine stitch--nothing too large. Are you familiar with Faby Reilly? Very pretty designs.

I got a Christmas design as well. And irises for spring. All of that should keep me out of trouble for a while!

I didn't ignore all of my other projects; I worked quite a bit on Janet Gibson's Scottish Swan. I wanted to start the swan this week, but I'm missing one of the colors and it's not in my stash. Drives me nuts, because I know I fully kitted up this design, but alas, I cannibalized this project more than once, as I recall, before I got really going on it.

Speaking of trouble, here's Kitten-Kitten, exploring one of my project bags:

And Pink, who thinks that because I've been traveling so much, there should be a gift for him. Poor bunny!

Happy week ahead!