October Progress

Bead Journal Project (BJP)

Here are some pix showing my BJP piece for October finished, and some in-progress. I wanted the grapes to be the star of the piece which is why they appear more in relief. I did some free machine embroidery in the background to represent the leaves and the land, but first I laid the beads on top to get an idea of how they would be positioned.

I may come back to it at the end of the year and add more embroidered organza leaves on top. Or not - I find that letting a piece rest out of sight improves my vision of it and lets me analyse it with fresh eyes.

Take It Further (TIF) Challenge


And here are some pix showing progress of the sewing box I'm making for the October TIF Challenge. These pix show construction of the box itself, from the inside and the outside. And yes, those are florist's glass blobs trapped under the organza and net on the bottom, making little "feet" for the box. I still have to take some stitches into the gussets so it doesn't open entirely flat as shown. Having decided not to use any glue at all, I've made holes in my fingers stitching the pieces together but I think it's worth it.

Here are some pix where I'm deciding which piece of embroidery to use for the inside of the lid. I still have to figure out how to piece it together, but that's always a challenge I enjoy. Well, must dash - there's still a lot of stitching to do before month-end.

Too busy to blog

Sorry for the absence - I've been busy, though...

Bead Journal Project(BJP)

I started the month by doing some thinking and sketching for the BJP, having decided that the theme was to be "vendange" or grape-picking as it's that time of year here.

In the village newsletter, the local association had organised a morning to show how to collect the grapes, a picnic lunch, then a demonstration of how the grapes are pressed to produce juice and eventually wine. When I called up to inscribe, I was embarassed to learn it was meant for kids only - o well. Still, I got out and took some photos and did some sketching using watercolour pencils and a study using acrylics.

We were very lucky that our neighbour offered that we could pick some of his "lucques" olives from his trees, and they are now curing in a couple of buckets in the back kitchen. I also thought of doing a piece based on the olive trees, but I think I've convinced myself that it's to be the grapes. However, I put aside BJP work because I finally decided about the ...

October TIF

This month's theme is our artist's workspaces. My studio is the guest bedroom, so I have to concede space for the pull-out bed, upon which I pile things.

But thinking about it, I only work in here on the computer or the sewing machine. For hand work and painting, I use the dining room table.

This made me think that the studio is really a storage space, which led me to decide that I want to make up one of these sewing boxes that were all the rage about 10 years ago. In the pix, you can see my old one which is falling apart as it was only ever glued together, along with the pieces for the one I am making, and this long piece of fabric from which I am cutting the sides.


One pic shows the background fabric with the snippets of threads and the other shows it with the organza top and stitched down. The inside of the box will be a dark turquoise silk dupion.

I also had a birthday in there and a couple of unproductive days due to depression as a result, but I'm over that now.