Ocean Seaweed Garden

It's taken a couple of weeks to post, but I did finish it by July 1st! As the hotter part of the year approaches we take more trips to the cooler coast. It's only 45 min. away and usually is about 20 degrees cooler and wonderfully foggy. So for June I chose seaweed shapes rather than leaf shapes. I used white pearls (yeah, I know they're freshwater - it's still aquatic, though!) to depict lines of foam as the waves go out. The other dyed ones were scattered around and used to construct a holdfast for my largest seaweed. And the shell was one I found washed up on the shore. It also repeats the spiral, which also popped up in last month's project. I think the colors and shapes of the seaweeds turned out pretty well. I mixed some garnet nuggets into the reddish one. I also used shiny rather than matte finish beads to give the impression of being wet and freshly washed up. Here's a couple of pictures of the beach and seaweeds that inspired me!

May BJP

Well May is finished and I'm officially caught up and working on June! May was a very difficult month for me. It felt long and dark and endless so that's what I was trying to show in my project for this month.

I had originally planned to use all black beads around the heart but something just wouldn't let me and I kept adding color so maybe it wasn't quite as dark as I thought. The heart in the middle is full of holes which is how I've felt but it's also anchored. I used red and white beads to hold it in place and it felt like I was trying to stitch up a fractured heart but I think it worked. The line of white beads is hope because I know there is still a lot and I just don't look in the right place sometimes. Why it snaked outside the borders I don't know - it just had a mind of its own. I did a close-up on the blue beads in the corner because they looked so pretty and sparkly!

This really seemed to have a mind of its own and took off in a direction I hadn't planned. Which I guess is what life does all the time. I think June is going to be brighter though!

Queen of the May

Another view of my project.


The Penstemon azureus whose hues inspired me.

This month is The May Queen in a Western Hawthorn Leaf! I've had this little Goddess spiral pendant for a very long time but since I don't really wear much gold-colored jewelery I never got around to incorporating Her into a necklace. But I love the design and the gold color is perfect to evoke the afternoon light through a verdant mixed evergreen forest in May. And May was especially verdant this year with above average rainfall! So I adorned my little May Queen with a bunch of green beads, with some Penstemon purple and blue colors as well. I also scattered some beads in those colors outside the leaf. Penstemons come in a range of colors but here I was inspired by Penstemon azureus. But the upper left represents a Clarkia unguiculata flower - the common name is Farewell to Spring! The model for my Western Hawthorn (Crataegus douglasii) leaf was the little hawthorn I bought this year at the native plant sale. It's the plant that you can see a bit of in the background! Anyway I had fun with this, but it was challenging to figure how to make the leaf margin look serrated. It was pretty simple to stitch, though, once I figured out how to do it - I think you can see from the picture what I did. The other problem when I first started was unexpected - I had trouble attaching the pendant because it's fairly heavy! But eventually persistence paid off and once I ran the thread through a few times it stayed put. And I love using these batik fabrics! The colors are so much fun to look at and work with. I'm also really liking using the interleaving paper to back these!

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.