First up, you may remember my first foray with candlewick embroidery and the better-than-french-knot colonial knot (here and here). I finally got it pieced to become a wall hanging. Now I will stash it a way a bit until I get the necessary boards to finish the quilt frame my dad made. Yes, I finally WILL be doing hand quilting. Probably just a basic stitch-in-the-ditch but maybe also not! I have time to ponder it. Plus, that big center section needs something.

Second, Boy always gets me something electronic for doing his taxes. This year, since I joined a gym recently (WHAT), he got me an MP3 player so I might be more obliged to go (my membership is about a week old so I’ve only been twice). I’ve been dying to make a cassette project from Lysa Flower and this gift finally put me over the edge! I ended up making several changes to the pattern because of my mistakes. I problem-solved as I went, which churned up some creative juices. This ended up being a prototype rather than the finished product, I am afraid. It was all going so swell, too, until my MP3 player (that arrived only today, after much sewing had already commenced) didn’t quite fit. I knew the measurements were close, but I just thought luck would be on my side. The opening is maybe a quarter inch too tight. A quarter inch! Ugh! You can see it all twisty here from trying to force it to listen to me. It was quite a brat about the whole ordeal. Clearly, it is laughing at me. You can see it, too, right?

But I actually don’t mind having to redo this – my piecing will be much better; I won’t have run out of matching fabric scraps because I am making changes mid-go; I’ve learned where to avoid mistakes; I have better ideas to employ my personal additions; I will probably add an embroidered message; et cetera. And my favorite part – where my imagination met reality and gave birth to awesomeness – the wrist strap, which doubles as a closure method, wait for it, looks like unwound cassette tape! Huzzah!

Third, this is not a wip-TAST-ic Wednesday, I am afraid. I have not started this week’s challenge, which is the rice stitch, other than to investigate images online and in my books. I believe I will get a big chunk of it finished on Friday though. Fingers crossed I do, because this weekend is quite busy. As are the next couple and then I am away for archaeology. I am beginning to fear TAST may suffer some consequences real soon:/