bjp 0214 - cinnamon and mustard

I had a dream, and when I woke up, all I could remember was the colour scheme of cinnamon and mustard. I'm not sure why my subconscious continued to dwell on those colours, but I just had to use them for my February Bead Journal. To be frank, it's not my favourite, but I think that it's important to stretch yourself, by sometimes working outside of your personal comfort zone.

This section contains a mustard coloured, embroidered disc (straight stitch, over plastic drapery ring), in honour of the closed, "serious embroidery" facebook group that I joined earlier this year. Also showing, is a bronze coloured screw eye from the stash (but it's almost buried.

I taught my first Altered Domino class at BeadFX , at the beginning of February, and wasn't it lucky that I just happened to have a tiny domino bead that my sister had given me? The cinnamon colour on the domino and the mustard on the button, are both courtesy of Adirondack, Alcohol Inks. One of my favourite playthings!!!

February marks my first purchase of Tila beads (the three, square white/yellow beads. I've used a small screen (sent from my friend Kaite in Australia), which is now almost entirely hidden under the domino. Also included is a small slice of dyed silk cocoon. gifted to me, by my sister, last Christmas. The leaf was traced from a brilliant red leaf, that I dried last fall. The elongated shape was enough of a departure from the others, that it almost doesn't fit in with the rest. Oh well, let's call it the misfit leaf!!!! LOL! February is actually my least favourite month of the year. It a constant reminder (thanks to growing up on the West Coast) that spring is showing up in other areas of the country, but not here in Ontario. We're still in the deep freeze! Sigh!

what if i experiment with hand stitch?

What if I'm just cruising along on a friend's blog and find a new book to purchase from Amazon? What if it's called Stitch and Structure, Design and Technique in two-and three-dimensional textiles, by Jean Draper? What if I actually skim the book cover-to-cover and stop on a section that talks about using hand stitch on water-soluble stabilizer (WS)? What if I had never thought of this? What if I find it very exciting? What if I made two small experimental pieces, over two days, and then decided that I needed to stop for a while, because my hand was hurting. What if I'll get back to it later?

What if I sandwiched thread waste and used teabags between the WS and then stitched with a running stitch? What if I knotted the thread intersections? What if I sandwiched strips of felted, thrift store wool between WS and then stitched with running and cretan stitches? What if I say there's an awful lot more to explore in this book? What if I say that I've actually finished my February bead journal, but am having trouble photographing it? What if I say that I'll return in the next couple of days>

just doodling around

A little hand work to doodle around with during the Olympics. Not good during skating, but perfectly acceptable for some other sports. The leaves were made a while ago in an Alice Vander Vennen fibre collage class. Although I did play with some of Alice's colour combinations, I went way off track with this one, so much so that Alice was actually surprised at the way the leaves turned out (definitely not her style or colour scheme). I spent hours, collaging bits of upholstery material, ribbon and vintage lace into one large piece, and then horrified everyone, by free hand cutting my leaves. Then I slashed each leaf in half and rejoined them with another mis-matched leaf part. I did this with a free motion ladder stitch (my apologies to people who, actually do this by hand, because the result is much more elegant). Yes, I went off on a tangent!!!! However, I did redeem myself close to the end of the class. I have three more, leaf collage pieces, assembled and ready to stitch. These ones are individually backed with creamy St. Armand watercolour paper and will include sheer fabric, small stones, text and perhaps a bit of metal. Now all I need to do, is figure out how to attach the fabrics to the paper. These lovely collages were all taped and bundled, until yesterday, when I opened them up for the first time since the class (I think it was a year ago, last October). I'm still waiting for a little more inspiration, but am definitely closer to the finish line!

As for these little leaves, I'm not quite sure what I will do with them. Perhaps a wide narrow piece, but am still not fully invested in that layout. For now, I'll just continue to doodle.....By the way, I'm sure that I have more leaves lying about somewhere, just waiting to be discovered in some future workroom adventure!!