A few things

I decided to not re-join the Bead Journal Project for this year, instead decided to do a piece of embroidery each month and try to teach myself to use new techniques. This is the January piece ... OK, I know I have no patience with taking photos but you get the idea - it's spirals and curves.

I thought I'd do hearts and roses for February - St.Valentine's Day and all that, but I don't really like the piece, although I felt I was geting better at using the machine to do cable stitch. So, no pic yet.





March is the totally inspiring almond blossom, and here are pix I took on our walks around the neighbourhood. I haven't finished the pieces yet, so pix next time, but here is one showing some of the materials I've used...

Another year finished

This is the November Bead Journal Project piece, showing the beads just sprinkled onto the backing fabric in the choosing process, then steps as it was made, including some pieces of lapis lazuli I picked up in Malta years ago, that I wanted to try to incorporate using a bezel technique, finally showing the finished piece.




These pix show the December piece being made. I decided not to join again for 2011, because I want to spend this year exploring a mixture of hand and machine embroidery, maybe including some beading. The topics I've chosen for this year are Parasol Pines which make lovely shapes against the sky, and the architecture around here - Cathar Castles and all that, not to mention the elegant French architecture of the Belle Epoch. There are also loads of wrought iron railings that could provide endless inspiration but I hesitate to go there because it seems so derivative - the artisans who made that wrought iron were inspired by nature themselves, so I feel I shouldn't copy them, I should go direct to the source, but use their works as a guideline in how to simplify natural designs for their artisanal purpose, if that makes any sense. Hopefully, I'll also be a bit more disciplined and blog more often... We'll see.

Catching up

After a very busy summer full of visitors from all over, I've started to catcb up with my Bead Journal Project pieces. July was about the reflections from the water in the pool. These first pix show me trying to take a pic of the reflections, followed by the bead embroidery.













The August piece was about heat and the beautiful canna that finally flowered this year, after we moved it from the front to the border in the back. I have yet to do a September piece for the BJP.


September was busy with visitors but I got working on this piece, not related to the Bead Journal Project, but based on goldwork techniques, using some Jap silver my friend Ruth left me, and some soft silver chainette my friend Ann brought me. Because of this, I've called this piece "Silver Sisters".


This piece is for the October BJP and I call it "Autumn Colours", and it is crochet chain over a warp of a novelty yarn that Ann brought, and using some of the other yarns she brought, along with bead weaving. Some of these new yarns are made from such diverse things as sugar cane and bamboo!!!

So, that's all for now - hope you enjoy, and apologies as ever for the poor quality of the photos - I seem to have lost patience with getting them to show the "real" colours and textures of the pieces I embroider.

June Bead Journal Project piece finished

It's supposed to be the bowl of strawberries I collected from the potager, the pic shown in the last post. Disappointing photo, can't get the colours right even though I fiddled with it some - o well - you get the idea anyway...
No idea what I'll do for July, but I'm carrying my camera around. Maybe courgette flowers again, maybe swimming pool... market...aperitif on the patio... tomato plants... lavendar and bumble bees... something to convey the heatwave...

Back to Basics

I thought I'd get out an old Stitch Encyclopaedia and work through, just to refresh memory about stitches that I don't often use, and here is the sampler. It's that basic exercise: one thread, one colour. I'm tempted to do another using the next exercise, which is many threads, many colours just to see what it gives. I didn't draw the sampler first - just did everything freehand, and I'm always amazed at how many different things are out there to re-learn.


I thought I might do something based on this bowl of strawberries we picked from the potager - the first batches are always the best and it is very June for the Bead Journal Project this month.

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.