April BJP

The last 7-8 months of my life I've been taking a lot of risks and when I found this little plaque in my bead box I thought it'd make a nice statement for April. One of the risks I've been taking is around writing. April is National Poetry Month and I joined National Poetry Writing Month to commit to writing a poem every day. I did it but it was difficult at times. Putting my feelings into poetry feels very risky to me!

I don't know if you'll see arrows or vines. They are supposed to be arrows but they do look rather viney! I was trying to figure out what to put on after I added the plaque and doodling came to mind. When I doodle on paper I draw arrows branching out so I tried to replicate that. I think these are prettier than the arrows I generally doodle! I embellished them a little because I wanted this piece to look pretty. I used my favorite color, pink, in different shades and the silver because I thought it contrasted nicely. I guess I was trying to make risk look pretty. . .

March BJP

I finally finished March! My neighborhood has a number of corner curb gardens. Here's a picture of one that is mostly lavender but others are full of different flowers. In March a lot of flowers, especially bulbs, were starting to bloom and I enjoyed walking around looking at the little gardens. I decided to depict one of these for my March BJP.

I originally considered trying to do something that was more an actual picture but I figured it'd take me far too long and I'd never get caught up! What I ended up with is more representational but I'm pleased with the way it came out. I used fabric and beads on the bottom to depict dirt and embroidery floss to do the stems. There are a lot of trees in my neighborhood and a couple of the little gardens even have a small tree so I made the outline & branches to represent a tree. I was a little afraid it would overwhelm the piece but now that I'm done I think the flowers are holding their own. The first clump with purple beads is lavender, then daffodils, tulips and a rosebush. So now it's onto April and hopefully I'll be caught up soon!

Black Oak - April BJP

Here's my April project - an unfurling Black Oak (Quercus kelloggii) leaf! These trees are really amazing when they leaf out in the Spring, and I've included a picture of the tree that inspired me here. This month is usually the peak of the wildflower season in this part of California, so I included the multicolored beads in specific colors I've observed in flowers. I liked the idea of including the fabric design in my beading, so I did the viney things in multi-hued greens. These greens recall all the grasses and leaves that accompany the flowers. I also got a chance to use some interestingly textured bugle beads that Mom kindly shared with me!

Note: This entry says posted by robin michelle but it's Jill's April project. I just posted for her because she's a luddite. . .

Big Leaf Maple - March BJP

For my March project I chose Big Leaf Maple (Acer macrophylum) which begins to leaf out at the beginning of the month. I'm always a bit anxious around Spring because this is when it starts to get unpleasantly warm (for me that's over 70F!) and I know that soon it will be Summer and the rain will stop. But Spring is really a special time of year in this area - the Winter-dormant plants are all starting to leaf out and grow, the Summer-dormant plants are still actively growing, and the wildflowers begin their incredible flower display. It's one big swirling explosion of green and flowers!

So I went out to a local hillside where I found my maple leaf beginning to unfurl. It was a translucent green tinged with a coppery color - I used these colors in my outline. The circle in the middle that is half yellow and half white is representational of the Vernal Equinox - half of the Moon and half of the Sun for the balancing of day and night. To create this I strung the beads and sewed them down into a spiral shape.

While walking on the trail looking for my maple leaves I came across trillium (Trillium chloropetalum) and gooseberry (Ribes menziesii) blooming in the woods! The trillium is an incredible woodland bloomer on a stalk about 18" high with three huge leaves topped with three sepals and three petals. I stitched these on the left of the leaf. I just included the sepals and the petals, which can be white, maroon, or rose-pink. These are depicted as you would see them looking straight down at the flower. The gooseberry is a thorny shrub and the flowers hang down from the branches like little fuchsias. The gooseberry flower is on the right-hand side - the flowers are smaller than the size I stitched them. I used different bead shapes and thread for this one and I think it looks pretty realistic. I was actually a bit surprised by how realistic it turned out! So there's my project - inspired by a Springtime woodland!

Note: This entry says posted by robin michelle but it's Jill's March project. I just posted for her because she was having computer problems. 

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!