A pinch and a punch... hopefully no returns!

  Happy Beltane, or Mayday, if you prefer. I cannot believe we are here already! I guess alot of it is because I now have a weekly routine of trundling to the Bluebirds Market on a Tuesday and everything else revolves around that lately. It's amazing how quickly a week goes by... 

  Always busy, I made 7 journals last month, and tried to finish my butterfly rucksack, but it has sat next to me on the sofa while I get on with other bits like embellishments for the journals.. it's been lovely, 4 of the journals were commissions, and have all safely arrived with their new owners who are very happy, which in turn makes me happy! Echoes sold yesterday too, so I shall have to make another creamy vintage journal soon.

  I've also managed to get some work in a handmade shop in Canterbury, Whitefriars Food and Craft Market so we'll see how that develops, Canterbury is very busy with lots of students and tourists, so fingers crossed. I just need to make a few extra bits to test run over there.. some larger dreamcatchers and a new textile accessory range, based around my collaged textile pieces. Where am I going to find the time?

  I shall finish the rucksack tomorrow, then I plan for a quilted messenger bag with some of the remnants. Then onto creating one of each of the expanded textile range, and creating the first wedding album cover... looking forward to that..

  So, busy, busy, watch this space- I can't promise I'll get time to post much, time gets less each week, which is great really, but I will be posting more fabric dying techniques, my monthly beading/ quilting block and all my swaps over in the Friends' Gallery, etc

 

Beading and Crazy Quilting projects, April's block

The butterfly is growing... April is the month for yellows, and it is now complete so here's a peek at the block, with the full details over on the project  page

To see what everyone else is up to visit the Beading 2013 and the Crazy Quilting 2013 projects.

B & CQ JP Butterfly- March block

It's March 1st, where's time gone? Woosh...

I'd been looking forward to making this month's block and I made the base up ready last night... January and February's blocks are reds and orange, this month is orange and yellow so that the whole piece will eventually be rainbow coloured.

I've used a wide range of fabrics, including the sample piece that Spoonflower send, well, it fitted the theme!

For the full pic and an ongoing summary visit the B & CJ JP page .

January and February B & CQ JP blocks

Woohoo!

Well they happened much quicker than I expected, but my eyes are telling me off! On Saturday I put my fabrics together for January and February blocks, then yesterday and today were spent adding the details.

I'll admit now, I was so keen to get going I've messed up my plan already! These beautiful tear-drop shapes were supposed to be orange/yellow, the red/orange were supposed to be the pointy top shapes... oh well, too late now- I'm not starting over, like last year! They kinda look like birds heads, which follows the flying theme, so I chose to add a couple of round mirrors to the stitching...

 Here's how they turned out... 

For the whole design and  more detailed pics pop over to the B & CQ JP 2013 section
I can't wait now to do the March block... I have one extra block- the body, so I could get on and do that early...

Zodiac rethink...

I've had 3 very unsuccessful attemps to do my blocks for the Bead Journal Project 2012. In January I drew out a design for an appliqued wall-hanging featuring zodiac, pagan and mystical symbols... I've detailed it further in my Bead Project section and promptly set about designing and beading the symbol blocks.
The first one was awful, Aquarius, so I did a second. For February I did the next, but in my frustration I beaded the wrong symbol... so now I have 3 beaded blocks- none of which I'm happy with... so this weekend I set about redesigning the blocks.
Having just completed a textile background for my spring cards and ATC's, in yellow, I felt that this would be a good base for my symbols. A little rethink was necessary- originally each section was to be completed in it's associated colours and crystals, so I would need to work them in a different way.

Aquarius- January's

Now they are split into their element groups Water, Air, Earth and Fire and I am using a collaged textile as the base. I already had Air, Water and Fire textiles so spent Saturday making Earth in sumptuous greens.

Pisces- February's

Aries- March's

 

I've just caught up with the first 3...fully beaded and complete so now I can at last post on the BJP 2012 blog and although they are not hugely, or intricately beaded, they now fit my project perfectly.

More pics can be seen in the BJP 2012 section.

Aquarius bead block for BJP 2012

Well, I finally buckled down to beading my first block for the Bead Journal Project this year. I'd designed my wall hanging earlier, but not begun designing the beaded elements...

Once I got going it didn't take long to come up with a set of designs which I thought would be blocky enough to work in beads... but I'm sad to say my first attempt looked awful, no definition and with all the bling there was just not enough contrast between object and background. So I had to retry, this is the second attempt (the 1st attempt is over on my BJP-2012 page )

Aquarius second attempt

 I used delicas, bugles, hex, teardrops and huge seedbeads on felt. I'm still not happy with this- I thought the design might have worked better, so I'm looking at redesigning all 12- or only beading a section of it, but having seen some of the entrants on BJP already I'd feel lazy if it wasn't fairly well covered in beads rather than silks. Best get my thinking cap on before the end of February when I'll need to post my Feb effort on the BJP 2012 Blogsite

Bead Journal Project 2012

Hooray! 

I've just got my link to this years Bead Journal Project .

I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I think it will be a felted zodiac/wiccan based hanging with beaded segments incorporated as they are completed. Just need to come up with a workable design now...then chill for xmas, and add it to my list of "must-do" art over 2012.

Fun and games!

xxx