The Ice Has Melted & Sashiko Finish & Catch Up

  Good morning (early), 

      We have been slowly warming up here. Still a little ice floating by on the lake. Yesterday a very long narrow piece of ice was filled with the small sea gulls-that was fun to watch them most of the morning.

  The warm up feels good, I waited til Thursday to go food shopping as there was too much ice on our steep hill. We will be enjoying spring weather for a few days-back to the 20's F though at night -and the birds are happy too as they have been singing.

   The time difference between us and Italy for the Olympics-is perfect as opening ceremony started live around 2 in the afternoon Missouri time. A few sports events started a day before already. So I will be enjoying watching lots of sports for the next couple of weeks.

  Last night I did finish up stitching the sashiko dragonfly pillow. Since this is a small piece I hand stitched the seams. It is ready to hand wash to remove all the pattern markings-dry and fill with a stuffing-I still have quilt batting in my craft stash so will look for a bag of scraps-hoping not to need to buy anything. I will start on the second dragonfly pillow that I had purchased at the same time soon.  Nice to have hand stitching projects while watching the sport events.

  Yesterday I made us fish tacos-we are really liking those-and for me I can leave out the spicy and the tomatoes do to the acid reflux issues. I am getting better but still having a difficult time keeping my weight above 110. 

    The mail was so slow over Christmas. Yesterday I received a Christmas card from Germany-that I think was mailed in November. Usually Germany mail to me is around 2-3 weeks. Gorgeous postage stamps that were not cancelled by the post offices.  Same day I also received a handmade Valentine's day card from a dear friend-so I loved the mail yesterday. Smiles Thanks to the both of you.

  To my slow mail friends I will not be sending out Valentine's Day cards this year. Thinking of something for March-April for Spring.

 

Update: around 11:30 am

   I did find a small bag of cotton quilt batting scraps so I tore up enough to stuff this pillow. I am pleased with the results of this pillow.  photos will enlarge just click on them

  Some of you may remember this pillow I made quite a few years ago now. I didn't want to make a whole crazy quilt but I wanted to make something small so I made this pillow. The yellow fabric is natural hand dyed pieces I did probably from the mimosa tree leaves. The stitched blocks are all recycled wool fabrics that were from clothes .I found at the resale shop

Here is  my next sashiko project-still not sure on which colors of threads to use-any ideas? I have different greens for the leaves, I have a yellow-green as well, and I have a brown and greyish thread color-thought for the dragonfly when I bought the sashiko threads-but now not sure if I like that or not. 

Enjoy your weekend