I thought ya'll might enjoy some pictures from Mardi Gras. We didn't go to the parades. These were taken from the balcony of our apartment on Royal Street. Several times yesterday the street was packed with with over 1000 costumed locals. Some of the pictures I took simply for the costumes. There was a lot of work put into the costumes.

Today when Tommy was walking to the little store on the corner, he pasted an Egyptian souvenir store. He stopped in and bought me this beautiful blue velvet beaded pouch. He said it was for inspiration. Isn't he so sweet and isn't it beautiful?

T.A.S.T and the Feather Stitch

This week's stitch for T.A.S.T. is the feather stitch. This is one of my all time favorite stitches. It is so versatile. Making one change in it changes the flow totally. I love making the circles with it. These are not finished. I will either add beads at the end of each branch or another stitch. I am still undecided. On the first block below, I am adding detached chains to the feather vines.

I am totally addicted to making those cute little 3 inch squares. These are the ones I have made so far. I am sure there are many more in my future. They also seem to be getting smaller and smaller. I do believe I will lay the blame for these directly on Lesa's doorstep. And I am not even in her swap.

One of these days I will remember that when I have to break a post into more than one post to put my "title" on the final post.

Anyway.....

This bag is what I call my butterfly bag. Here on the front I have 3 small butterflies with a size 6 bead on them beside a double row of cretan stitches. In the middle upper section, I filled it in with cross stitches and then in the spaces between the two rows I placed a bead. On the blue section I have alternating lengths of buttonhole topped with a French knot on the longer stitches.



On the inside of the bag, I added 3 more butterflies.













On the back of the butterfly bag I did double chevron, on the upper left, triple cretan on the right, and then the blue with red flowers on the lower left, I beaded the flower centers.







Since one of the colors for Project Spectrum is blue, I made a set of bookmarks with varying shades and textures of blue fabric.

What I've been working on lately

Even though I haven't posted in a while, I have been hard at work. I have three bags ready to be lined and stitched together; I have some panels, no pictures of yet, that are almost ready to be put into totes; I have some bookmarks and 3 inch squares waiting to be embellished.

My first bag I call the pink roses bag due to the panel of pink roses on the back.
The front is fairly simple with only some fun fur and a piece of trim I got from Elizabet in my Victorian stocking. On the back, I used several TAST stitches, chevron, buttonhole, and detached chain, along with French knots.















On the inside flap of the bag, I added cretan and herringbone stitches along with the others.

















My second bag here call my orange bag due to a large orange panel on the back. On the front, above right, I did a meandering chain stitch that I added silver bugle beads to along it. A double chevron stitch along the slant of the green patch.


On the inside flap, I did three rows of herringbone, cross stitches crossed with silver thread, and then a row of green bugle beads down the right hand slant.