Iris inspiration

I finished the acanthus piece of needlelace and here it is.

The iris are superb this year and inspired both my April and May Bead Journal Project pieces. Click photos as usual to view a closeup. You can see on the April piece that I did a bit of fabric collage, then free machine embroidery over it before beading the standard iris. The blue and yellow ones were called Iris d'Holland on the packet and come up later and very tall.

Spring

Ah, yes, that time of year when the iris are going wild - and I'm still amazed that only about 6 weeks ago, it was all covered in snow.

Here's a pix of my March Bead Journal Project piece - inspired by fish, as Dear Hubby's birthday is the first of the month - Pisces.

Haven't decided what to do for April yet, as I'm in process of doing a piece of needlelace based on acanthus, inspired by some leaves from a piece of Point de Gaze in the Spriggs Collection featured in Cathy Barley's book, "Needlelace Designs and Techniques Classic and Contemporary". I don't want to put up a pic of it yet, as it's a Work in Progress, but here is a pic of the back of it, showing the couching stitches.

And a bit MORE winter

Last time we saw this much snow in this part of the world was 35 years ago according to the telly. These are pix of the wild almond tree over the wall during the snow, at sunset couple of days before, and the day after the snow, showing blossoms and snow together - so cool, in many ways. My sister writes that I should use the snow as inspiration, so I may get out there and take some more pix, but I was just getting into daffodil mood, and now we can't even find them! Life is like that sometimes...

A bit of winter

Here is a pic from my book of Great Works of Japanese Graphic Art by Douglas Mannering, of the famous Beneath the Wave off Kanagawa, by the artist Hokausai (1760-1849). I started a waveform many years ago when I was first doing needlelace but hadn't figured out how to finish it until I was working with this white boucle thread that I used in my January BJP piece, which is shown further below.

Here's a pic of the needlelace finished off with the white boucle thread that I used for the crest. It is crocheted then couched down as the boucles wouldn't pass through the fabric. I think I will do a bit more foam, under the crest of the wave as it looks wrong the way it is - too topheavy.

Here is a pic of my January Bead Journal Project piece, representing snow and ice and the hole I feel in my heart at the death of my dad, whose birthday is in January. He passed away late last year and I haven't felt like communicating or being creative since, explaining my absence from blogging for a while. I'm finally getting to the place where it's less painful now, and where I can "talk" to him in my thoughts, like I do with other dearly beloved who have passed.

Here is a pic of my February BJP piece, still with the "hole" at the heart, but in feeling a bit less chill. It makes me think of moonlight on water and a star in the background.

I haven't decided what I want to concentrate on this year as a theme, so I haven't done much designing. Instead, I've been looking through unfinished pieces and thinking about them, but I really want to pick a "big" subject and see how I can develop it. Meantime, I'll bead away through the months on the BJP and hope something presents itself, and try blogging more frequently, as well as visiting my favourite blogs.

I'm Back!

Sorry for the long absence from blogging - I was working on this piece and didn't want to post until it was nearly finished. It is just sitting on top of the background, waiting to be stab-stitched, which will eliminate the wavy edges.

In my previous post, there's a pic of the worksheet with inspiration pix, and you can see my initial treillage for the pansies in the left-hand frame of the triptych. As I completed the middle and right-hand frames (daffodils and iris, respectively), I realised that the techniques didn't seem to go together, so I cut out the pansies and redid them as shown in this pic. At this stage, the piece was still on the working backing.


These pix show the piece removed from the working backing, just laying on the table, and also laying on top of dark green fabric to see what that would look like. However, as the piece is supposed to represent Springtime, I chose the sky blue instead. I'm not sure I like it, but that's probably because I've been working on it for too long - I may like it again after it's been put away for a while.

Of course, now I have to start another project so I'm feeling insecure and flighty, and there's also the annual newsletter and Christmas Cards to do but hopefully I'll settle back into regular posting again and start thinking up ideas for next year's Bead Journal Project which I have now decided to rejoin...if I'm not too late. Thank you to all those who have left comments - they helped me decide to rejoin.

A word about couronne sticks

Here's a pix of a WIP that I've resurrected. I abandoned it in April but have found it inspiring again.

I've been catching up with reading my favourite blogs and on one of them, the author posted pix of her purchases at the Knitting & Stitching Show, which brought back fond memories, including a pic of a "stepped" couronne stick.

Here is a pic of the couronne stick I use, which I find works much better because you simply have to do the initial wraps further up or down the stick to get different size couronnes, and you can slip your needle underneath the wraps much easier because the "steps" don't get in the way. Also shown is my first "stepped" couronne stick.


This pic shows detail of a piece called "Sea Fans" in which you can see how I sprinkled the couronnes onto the embroidery.

Finishing BJP2009

Here are the last Bead Journal Project pieces for 2009. I fell behind in April when we went to Normandy to visit B's family because I was upset to see his brother ill (he's a bit better now). Then we had non-stop visitors all summer and we are only now getting back to normal. Anyway, here's April - wisteria.

May is B's roses growing against the wall with the neighbour's olive trees in the middle distance and the Montagne Noire in the far distance.

June is the lavender in the front garden.

July had to be fireworks for Bastille day, but it also represents courgette flowers that I love so much - their form, colour, taste...


Finally, August returns to sunflowers but more the feeling of them than an actual representation. Apologies as usual for the quality of these photos - they don't really show the true colours and textures but c'est la vie...

I also made these two cushion covers - B's nieces chose the materials from my stash when they visited and one chose a theme - love, friendship, fireworks - while the other just chose the colours and beads.


I enjoyed doing the BJP this year but felt pressured once I'd fallen behind, so I won't be joining in this year. I didn't look at the blogs once I'd fallen behind so I now have the happy task of catching up, which may take some time.