Birthday SOH for Wilma

I'm busy wrapping things up before I go to Charlotte on Wednesday. My biggest fear is leaving DH and DS alone. They assure me that they are capable but I'm still not convinced. We have completely different ideas about what is and isn't clean. For some reason HALF-ASSED keeps coming to mind. HMMMMMMM, I wonder why. LOL.

Anyway, one of the things that I wanted to get done was this heart for Wilma. I realize that I have until the end of June to get it to her but I just couldn't see any sense in waiting. Besides, this heart turned out to be a turning point for me. Wilma had stated that she didn't care for purple or for orange. I'm okay with the orange part but PURPLE!!! OMG, that's my favorite color. Suddenly, I felt disoriented. LOL.

So, I decided if I was going to work out of my comfort zone, I would do something VERY DIFFERENT. Different is good - YES??? Well, that's what I thought at first. And I somehow kept telling myself that even after I pieced and botched the first block (it's in the garbage can, BTW). Okay, round II. Same colors: Black, Tundra, Gold, Black/Gold mix, and Cranberry (crushed velour).

About 2 hours into deciding what to do with it, I decided that my lace was too white. So down stairs I run, open a tea bag, heat it up and toss in the lace. Finished product...not as dark as I would have liked but not WHITE anymore. Okay, making progress.

Seam treatments - blue looks like crap, so does pink, and most of my reds, greens, and yellows. Re-evaluating here (tick-tock, tick-tock). Okay, fine! Let's try some darker colors. I stayed with shades of brown, gold, amber, copper, and muted greens. DUH (and success!!!)











The center, circular piece is a dangely from an earring that I laced with ribbon and decorated with larger green beads. There is a star in the center. I guess since I live in Texas it could stand for the Lone Star State! BTW, this piece I received recently from my good friend Kat along with a whole box full of goodies (thanks again, KAT!). The lace pieces were part of a Lace Buy with Sharon (thanks again, Sharon). And then finally, I attached a copper heart with a key hole in the middle.





Again, there's a spider. I'm still working on perfecting the web. And to a degree...I guess the spiders too. This one has a squarish head. LOL.















I also managed to sneak in some pink glass beads on the right hand side. They actually toned down the gold thread a little. I also added some white beads for contrast in the left hand side (there's a lot of black over there) and on the flared ends of the lace pieces.

In the end, it turned out much, much better than I had expected. I like it! I only hope that Wilma will like it too. I'm also including a litte squishie of goodies for Wilma. Apparently, due to various circumstances, she didn't get all of her birthday squishies in a recent swap.

Well, lots to do....Happy Needling!