Snow, Hand-Sewn Mitten and Beaded Ornaments

Well winter is truly here now. Today it snowed all day. All day, all day, all day! I shoveled snow 4 times off the sidewalk around the house I am house sitting.
I has been a grey day all day but not cold, making for heavy wet snow. This is why I shoveled it four times instead of waiting for it to really pile up. It is too heavy to wait for a solid accumulation. Right now it is 9:30pm and it still hasn't stopped snowing. The weather forecast is calling for an additional 10 cm (4") tonight.

This was around 10:00am.

It was the perfect day to stay indoor and do projects.
I have been meaning to make mittens (sewing, not knitting... I already know how to knit mittens) for quite a while. In fact since Edna in fort Smith taught me how to bead. I had already bought three different wool coats at thrift stores. I'd look on the internet for some patterns and today I made one mitten.... Only one so far.
It is going a little slow partly because I watch Chinese movies on my computer at the same time.
I am pleased to see that I can recognize a few words and expressions every now and then. Otherwise I just let the language go by and get familiar with its sounds and rhythm.

That's the pattern I used to make the mitten. I cut it out of the gift catalog from Plan Canada. (You can check them out at plancanada.ca/givehope)

I pretty much followed the most commonly shown mitten pattern on the internet but the result is not quite right from my point of view.

I don't like the placement of seam inside the hand. Look at it again.

The second mitten of that pair is already cut off so I may finish the pair because it is quite wearable. But I want to make modifications so the seam comes at the wrist. I have not seen any pattern bringing the seam at the wrist so maybe there is a reason why it is not done, but I want to try. If anybody has any experience with this let me know.
Once I have the mitten pattern I like I want to make mittens with wool on the outside and fleece as a liner and maybe I will put some beading.

So far the only beading I have done is to make small Christmas tree ornaments.

They are double sided and filled like little cushions. One side has a white background as the side you see here. the other side is brown made with a background I cut out of suede jacket I bought at a thrift store. Originally I used suede because I couldn't find moose hide and probably would not have wanted to spend the money on it for a beginner's project.
I am beading flowers even though they probably do not appear very christmasy, but they are quite traditional of beading works. Also I like to hang all kind of various things on trees.


I want to say how grateful I am to Edna for teaching me how to bead.