Snowballs and Snowfalls

Clever title, eh?  Sheesh - I sure get amused by the little things, don’t I?  hehehe

The snowfall the title refers to is the storm we had on Thursday-Friday which dumped more snow than we have had the whole winter so far.  But that’s OK; we need it.  And it is half gone now anyway, and the next several days will be relatively warm and clear. Shirt sleeve weather by mid-week.  Yesssss!

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I finished my Snowball (a friendship circle; rather like an ATC, only we chose round shapes) for Connie.  She finished hers for me last week, and when it arrives, I will show it to you; it is gorgeous!  In the meantime, Connie requested gold, cream, bronze and copper.  That, to me, says metallic and sparkly.

At first I thought I would just do seams and one large flower, and sort of echo what Manya did for Colleen, which you can see here.  But then I found a piece of antique lace with a circle of little tiny flowers around a sort of…. well, it looked to me like a web. Ding! Spiders are traditional on CQ’s (they represent good luck), so Connie, I hope you don’t mind a friendly little arachnid.  :-)

I outlined the flowers in copper metallic thread, then found the tiniest copper beads in my stash. My eyesight is not the best, so I had never used them.  But they were perfect for the leaves, so it was now or never. I donned my reading glasses and a magnifier, and voila!  I had to work an hour at a time on it because that’s all my eyes could do, but I did it!  And the beads and stitching are in the correct general area, LOL!!!  :-)

The spider is made from two vintage brass beads and more of the bronze metallic. Parts of the legs don’t show well against the lace, but they are all there.   I also made some small bead flowers from bronze beads.  And then I added some feather stitching in gold, plus chains in a white gold, yellow gold and copper.  (Ta da!  I believe that checks off TAST Week #8 as well).

It was fun, and I feel as though I stretched myself on this a bit. Working small forced me to focus more and use aids that I had been putting off (like magnifiers). And it taught me that I can be patient and even when the going is slow, I can persevere and finish.  It was very gratifying!

So, off it goes in Monday’s mail to Connie.