by the skin of my teeth

I managed to start the March BJP page during the actual month! This page is representative of St. Patrick's Day - the historic perspective of this day that is really a day of religious intolerance in many ways. The driving of the snake from Ireland being symbolic of driving out the old pagan ways. I'm trying to learn more about the world and so did some reading on the history of Ireland and its' long history of discrimination against the Irish people - both in their own country and when they immigrated to America - not all that long ago signs saying "No Irish need apply" were commonplace - can you imagine that happening now? Okay - enough with my history lesson - here's the beginnings of the March page.


I'm off to ArtFest in the morning for my annual battery recharge - lots of eye candy upon my return.

FINALLY!!

February is finished - I don't know why it took so long but it did - Time to put all the beads away and start on March though I think that I may start April and take it to ArtFest with me to work on there.

*still*

plugging away on the February page - I came very close to finishing it on Saturday - I sat and watched "A Streetcar Name Desire", "The Corpse Bride" and "Frida" while I beaded. I always cry at the end of Frida - you'd think I'd know she dies. Anyway, I beaded while I watched movies and long into the night but when there was maybe another hour or so of work to be done - I just couldn't go on. I was soooo tired. Hopefully I'll get some time after work this week to finally finish. Here's a photo of the 'scene of the crime' - the mess I develop when beading. I have a giant studio with tables and countertops that my beloved built for me but do I use it? NO! I work at a tiny tv tray table. He (the beloved) screwed a larger piece of wood onto the top of it because he got tired of seeing me work in such a small space.




This past weekend I also finished up with the seed bead organization. It is so nice to be able to actually *find* things and it's ever so much easier to put everything away when I'm finished. This process helped me to learn that I have far too many blue-green/teal beads and hardly any brown or gray ones.

Still plugging through February

I'm still working on the turning in circles February BJP page - I've never been this tardy before - I feel like I work on this page all the time but it never seems to get done - I know I'm making progress, it just doesn't feel like I'm making enough progress. Hopefully the March page will go faster - I already have an idea for it but I don't want to start it until February is finished.

slow progress

First off - let me say I am so tired of snow - It snowed again here in the Pacific Northwest, the place where it doesn't snow - remember? that's why I moved here from Detroit?


I've got too many irons in the fire - the Bead Journal Project, a class on Joggles.com, getting ready for ArtFest, a collaborative necklace project. . . and making slow progress on each of them.
Here is the work to date on the February Bead Journal Project page.

and updates on progress on 2 of the six projects for the joggles.com class - I'm so far behind on that one - thankfully my boss at my day job is going to Mexico next week so I'll have more free time. (yay!)




I really kind of like the back of the painted quilt - I might try doing something like this in the future - just free motion line drawing on muslin - pretty fun huh?


So that's where I'm at this second week of May - behind on a lot of things and just rather discombobulated - If I owe you a phone call or an email response, I'm sorry - I'll get to it as soon as I can - life is just rather annoying right now.

My poor neglected blog

I have too many projects in process at one time. The class on joggles.com involves a different mini-quilt technique each week. Somehow my 'mini-quilts' have turned into larger projects and those coupled with my Bead Journal Project page, working on a couple of round robin projects I'm participating in, getting trades ready for Artfest and oh yeah, my day job that is 40 hours a week with an added 10 hours of commute time and I've really felt like I'm burning the candle at both ends. Hopefully, now that the days are longer I'll feel like working more when I get home from the office rather than just curling up with a good book. Speaking of good books, I just received The Crafty Chica's Guide to Artful Sewing and is really is a fun read and true candy for the eyes. Everything Kathy does is so bright and colorful. And she quotes ME in the book! What better recommendation could I give you than that?




Now on to the works in progress. I finished a second landscape quilt. It was really fun working on these and I hope to do a larger one in the future.






Another class project was a painted quilt - I selected my puppy Zakk as my subject (and no he didn't hold still, I used a photograph). The painting process was really surprisingly easy once I got the hang of it. The quilty is pinned together now, waiting for some machine (and possibly hand) quilting.



And yet another class project was a felt applique quilt - I got a little carried away with this one - la Catrina is very big - about 20 - 30 - Since this photo was taken, I've removed those pink leaf sequins, added a turquoise felt 'flounce' to the brim of the hat and a garden of bead and sequin embellished flowers - I'm thinking la Catrina might be done by the end of the month. After the surface is done, I'll still need to quilt her and finish the border. Now you can see what I mean when I said I got carried away with these projects - the class format was to do 8 x 10 inch sample quilts - I should have followed directions.





And last but not least is the little applique bird quilt - I came closer to following the size suggestions this time. I think I'll finish this one with some hand embroidery and free motion machine quilting - all in yellow threads. And maybe some shiny black buttons to finish it off.


Work also continues on the 'turning in circles' February Bead Journal Project page, though I've been remiss about taking in progress photos of the page. I'll try to do that soon.

So what have YOU all been making?

Thanks for stopping by. I'd love to hear comments and/or suggestions for my quilties.

something new

I'm taking a break from the circles, letting my finger heal up while waiting for a leather thimble to come in the mail (who would have thought it would be so difficult to find one locally? certainly not me).

I'm taking another on line class at Joggles.com. I love taking these classes - they give me a sense of structure that I can still work on according to my own schedule. The current class is being taught by Jane LaFazio who is an amazing artist and the topic is art quilts. The first one was a 'landscape' quilt. This was the lesson that least appealed to me when I looked at the class description, but I'm really glad now that I went ahead and did the project (and of course I added a few beads).

February BJP page beginnings

I feel like I've been running in circles lately - can you tell?

Vintage?

I love vintage glass beads, especially the flower shaped ones. I don't know what it is about the glass but it just seems different (it probably has heavy metals in it so don't put them in your mouth). One of my favorite time wasting habits is searching the net for vintage glass beads and herein is the problem. I think of something as being vintage if it is OLDER THAN ME which means something manufactured before the 1950's. I think we're heading toward antique status here rather than vintage but in my world, it's still vintage. Imagine my surprise when I pop 'vintage' into a search engine and find plastic - vintage plastic? plastic? that's not vintage - (now before you correct me please remember that this is my own personal world that we're talking about here) and these plastic beads aren't cool bakelite which is really resin and not plastic anyway - we are talking about things taht I found in my Aunt Elaine's jewelry box when I was a child in the 60's. NOT VINTAGE - (remember this is still my own private world we are discussing).

The same goes for the Melamine that they are now selling at vintage - it was ugly at Aunt Ruth's house and it's ugly now. My children (who are in their 30's) were so excited when they received a set of 'vintage' melamine dinnerware for their wedding - the pattern was the same that my Aunt Alice had with those mod little rounded triangle thingys - ugh. And the 'vintage rafia tumblers'. I saw some on eBay for $12.50 each. They used to give those to you at the gas station when you filled your tank (after they were done checking your air pressure, oil and windshield wiper fluids).

I suppose now I'm sounding like my Grandma Lola - remembering the 'good old days' - but that's not it at all. All I ask is that when searching for things that are 'old', I don't find things that were manufactured after I was born. Is that too much to ask?

Snow!

I woke up to a snow covered world and stayed home from work and finished my second January page. I really need to learn how to use a thimble because one of the fingers on my right hand looks like ground meat.

Continuation of 2nd January page

I'm really enjoying playing with all of these new stitches - It's taking a long time to do but I really do love the bottom portion of this piece - I'm so glad that I decided to do another January page.

progress on 2nd January BJP page continues

and I'm still having fun!

January page - again

Inspired by Robin Atkins new book Heart to Hands, I've begun a second page for January for the Bead Journal Project. I am having so much fun learning and experimenting with new stitches. Here's the beginning of the second page for this month.

Happy Inauguration Day!

I finished my January Bead Journal Project page over the weekend. It's quite a different 'look' for me - I feel like this month is all about change and as I wrote previously, there are a lot of changes involved in this page - change in needles, change in colors, change even in backing material, using metals - lots of change - some of it good, some of it not so good. I liked the new needles, didn't care for the tear away stabilizer backing and red, white and blue is still not my favorite color combination. Here is the finished page.

Arrggg!

I tried something new this past weekend - a beaded doll. Somehow I didn't think it would be so difficult - boy was I wrong! Stitching around a 3 dimensional surface is a whole different ball game than simply stitching beads to fabric. I poked myself, I swore a LOT, I almost gave up but I decided to stick it out - even if the result was - well - funny looking. I'm proud of myself for finishing, even though I really wanted to give it to the cats to bury in their box. I still want to make a beaded doll, but I think that I will wait for either a class or have my friend Megan Noel teach me because 'do it yourself' dolls just don't seem to work.

And now - for your amusement is beaded doll #1 (she has hips just like mine)

New Year Beading

We celebrated Christmas and my son's birthday on New Year's Day due to the horrible weather conditions here on the actual day. While the kids were here I worked on a little 5 x 5 inch beaded square. While I was in Phoenix that last time I'd purchased a couple of small packets of mixed beads just because I liked the color combinations and then thought "well, what am I going to do with these?". The answer was this little square. It was really mindless and fun to do.


This weekend I started the January BJP page. Changes. There are lots of changes happening - a new year, a new president and new direction for this country. I thought I might make some changes myself so for this piece I used a different size of needle (I used short size 10's while I regularly use very long ultra thin needles; I used silamide while i normally use nymo; I used different colors of thread while I normally use one neutral color throughout a piece. I even used a different backing - a tear away stabilizer rather than my standard wool felt. And, I used a totally different color combination than I would normally use. This is inspired by politics and the upcoming innaguration as well as anything else. The larger metal piece says 'imagine' and the small pebble says 'peace'. The weather has been unseasonably cold and my arthritis has been bothering more than usual because of it so I've spent the entire weekend in the house beading. I am trying to slow down so that I can enjoy the process of this page more but it doesn't seem to be happening.

something silly

After working for so many hours on the December Bead Journal Project page I wanted to do something relaxing and so I decided to make silly sock monsters - except I used baby sized socks. They just make me laugh - It also makes me laugh seeing Zakk the puppy try to sneak them off the sewing table. Rather than torture him with temptation, I've packed them up and shipped them out to surprise someone.

December page completed

>
Being snowed in has had its' advantages as I finished up my December page this evening. I have an idea brewing for January but think I need to spend a day re-organizing my bead stash and I've not really put anything away in its' proper spot since this BJP began in September and it's difficult to tell what I have on hand.

How do you organize your beads? I've tried sorting by color, sorting by size, but it still seems like even when the beads are 'sorted' there is still a big jumble in each color drawer and I spend far far too much time finding what I want to use instead of actually beading.

Here's December completed.

December BJP page continues

Still snowed in - this is getting very very old, very very fast. I broke out the size 15 beads this morning figuring that since I had so much time to work on this page, I might as well use them.

snowbound

We've had quite abnormal weather here for the past week and I've been stuck in the house due to ice and snow which of course became the focus of my December Bead Journal Project page. It's still snowing so possibly I'll get this finished before Christmas. I never thought I'd WANT to go to the office so badly.