January Progress Post Part 1

 Woah January almost flew by. I wish it would have flown by faster honestly because it was one of the most stressful months yet since the start of the pandemic. With the events of January 6th (attempted coup), and the inauguration (yayyy!), it was quite a bit for all of us. Additionally, we had a death in the immediate family along with other stressors so I've been a hot mess. 

But somehow, in the last 23 days, I've worked on several projects. My biggest focus at the beginning of the month was filling a preorder that I had set up at Paradise Rose Shop's etsy for rose terrarium jewelry. I've been making these for quite a few years now and had a lot of supplies stocked up, but I'm slowly reaching the end of the current supply. I wanted to give fans an opportunity to get a specific color or variety of colors that they would not normally be able to get. I think the preorder went well, and customers are writing me with really nice reviews!

A sampling of some of the terrariums I made for the preorder

I made a lot of extra ring versions of the trio rose terrariums, but I have yet to finish them. I need to clean and apply the glass domes I normally add to them, then wait some time for them to cure. Hopefully then I'll be able to list up the extras on the Etsy store.

Rose terrarium rings, some waiting for their glass dome, some already finished

January 2nd I had the opportunity to take an extra class with Kazue of Sashiko.Lab, something I've been doing monthly for a few months now. It's always a delight and really enjoyable. I took what I learned from some of the classes and made some gifts for Christmas (photos/post coming soon). Every month there's a different pattern or technique that we learn. This extra class was offered during the summer, but I had missed it so I jumped at the opportunity to attend this one. It features a hydrangea pattern  (Ajisai-sashi), and is double sided! It uses the Hitomezashi technique (mainly uses a grid pattern to draft the pattern) with the addition of a weaving technique (Kiguri-sashi). We focused on making a coaster during class. 

Before starting, showing the variegated thread for the weaving portion I plan to use (and white for the small stitches) and the sewn coaster with chalk grid drawn on

The coaster using the hydrangea pattern. You can see the chalk grid lines still as I have not washed the water-soluble lines off yet

Speaking of Sashiko, I had bought a Christmas sampler that I never worked on in December before Christmas as intended, but started just before the new year and have been progressively making progress on it. Samplers are great for practice and come with the marks on the fabric. You wash the fabric and thus the markings disappear. There are samplers from various companies, and some have traditional patterns and some more modern. I'd consider this one a more modern as it doesn't follow a geometric pattern of any sort, although the ornaments (that are also sampler pieces) included do in some cases. I love the variegated sashiko thread I purchased from Upcycle Stitches, a shop in the US owned by Japanese artisans of sashiko. They offer a course, often stream live stitching, and have a lot of informative videos. The threads I used are actually indigo dyed, but were a "mistake" batch because it is not an even blue (instead it is green and variegated). I personally absolutely adore making use of this, because to me it's not a mistake but a unique one of a kind tool to work with.

I've done a little more since this photo, but the project has been put on hold due to other porjects

This ended up being a rather long post, so I'll continue with highlighting the projects I've been working on in a second post another day.

Thanks for reading!