Motivating myself with a personal challenge.

     I sat down with some silk fabrics and a large square and challenged myself to at least piece the block, as I have not been stitching as much as I would like to lately.  I wanted to start some early special surprise presents for family and friends and could not seem to stop from being overwhelmed, by my sewing room.

     I must admit there is a lot going on in there.  Between sane quilts, sane projects, silkribbon work and beadwork, not to mention embroidery in different stages it was time to take the plunge.  I lost and the room won. 

     I hope to not admit to defeat and will take the time to straighten out the room so that I can stitch in comfort in the fresh breezes of day.  Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Take It Further Challenge - January

This will be worked over the weekend as well as I do want to finish this one before I start the new fan piece. I am working with very long and wide stitches as well as overstitching to make them larger and staying away from a lot of frills on this one. I like how the angel is reaching forward and the wedge will be filled with a picture of a mentor either surrounded with a floral base or some reverse image beadwork to highlight the silk.

Challenge

Due to some redecorating the Atkin's bead journal project has been on hold and will be caught up before the middle of December..........I have the August, September and October in progress, and know exactly what I want to do with November and December and will make an honest effort to keep this committment. I thoroughly enjoy artistic beading and want to get back into this art form soon.

July

This is my July project, which I am proud to say is an original, and it is shown in sketch form further along in the blog.

I wanted this to represent the beautiful lilies that grow down the outside ramp that leads from our patio deck. All that was left to do were the few leaves at the bottom to be filled in. This is stitched within the constraints of a cd rom pattern. It also has the bottom left so that this portion can have an adorment of a tassell, beaded, or charm at some time.

I just started to work on August's " A Daisy A Day " yesterday and will keep posting as time permits.

June Project

This is a Ruth Wilson design that was destined for a bookcover, but as I have learned so many new techniques and added a few of my own along the way have decided to include this as my first piece of work in the Challenge. All I had to do was the leaves yesterday and now it is done.

Challenge

I have decided to try the challenge of doing a journal page a month and seeing what I can come up with in beadwork that is original and realistic and useable for me. I am so conformed to basic shapes and art to wear that I have to try and break loose in order to justify beaded art.

I thought long and hard before signing up as this is a venture for a year and while I procrastinated in my mind my heart was saying you can do it. Everything in life does not have to be wearable or functioning in order to serve a purpose, and who said a journal had to open in one unit.

I will share my journey with you as I go along and share some pictures as well. I have decided to call this one " round to it ". I have so many designs and ideas floating in my head and so many little things that I have wanted to try and now I am allowing myself to break loose and take the plung and get " around to it ".

My first piece is " Tiger Lily ". I have used the cd shape as a disk for working on and I have sketched a tiger lily onto the disk in free flowing petals. I wanted to use some dimension so I plan on doing them three dimensional, thus the choice of background fabric......orange overdyed silk. I also want to wind leaves and ribbons in as well as other roundelles etc.

I gave this a good trial run on stiff stuff and was not pleased at how it would not be able to actually wrap around a cd when finished so removed the beads and the pattern and have started at square One again.

Materials for my first one include a layer of good muslin, a layer of stiff stuff with the pattern drawn clearly onto this, and a piece of overdyed silk placed on top of this. I then lightly traced through in case I change my mind while stitching.

I picked up my coloured pencils and shaded in the colours that I liked and now know which direction to take the colour in. A gorgeous little face given to me by a special friend " Leslie Urhlich of PinyonCreek fame is the focal point of this piece. I hope to work with assorted sizes of beads and shapes and keep all twelve pieces when done in journal form in a flat layout. I will also design a cover front and back. I know if I write this in here I have to make sure that it gets done and this also allows me to use more than one technique and grow in my beadwork, which is fast becoming my first love right in line with silkribbon work.