Rediscovered Treasures

It was an easy-going day yesterday. I sat and did my slow stitching at a leisurely pace. My goal was to finish up the section in my hoop, and there was plenty of time for that.

I'm interrupting my journey north with a little jaunt over to the east this time. There, I'll find a friendly spider and some of the longest broom straws. This part will stitch up quick this morning, and then I can continue my journey northward. I'm getting very close to finishing off the broom straws.

I had some watering to do outside. While out, I noticed the deer at the far end of our field, grazing on the dandelions there. 

Large swaths of acreage have been cleared on both sides of our property over the past year. We don't see the clearings from our place, but they are just on the other side of our trees. We believe the clearing has destroyed some of the habitat the coyotes have used in previous summers, and we've seen a remarkable drop in their numbers. With fewer coyotes, we have more deer, and probably more squirrels too. Fewer coyotes can only be a good thing, and we're glad for it. We don't even hear them at night any more.

When I'd finished my morning chores, I headed into the sewing room. There was plenty of help to be had, although Sadie doesn't like it when I work on cat quilts. Those flat cats give her the creeps, and so she lit out fairly early. There were mousies to catch outside.

Smitty, steadfast as always, stayed behind to lend a paw.

With his able assistance, I finished off the second section for the Purrfectly Pieced quilt.

There are five sections total for this quilt. Here are the two I have so far.

And then, I went to work on my "fun finish" quilt. This is the Best Friends pattern from J. Michelle Watts. I spent quite a bit of time deciding on fabrics to use. I didn't realize it but the hair is done in three dimensions. The friend on the right has a braid, made from multiple strands of black embroidery floss. I cut off a length four yards long and then folded it in half, then in half, then in half, then in half again until I had a reasonable length. Then, it was fastened under the fusible applique before braiding it.

I started braiding it, but I was a little worried to tug too hard at it, afraid I'd pull it loose. And so I decided to do the top-stitching first, then finish off the braid. Fun, huh?

When that was finished, the piece looked like this:

I still needed to style the hair for the friend on the left. She has her hair in a bun. This was done by wrapping the floss around and around two fingers, then carefully removing my fingers, then tying it in a bundle in the middle. I attached it by machine-stitching over the center several times.

There I paused to search my sewing room for appropriate embellishments for the hair. They need some kind of "ornament" in their hair. I searched through buttons and beads and ribbons and floss and thread. I could find nothing I liked for this. It needed to be small, and everything I tried seemed too large or bulbous. Finally I gave up and decided to search in other rooms. When I left it for the day, it looked like this:

I don't know about you, but after a hard day of sewing, I think it's important to engage in some restorative sunbathing. Smitty has the right idea.

I was heading into the bedroom to go searching through an old jewelry box. There, I think I found some possibilities for embellishing the friends. I found this little box given to me by my mother. It's hand made and hand painted...

by someone in Guatemala. I think my mom probably picked this stuff up in Mexico.

Inside were these little "worry dolls." She gave them to me after our daughter died.

You can read the Legend of the Guatemalan Worry Dolls right here.

In a nutshell...

Worry dolls (also called trouble dolls; in Spanish, Muñeca quitapena) are small, hand-made dolls that originate from Guatemala. According to legend, Guatemalan children tell their worries to the Worry Dolls, placing them under their pillow when they go to bed at night. By morning the dolls have gifted them with the wisdom and knowledge to eliminate their worries.

So I think these have potential. They look a little strange by themselves, but I think I can attach them to something else...a button perhaps...to make them look more like a barrette.

Also, I found this little bracelet in my jewelry box. 

I've asked Mike to take it apart for me so that I can use two of these in my quilt. There are metal "eyelets" on either side of the larger pieces that I can use to attach them like buttons. This was given to me by one of my brother's friends a long time ago. I've never worn it or used it for anything. It appears to be something a street vendor might sell, and I'm fairly certain he picked it up in a trip to Austria. I'll try this too and see how it works.

So I have some ideas, and I'm kind of excited to try them out later today. I'll do some slow-stitching this morning, and I have a couple of housekeeping chores to do. Nevertheless, I expect I'll finish this before the day is out. It needs embellishing and borders, and then I'll have a finished top. No time like the present, right?