February BJP Finished!

I finally finished February! It took awhile and I'm not entirely sure what it means but here it is. Since each month is supposed to be a journal of what's going on in my life that month I was waiting until about half-way through the month to start. I put the rose cameo on Feb 13th and then worked a little around it on the 14th. On the 15th a close friend of mine died. I stopped working on it after that and didn't start again until the 1st week of March. There are a lot of tears on this because I thought about him every time I picked it up to work on. My original thought when I had started February was a kind of nebulous idea of something along the lines of "looking for love in all the wrong places" as a satiric homage to Valentine's Day and some not so great choices I had made. Once I started working on this again and thought about it, I realized in a way it still fit. My friend Paul was one of the right places I looked for love. He was one of my closest friends and always there to listen to me gripe & complain. He loved my bead stuff too. I have some pretty heart beads he had sent me after he moved and I wanted to include one on this but when I finished it just didn't seem to fit so I'll save it for another project. I halfway wanted to do this all in dark beads to reflect how I felt but I could imagine him coming back to haunt me for being morbid and weepy! He was a happy person and laughed a lot and that's how I want to remember him and I do when I look at this. I mostly did wavy lines - through no plan, it just came out that way. Maybe because I've felt not so stable this past month. But it's done and I'm fairly pleased with it!

Bridget's Leaf Garden

February - for this month I wanted to incorporate the celebration of the the feast day of the Celtic Goddess Bridget - Imbolc - with the seasonal changes here. I had been reading about this holiday in a wonderful book called "Kindling the Celtic Spirit" by Mara Freeman. I also went back to some the original source material in Alexander Carmichael's "Carmina Gadelica". After this I decided to use the quartz crystal to represent Bridget and surround Her (in beads) with the first flowers of the season. So I looked around and saw a lot of lupines (I'm not sure which species) and a few California poppies (Escholtzia californica) in bloom. The Lupines produce beautiful spikes of blue flowers, whereas the poppies are brilliantly orange and chalice-shaped. I also included the little white beads for Milkmaids (Dentaria californica) which I've also seen at this time of year in some of the oak woodlands further inland. But of course I needed a leaf shape! At this time of year the California Buckeyes (Aesculus californica) begin to leaf out. Imagine a bare tree with silvery branches and each branch is tipped with green flame. This is the drama of buckeye leafout! But after searching out my tree (I'll post on this later) I realized that a simple outline of the leaf would not convey the experience of the leaves bursting out. So instead I used the shape of the entire tip with all the leaves coming out. Then as I stitched I also wanted to incorporate the design on the fabric. As it turned out it's somewhat abstract, but I hope still representative enough anyway!

January BJP

I decided to do this year's BJP as an actual journal of what is going on in my life that month. I chose a 4x6 size because I wanted to have plenty of room. Now that I've finished the first one I'm not sure either of these were good choices! 4x6 took a lot of beading! Working on this as a journal was hard, there are a lot of tears mixed in with the beads and a couple of times I took sections out and redid them. But it was good - I was doing improvisational beading following Robin Atkins ideas in One Bead At A Time. I keep re-reading the book looking for directions! I'd find myself unsure how to bead a section and then when I started it just seemed to happen on its own.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. January was a difficult month for me. Last October I moved from the SF Bay Area to Sacramento. Not a huge distance in miles but emotionally it was like moving to a foreign country. I'm living by myself for the first time in my life which is wonderful but scary. I don't really know anyone here, I'm looking for work and still, most mornings, waking up and wonder why I did this. But it's also amazing and I'm glad I did it and I hope that shows up in the beading!

I have in my mind a very clear path of where I want to go and that's what the blue bugle beads are representing - a ladder I'm climbing to reach my goal. All the little side paths and circles are things that get me side-tracked from that goal. Some in a good way that help to clarify and redefine things, others in a negative, unhelpful way. While I was working on this I sent pictures to my daughter asking her what she thought. At one point I had the heart and passion plaque on and told her I planned to completely bead everything. She said that sounded good but to be sure I didn't lose my plaque or heart. I know she meant design-wise but it made me realize that was important for my life also. I came close to losing both in January but now that I've encircled them with beads, I think it's going to be ok!

Jill's Leaf Garden

I have finished my January Bead Journal Project! My theme for this project is Gardens Inside A Leaf Shape (leaf to be chosen by season) on a piece of 4"x5" fabric. This month was inspired by the lush world of lichens and mosses found growing on a coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) trunk at this time of year. Though they're present year round, the mosses in particular are hydrated and growing during the rainy season. I wanted the leaf I chose to be one that is actually in leaf at this time, so I chose an oak which is evergreen. The leaf is outlined with crystal and white beads to remind us that despite the mildness of Winter in California's Mediterranean climate there are still frosts and occasional snows on the higher mountains. Through the color, form, and texture of the beads and stitching I tried to give an overall sense of the way these mosses and lichens look on the tree trunks. I used shiny green beads to show how the mosses look when they're damp with rain - they have a glowing green translucence! The fabric is a batik print that reminded me of bark. The challenge I found in this project was to represent without illustrating. I wanted to give a sense and feeling of these organisms that grow in the oak woodlands and portray them with accuracy, but not to feel a need to copy them perfectly. Accuracy is important to me, but this isn't a beaded field guide so I don't have to be exact! The biggest technical challenge I encountered was getting the leaf outline in the proper shape - but I got creative with couching, and I was pleased with the result! I even used short bugle beads for the little spikes these leaves have on their edges. So there's my January Leaf Garden!

Another Ornament

I thought this came out cute. It's a Mill Hill beaded kit that I found in my stash. I decided not to try & stitch it to look like my cats - the only concession I made was to give him green eyes and a pink nose like both my cats!

Eyeglass case

Well I guess being sick can be productive. I don't feel like doing much so I've been stitching today. I started this eyeglass case about 3 years ago . . . it's nice to finally finish it! The original picture had a different looking cat but I changed the colors so it looked like my cat Mellifera. If I don't feel better soon, I may empty my half-finished project bag! This was actually an easy project. It's a stitch & zip kit and uses floss on a preprinted canvas. It really should have gone much faster than it did!

Eeyore Ornament

I had plans to finish my BJP pieces into a small quilt and work on a number of ornaments before the end of the year. Between moving and job hunting and being sick I haven't gotten much of anything done though! Friday night I went through some almost finished projects and pulled out this Eeyore ornament to finish. I thought it came out pretty cute. It's my first Christmas ornament in my new place!