This was a fun one! My words for the month of June made me think of my totem animal , rabbit. So this is how it all started. I had a package of bunnies pre-cut out of different batik fabrics and selected one that appealed to me. A black bunny with square spirals... What could be more cute than that? I decided to make a slightly stuffed (dimensional) bunny, by cutting out a back piece, inserting some quilt batting and beading around the edge with picot edge stitch. Here's how the back looks. And here's the front. Now what? Well, doesn't a bunny just love to leap and frolic across little hills and fields of flowers? And wouldn't pink be just the right color... my favorite color as a child to go with my childhood favorite animal? I painted the above paper some years ago (acrylic paints on heavy drawing paper... stenciling, stamping, glazes, textures, layers). The white spiral design is purchased rayon lace paper left over from a bookmaking project. Next I needed some pink felt for the hills and my words. This time I decided to try stitching my words with embroidery floss. I used a double strand of variegated silk floss and the stem stitch. For the first two words breathe and believe), I "just did it." But I could see that my size and spacing weren't very good that way. So for the other four words, I stitched guidelines on the the felt, which you can see in two of the words below. Next I stitched the hills together using various embroidery stitches. Then came the beads and embellishments! The most fun part! I stitched the flower and leaf beads in place and then embroidered around them. It is so sweeeeeet to embroider on felt.... I love the feel of it! Here's how it looks finished. Since my primary word for June is "believe," that's the title of this piece... Believe! (Click picture to enlarge.) I believe in asking for what I need and want writing , writing , and more writing surrendering rather than fighting breathing deeply and mindfully laughing as much as possible So there you have it! I believe my dear totem animal guide, rabbit, is enjoying a leap into the stars... definitely in the pink!

Oh dear! I just looked at my last post... June 20th. Good grief! What have I been doing? Visitor from Europe for a week (including 4-day motorcycle ride... wheee... fun... above picture is my Suzuki at the summit west of Lillooet, BC) and quilting. So guess I'll post about the quilt I'm making... It's a large double-bed quilt, a graduation present for my niece, Margaret, who is just getting her MA from the U of Minnesota. I suggested we feature pictures of her on the quilt and she asked for soft green as one of the colors. It started with various pictures I collected from my own albums and from Margaret. Below are three of them. Obviously, they needed some work. Here they are again, worked in Photoshop. I took out a lot of the color on all of the pictures and then added a sepia photo filter to even them all out. I gave each a border in a color similar to the fabrics I had collected for the quilt. Besides the bunny costume picture above, the one below is my other favorite picture of Margaret. She's looking at a tattoo she had just gotten on her shoulder. I printed the pictures on poplin fabric using my ink jet printer. The fabric sheets came from Jo-Ann's Fabric. It's easy. Print the pictures, peel off the backing, hand wash to remove the sizing (stiffener), dry and iron. Permanent color and ready to use fabric! (I don't see the product I used by Crafter's Images on Jo-Ann's website anymore, but this product looks similar.) Then I cut piles and piles of strips of fabrics in various widths... 1 to 3.5 inches wide. Randomly selecting strips, I sewed them around the pictures to create blocks. Below is a picture of the top 12 blocks (I did 20 in all) on my design wall. The 4 top left blocks and the 4 top right blocks are already sewn together to form two large blocks. Because of the random widths of the strips and different sizes of pictures, the blocks are all different sizes. No problem. Just takes a lot of time and fussing to figure out what to put around and between the blocks to make it all come out the right. I used strips, piano keys and 9-patches to fill in the spaces. Below are the finished blocks, sewn together and bordered with soft green. Notice the strips of fabric sewn together (piano keys) draped over the chair? I sewed them around the outside edge. They will drape down over the edge of the bed and make the quilt large enough. The next step is to piece the back of the quilt and get it to a professional quilter. I thought about doing the quilting myself, but don't think I could roll it up tightly enough to fit under the small arm of my 1972 machine and I definitely don't have time to hand-quilt this one. This has taken me many, many more hours than I expected. It turned out to be quite fussy getting the blocks to fit together pleasantly. Plus I ran out of many of the fabrics and had to labor quite a bit to get the piano key border to look good. No pictures of the finished top yet... maybe after it gets quilted. Quilting is challenging for me. I'll be happy to get back to work on my June piece for the Bead Journal Project. I'm making progress, but haven't taken pictures yet. My main word for July's BJP is FOCUS! I'm looking forward to starting that one soon... What a great word, eh?!

Just returned from a 3-day workshop taught by Chad Alice Hagen ... Had a great time learning about felt and how to dye it using resist methods. Wanted to make more ( many more) pieces of dyed felt to use in my various beading and collage projects. But after a day of dying, we moved on to book making, which (of course) was also way fun even though much of it was not new to me. The reason I signed up for the class is because of the luscious, gorgeous, fantastically beautiful pieces of resist-dyed felt made by Christi C. ( Sweetpea Path ), two of which I've used for Bead Journal Project pieces ( here and here ). I LOVE, LOVE the way Chad embellishes bits of dyed felt and creates books and pins with them. Below are a few of her pins... Notice the stitching details and bead embellishments, carefully chosen to enhance the dyed designs on the felt. Some of her pins were for sale... I couldn't resist (ha! pun intended)... bought the one on the top left in the second picture. Difficult choice... I liked them all! Below is one of her little Coptic-bound books... Ooooh, again, the stitching and beading makes it extra specially precious, don't you think?! Knowing we would be making one too, I just about couldn't contain myself! The first day we felted two large "sheets" of wool, needle-punched, pre-felt bats. Imagine the din as twelve of us literally THREW wads of wet felt onto our tables! When the wool was felted, we cut it into pieces and started up the dye pots (4 baths, 3 color choices each bath). For each dye bath, we clamped various things on our felt pieces (hair clips, paper clips, metal parts, Popsicle sticks, clothes pins, etc. etc. etc.) and then tossed the pieces into the dye pot. After their 45-minute dye bath when the clips, etc. were removed, the piece would be the dyed color except where the clips were pressing on the wool and resisting the dye. Here are the 11 pieces I dyed that first day. Above, Chad is giving some feed back to students about their felt pieces. I'm a tad, just a tad, disappointed in my results. Maybe some of them look a little too much like 60s tie-dyed t-shirts for my taste. I really wanted to spend a second, less rushed, day... further experimenting with this method. However, we moved on. Day-two, we chose one of our larger pieces of felt and constructed a small, hand-bound, wrap-cover journal. Here's mine... the felt, the bound spine and the finished book... At the end of day-two, we selected felt from our stash to make an embellished mini-book with Coptic binding, like the one Chad made pictured above. That evening our home work was to complete the thread embroidery and beading on both the front and back covers of our books. Here is the felt I chose. Two other students joined my roommate and me in our room... beading, stitching and talking until well past midnight. That was the most fun of the whole workshop for me! Below are my two embellished covers ready to bind into a book. Below are all the embellished, felt cover-pieces made by the students in our class. Below are pictures of my book, which I finished on the late ferry home just last evening! Notice that the covers have a hand-stitched edging. We did this with the same waxed linen cord that we used for binding both books. This took longer than any of the other steps and was quite difficult. None of the students finished their edging or had time to bind their books in class. Fortunately, we received good handouts with excellent illustrations which I was able to follow for the binding. I love constructing hand-made books!!!! And I love working with hand-dyed wool felt. I'm not so sure I love the dying process, especially the chemicals, the need to carefully monitor time, temperature, water-acidity, etc. I don't think I'll be buying any dye... but I would happily join a dye party at the studio of one of the other students!

Major changes (which came into full swing during May) are happening in my life. All six of my words for the month are relevant. They are: change, remember, forgive, seek, open and thank . Can you find them in the finished piece below? (You may need to click to enlarge.) I named the piece Change because that's the most important word of the six. Although I've decided not to delve into the personal changes I'm making in this post, it's not really a secret. If you're interested to read about it, you can check out my journal-blog, Words Paint , which I write under the pseudonym of Peacefulbird. Obviously, the butterflies are symbolic elements of change and metamorphosis. A once-closed envelope (me) is now open with butterflies flying free. Feathers are another symbol of freedom, flight and good perspective... My husband found these two in our yard. My best guess is that a Northern Flicker gifted some tail feathers to us. The turtles are all about getting there, no matter how long it takes. I started with the second, luscious, butter-soft, piece of resist-dyed felt made and given to me by Sweetpea . Without thought, I immediately folded and pinned it into an envelope shape. What could go in it? Oh, maybe those flicker feathers I've been saving! Oh, OK, now what paper will I use for the background? Auditioning papers: This one seems to dark, don't you think? This one seems too busy. This one is really too busy; it competes with the pattern on the felt. This one was my second choice. I like it a lot, but it seems a tad too pale or washed-out looking with the felt. Here's the one I chose. Doesn't look like much in this picture, but the color has lots of life without being overpowering. Once that was decided, I started playing around with various beads and elements I might use. I had 4 plastic butterfly-shaped buttons in my stash which looked really nice coming out of the felt envelope and had appropriate relevance to change . How could I apply my words to these buttons and where could I find two more? Hmmm... gave up on that one and decided to make my own butterflies by sawing them out of copper sheet and metal-stamping the words. Tried that. Too big, and way too visually heavy for the delicacy of a butterfly. OK, well, maybe I could make butterflies out of heavy, water-color paper, write the words on the wings and paint them. Here are the three ideas. You can see why I rejected the copper... So then I played around with drawing butterflies free-hand. Ummm, I'm not so good at that. However I had a sheet of butterfly stickers that gave me an idea. I peeled off the background part of the sheet and placed it lightly on the water-color paper. Then I used a #2 Micron pen to draw around the inside (where the sticker was), which gave me some nice shapes. I wrote the words vertically along the edges of the left-hand wings, extending some of the letters to look like the veins. For the right-hand wings, I wrote the words backwards. Ruined a few, but finally got six usable butterflies. Next I painted them with watered-down, transparent acrylic paints. After painting, they looked like this. Before cutting out the butterflies, I used an embossing stylus to score along the body on each side so that I could easily fold the wings into flying position. Next, I had to figure out how to attach them to my piece. Everybody knows how much I don't like glue. So, I needed a way to sew them on the paper and felt. I also needed antennae. A double-layer body might do the trick... I cut out six little, body shapes from heavy, black paper and made antennae from bent pieces of 28 gauge brass wire. Using PVA (acid-free, bookbinder's glue) and a toothpick applicator, I put a little glue on the back side of the butterfly bodies and along the duplicate body shapes. Then I placed two pre-cut lengths of Nymo thread in the glue, perpendicular to each body and laid the antennae in the glue at the head. When the glue was slightly set, I joined the duplicate body layer to the back of each butterfly. My plan, if the glued layers worked, was to use the four Nymo threads to sew each of the butterflies to my piece. It did work! I hope the picture helps to make sense out of what I just wrote. I also used 28 gauge brass wire to wrap beads around the feather quills. In a similar manner to the butterflies, I laid two pre-cut Nymo threads along each quill before wrapping, which would allow me to sew the feathers to the paper. Here's what the back of my piece looks like. You can see where I tied the Nymo threads to secure feathers and butterflies. I used Tyvek (from a mailing envelope) as a backing to prevent the thread from cutting the paper. You can also see where I sewed the felt envelope to the paper using Nymo thread. Well, there you have it, probably more how-to than anybody needs or wants... but I can't help myself sometimes... I love this piece and what it represents in my life! Hope you like it too.

Quick post to announce the winners of my two recent giveaways! The winner of an autographed copy of Metalworking 101 for Beaders by Candie Cooper (read my "review" of this wonderful book here ) is: Sharyn Sowell ! I think it's really fun that Sharyn is a paper cutter (I have some of her work and it's fantastic) and now she's interested in learning to cut metal... I am soooo looking forward to seeing what she does with it! The four winners of the last four hard copies of my book, One Bead at a Time , are: #1 - Madonna ( Front Range Stitches ) in Colorado embroiders with thread in many techniques. I enjoyed scrolling through her blog to see her many hand-stitched creations. I didn't see beads or bead embroidery, so maybe it's perfect that she's one of the winners. #2 - Morwyn ( AnotherCountry BeadWorks ) in Albuquerque is absolutely no stranger to bead embroidery. I first fell in love with Morwyn's work when she participated in the first year of the Bead Journal Project . Later, so smitten was I, that I went to her etsy shop and bought one of her beautiful beaded boxes! #3 - Dees ( W.I.P. Work in Progress ) in the Netherlands is also no stranger to bead embroidery or working improvisationally! As a participant in the Bead Journal Project for two years, Dees' beading impresses and inspires me more and more. I'm honored to gift her with my book! #4 - Marsha, is the final selection of the random number generator . She commented anonymously saying, "Oh how I want to get back to beading, still have a stash, and your book looks like the one to do it with." Sounds like she's a great choice! Note to Marsha: Please contact me (robin at robinatkins dot com)... the email address you gave in the comment is not working. Thanks to everyone (49 + 128) who entered the two drawings. Your wonderful comments were uplifting and kind! I WISH I had many more books to give away... At least, if you didn't win the drawing for One Bead at a Time , you can download it as an ebook for free, here . If you get a bandwidth problem message, it means too many are downloading at the same time... just try again at a later time.

Well finally!!! At last the words, felt, painted paper and beads all flowed together easily (and fairly quickly)... Here is Forgive , my BJP piece for April! It must be due to the fabulous hand-dyed felt that Sweetpea gifted to me. She made it in a workshop taught by Chad Alice Hagen . When she showed me the precious bundle of resist-dyed felt she had made in the workshop, I about went nuts... drooling, petting it, rubbing it on my face (sooooo soft!), tracing the patterns with my fingers, admiring the saturated colors... What could she do? Of course, she gave me not one, but TWO, of the pieces!!!! Until this month, I've used store-bought, wool felt and covered it with beads so that you couldn't see it. I was bored with it... bored with plain, solid color... and frustrated by the way the beads would sink down into the felt. I kept wondering WHY on earth I had decided to use felt this year. Well now I know! Working of this piece of butter-soft felt with its uneven, felted edges (must be a proper term for this type of edge) was such a tactile pleasure!!! I did not use paper or any other stabilizer under the felt, which made it pleasing to touch on both sides of my piece!!! The other thing that made this piece come forth so beautifully was the lime-green felt. I was visiting my family in Minnesota and beading with Julie (my brother's wife) and we got to wondering if it would work to rubber stamp on felt. It does! She had a scrap of lime green felt from which she had punched out a Christmas tree (see the shape on the bottom?) So we stamped it with a bird stamp. I liked it and asked if I could have it. (Who me a shameless beggar? You bet!) The scrap looked a little different when she gave it to me. For this piece, I cut it in half (the lime green beads flow between the two parts), frayed out the edges using a needle and embroidered the birds and branch using single strands of standard embroidery floss (mostly back stitch). I painted the tags in the same colors as the background paper and wrote the words on them with a #3 micron pen. The words are special to me for the month of April and so is the piece because of some personal changes I began making then. To forgive myself and others is an important part of this change... I see the words flow and forgive working together in this piece to guide me in the process. The other words are part of it too, especially to rest and to finish what I've begun. One other reason this piece went together so easily is that I worked improvisationally, without a plan. On last month's piece, I worked more representationally ( the mesa or butte ), which is always more difficult because I'm trying to make it recognizable. Unexpected things happen when I work improvisationally. In this case, after completing the piece, I noticed the over-all shape of the felt reminded me of a house... a bird house? a house for a Robin? This metaphor applies to the changes I am making, yet I didn't plan it at all! Improv just works for me and I'm always more satisfied with the end results. I hope you like it too.

As of today, my first book, One Bead at a Time , is available as a free e-book ... Click here ! After five print runs of this book, I decided to retire it in bound form and instead make it available to you through the internet (pdf format). I hope you will enjoy the journey. And, do tell your friends. I love knowing that many more creative souls will have access to it! You can read it on line by scrolling through the pages. Also, you are welcome to print it. The margins are wide enough so that you can punch holes and keep it in a 3-ring binder. Please respect my still-active copyright and print this file only for your own, personal use. The companion or follow-up book, Heart to Hands Bead Embroidery , full of many more techniques and inspirations, is still available in print and can be found in bead shops or ordered here on my website. Note: to enter the drawing to win one of my last four printed/bound copies of One Bead at a Time , write a comment on this post before June 1, 2010! A few bead shops (both on-line and on-the-street) may still have remaining hard copies of One Bead at a Time on their shelves. Also some book sellers may have used copies available.

I can hardly believe it! Picture me... happily blogging for four years! Time has flown by, I've made wonderful friends and even met some of them in person. In this blogging community there are some of the MOST supportive, friendly, classy, talented, creative and loving people I know. It's changed my life in so many good ways! It just so happens that the 4th birthday of Beadlust coincides with another important marker in my life... Ten years ago, I wrote and self-published my first book, One Bead at a Time, Exploring Creativity with Bead Embroidery . It was a remarkable experience in many ways. When I started thinking about this book, I telephoned Helby Imports, the nation's only distributor of beading books to bead shops. With trembling voice, I asked to talk with the owner and then told him my ideas for the book. He totally discouraged me, saying no book would ever sell unless it included both projects and techniques. He said they wouldn't carry it. Not completely daunted, I then called several publishers. They all said the same thing. It almost stopped me in my tracks. Almost. My experience teaching Improvisational Bead Embroidery workshops was so powerful and my students seemed so empowered by it, that I just had to try. So I wrote it, took the photos for it, designed it in Microsoft Publisher, printed 300 copies of it on my ink-jet printer, had it professionally bound in Seattle and put the word out to my beady friends and students. In just 2 months I had sold all 300 copies! That was my test run and as far as I was concerned, a successful one! So at that point, I added 8 pages showing basic techniques of bead embroidery and took out a loan to have 2,500 copies printed professionally! I gave Helby Imports a money-back-guarantee if they would just try one case of my book. They took the offer and have sold many, many cases of them since then. Three more times, the press has rolled! Each time, as the number of beading books increases geometrically and others are publishing books about bead embroidery, the book moves more slowly. Today, I have exactly 4 remaining copies from the last printing. And guess what? I'm going to give away one specially inscribed copy for each year of my blogging life! Details at the end of this post. Am I going to reprint? No, I think One Bead at a Time had a lot more time on the active book market than most beading books. And for this I'm very grateful. Now it's time to retire it. However, the good news is I'm not retiring it completely. In the next few days, I will convert it to pdf format and make it available as a FREE download through my website . It won't be a pretty, bound book. But a person can print it and read it, which is still a good thing. One Bead at a Time has influenced many lives. I know because people write to tell me about it. Bless them. In turn their lives influence mine in the most wonderful ways. I am so grateful to have stumbled on the notion of improvisational bead embroidery and to have the skills to teach others the value of it in developing creativity and artistic self confidence. If you are one who has purchased this book, I thank you, for you have helped to keep me out of a 9-to-5 job and given me time to do my own art work and to organize the Bead Journal Project , now in its third year. So, today we are having a Beadlust birthday party and a One Bead at a Time retirement party !!! To have a chance at winning one of the four remaining copies of One Bead at a Time, please leave a comment on this post and include your email address. It doesn't have to be for you; you could win it and give it to a friend, perhaps someone just starting to bead. If you win, you can tell me to whom you'd like it inscribed. Please remember to include your email address. To keep the hackers away, write your email address like this: WantToWin(at)YourBook(dot)com. Use (at) rather than @ and (dot) rather than . Thanks, everyone, you are special and tremendous in every way!

Metalwork and beads compliment each other so beautifully! Artists who combine their own metal components (whether silver, copper or bronze) with beads always seem to have a competitive edge in the market place. Their work seems more original, more unique, more precious to me. And it's not just jewelry. Above is a Kaite's April BJP doll, Metal-Indigo . Kaite made all of the little copper squiggles and dangles in a workshop. Don't they add great character to her doll?! Back in the 70's, I was a metalsmith, fabricating silver and gold jewelry. Below are a few examples of my work. I learned metalworking skills from three sources: 1. Community college and art college classes, 2. from my friend Liz who was getting a college degree in metalsmithing and 3. from several books (best one was The Complete Metalsmith by Tim McCreight, which is still available). I made and sold jewelry for 5 years, loved working in my shop, loved forming metal! Later, when I shifted into beads, I used my metalworking skills to create findings and components for my beaded creations (two examples below). Handy! I also taught wireworking and developed a unique style of fibula pins (below), which have sold well over the years. Frequently beaders have asked me, "I want to learn metalworking... what book do you recommend?" Until now, I have had to answer, "Sorry, there is no decent metalworking book for beaders. Get Tim McCreight's book and figure out for yourself how to apply the skills to beadwork." At last Candie Cooper has given us beaders a really fabulous book on metalworking!!!!! I like everything about this book! Candie's instructions seem easy to follow, yet thorough. She takes you through all the basics... tools, marking, sawing, filing, riveting, soldering, texturing, patinas... everything needed to create findings and components to compliment beads. Plus she gives many wonderful design ideas, projects and patterns. Good how-to pictures and drawings... Exciting design ideas... fun fish pin... Elegant earrings... Unique charms... ...and many more! I read every word of this book (something I rarely do)... I found it entertaining (not expected), accurate/complete (also not expected) and it made me crave the feeling of the tools in my hands, working the metal, transforming wire and sheet metal into beautiful objects again. I give this book FIVE STARS ++++ ! Bravo to Candie and Lark Books ! This post is a giveaway ! I have one copy of Metalworking 101 for Beaders , by Candie Cooper to send to somebody who writes a comment on this post. Please, include your email address in the comment, so I can notify you if you're the winner ! I shall select the winner randomly on May 20th from those who comment... that's two weeks from today. If you can't wait or don't win, you can buy it here or at your local bead shop.

It seems more difficult to do, yet I think the work is getting a bit better... does that make sense? Here is my March BJP , finished! Sometimes I look at the finished piece and think it looks like a boat or submarine. Wrong! Actually, it represents a butte in the Grand Canyon, as seen from the South Rim. In March, my husband and I went to AZ and the Canyon for our first real vacation in many years (see pictures here ). The foreground objects are things I either found on the ground or bought while we were there. Although I wrote them on March 1, two weeks before we flew to AZ, all six of the words manifested during our time there. We explored as much as we could of the state, learned a great deal about geology and cactus, built a strong relationship with the desert, reflected on the magnificent beauty at the Canyon, one of the world's greatest natural wonders, danced in our hearts every day, and flew over the Canyon on the way home! I hope that my piece reflects at least a little of the awesome beauty we found there. If you've been following my BJPs for this year, you know my plan is to incorporate 6 words (chosen improvisationally on the first day of the month) into the piece, along with fabric, felt, beads and decorative papers that I paint with acrylics. The size (not counting the black background) is 7 inches square. I constructed the butte first, before even knowing what else I wanted to do with the piece. A dear friend (thank you, Elaine!!!) gifted me with a beautiful packet of coordinated fabrics, threads, trims and beads, which looked perfect for the SW. I layered the fabrics, pleating and stitching them, to suggest the various geological layers found in the land formations of the area. I tea-dyed the rickrack and one of the fabrics and used the wrong side of two of the fabrics to get the effect I wanted. I've struggled (to put it mildly) each month with the words. This month was no exception. At first I was going to write them somehow on the found objects in the foreground at the bottom of the piece. Yikes! I gave myself a headache trying to think of how to put words on these objects in a way that would look like they belonged there. Finally one day, I got the idea of writing the words in the sky, which at that point was painted blue and aqua (no clouds). After playing around with a few ideas that failed, I tried cutting some cloud shapes out of paper toweling and writing the words in marking pen on them. No cigar. But the basic idea was good. So next I tried rubber stamping the words on paper toweling, cutting out the clouds and then separating the towel layers so that the final clouds were thin and somewhat transparent. Voila! I used matte medium to apply the word-stamped clouds to the background sky. Once the sky, clouds and butte were set, the last part was easy. Of course... it was the part to be beaded!!! I thought you might like to see some detail pictures and read about how I attached the various objects to the background, which is dark brown wool felt... I first stitched the arrow head to the felt using Nymo thread (for strength) and then covered the Nymo with embroidery floss (one direction) and with a section of fuzzy trim (in the other direction). The foundation of the trim was a tightly woven thread cord. Every two inches or so there was a "fuzzy flag" of thread. I used it a lot, as you'll see. The glazed pottery shard was tricky because the edges and point were very sharp. I constructed a bezel by joining the tops of stacks of beads stitched around the shard. My first attempt failed. The white clay of the pottery showed between the stacks and I was worried about the sharp edges cutting the thread. So I took it off, sanded the edges and used colored pencils to color the clay to more-or-less match the beads I used in the bezel. It's not perfect, but looks better actual size than how it looks in the above picture. The rusty key is attached the same way as the arrow head, first with Nymo for strength, which is then covered with more of the "fuzzy flag" trim. These ancient pottery rings are also attached with Nymo, which is then topped with "fuzzy flag" trim. I used beads to attach the rusty metal part, stitched through the existing holes at each end. These are tube beads made by rolling triangle-shaped pieces of hand-dyed silk organza impregnated with matte medium on knitting needles. The edges of the fabric are sealed by burning, which is what makes the dark lines on the beads. While they are somewhat fragile, they held up well even when I caught the thread on them repeatedly as I sewed the brown background beads in place. I attached the beads by stitching from both of the outside edges a short distance into the bead and then through the bead wall into the felt. Between the tube beads is more of the "fuzzy flag" trim. I snipped one end close to the fuzzy part and sealed the tip with bead tip cement. Then I couched the other end (about an inch of the cording) in place. I'm relieved to have this one finished and posted. Now I just need to find some time to do April and May, so I can be back on track by June. I hope that the word thing isn't such a struggle... I would give it up, except that I think I'm actually making some progress and I really want to get better at collage with words. In case you missed them, here are links to my January and February BJP pieces.

June 17, 18 and 19, yours truly will be on lovely Lopez Island to learn all about making and embellishing hand-bound blank books with resist-dyed, felt covers. Oh be still my heart!!! This intensive workshop, taught by nationally-recognized felt artist, Chad Alice Hagen , is brought to 12 lucky students through the efforts of Jan Scilipoti, a felt and quilting artist who lives on Lopez Island (one of the San Juan Islands in NW Washington state). Thank you Jan! Just in case you're starting to get that itchy feeling (the way I did when I first heard about this event from Sweetpea , who also will be attending), yes , there are still a few openings!!! Contact Jan to get all the information (she'll email you a pdf flyer), ask questions and register. But don't wait too long... The first day will be all about resist dyeing on needle-punched prefelts... Imagine, 15 dyebaths and oodles of ideas for creating uniquely patterned felt!!! The next two days are all about creating at least two books each, using our dyed felt for the covers. I've made and Coptic-bound a few books and done a bit of beading (LOL) in the past, but never with felt. I'm looking forward to the feel of the felt in my hands as I work the embellishments and binding! We should have lots of delightful hours surrounded by color, texture, and the companionship of like-minded, wool-dye-bead-book-crazy gals. (OK, men too, if any dare to join us!) If you'd like to join us, for sure, Lopez Island, mid-June is the place to be! You can see more pictures on Chad's Flickr photostream . And here is Chad's blog , which is waaaay fun!

The first two years of the Bead Journal Project I used at least one batik fabric (sometimes 3 or 4) for each of my monthly pieces. I LOVE batiks . This year, I'm stitching on felt and find that I really miss my batiks... I love to buy batiks in fat quarters. They come in so many delicious colors and patterns. I love that they are hand-dyed and printed. I buy batiks wherever I am... fabric shops, quilt shows and conferences, and online. My favorite online supplier, by far, is Batiks Plus . They measure a yard at 40 inches, a lovely bonus, and gift their customers with free fat quarters for larger purchases. Their website is fabulous, listing and showing over 3500 fabrics! The pictures are good and the colors true. The pictures in this post are all from their website. These fabric swatches are from Hoffman's newly released line of batik prints. You can see them all, arranged in "designer groupings" on the Batiks Plus blog . Put on your bib, gals... you'll be a droolin' for sure! Oooooh, the new colors are soooooo exquisite! The pictures in this post are a few of my favorites from Hoffman's new line! Hmmmm, now don't I have a birthday coming up soon??? If you are viewing this blog on Internet Explorer, you can hover your mouse over the fabric swatch to get the color name and pattern number for each design. Aren't they just yummy!!!

Mortira over at Inspirational Beading , invited me to participate in a candid look at the past in a "photo challenge"... What fun! How could I resist? The idea is to go back in blogtime to your earliest posts and identify the 6th picture you posted. The next task is to critique your own photo, explain what you would do differently now, and then pass on the challenge to 10 other bloggers. I'm not big on passing along , because of the sense of obligation that might be felt, so the challenge is extended to anybody who's interested! I started blogging in 2006... (Yikes! Time flies!)... My 6th photo appears here in my 3rd post, dated May 9, 2006. The post is about a 4-day workshop I taught at Valley Ridge Art Studio in Wisconsin... Beads, Books & Paint was all about creating a hand-bound book with painted decorative papers and bead embroidery inset into the cover. I still vividly recall the glorious time we had. Exhausted and exhilarated, all of the students left the last day with a finished book, which you can see here (worth the time to look - they're fabulous!). And below is picture #6... my students victoriously holding up their finished books! Wow! This is bringing back so many wonderful memories for me!!!!! What a treat to see these smiling faces and review the beautiful books they made. We were utterly exhausted, having worked all day and well into the evenings for four-loooong-days. Yet, we all had a great time, got to know each other and felt a huge surge in our creativity as we worked together. How can I critique this photo when it is brimming with such realized potential? Not easy, yet there's much I've learned in nearly four years about photos and blogging... Looking at my 6th photo, here are a few pointers that come to mind: Save a LOT of frustration by centering photos and not trying to format them in blogger like books with text on one or the other side of the photos. Size photos before uploading to 105-200 KB at 72 dpi, so that they will be click-to-enlarge. I wrote a post about taking, editing and sizing photos here . Learn Photoshop or Elements or some other photo editing program. Take a class or on-line tutorials so that you can crop, correct errors, sharpen, delete background shadows, etc. Add photos to a post AFTER it is written and spell-checked. I add them in the "edit Html" mode, as they are easier to place without Blogger inserting automatic code that flubs up the spacing. When taking photos, allow time to pay attention to details. Remove distracting elements. Be sure your primary subject is well-lit but not in glaring light. Just for fun, I returned to my original of the 6th photo and re-worked it a little in Photoshop. It wasn't a great photo in the first place. I obviously didn't pay attention to details as two of the faces are hidden and the back lighting in the room did nothing for the photo. Below is the revision (the best I could do with a poor original image), which unlike my 6th posted photo, is sized correctly. I also used shadow/highlight and the dodge tool to lighten the faces a bit. OK, now it's your turn!!! If you're reading this and have blogged for a while, please accept the challenge to take a look at your 6th posted photo!!!! And if you have a moment, leave a comment here that you've done so... With pleasure, I'll come take a look!

I've been reading blogs today and am finally inspired to bead. Yay! My March BJP piece will have something to do with the Grand Canyon... To the studio.... PS. Report, 4 hours later... all's well in beadland... Robin's back!

Kali recently posted this picture of her beautiful March BJP piece, called Dancer . She wrote: The first thing I learned is that, no matter how many different colors of beads you’ve got, it’s never enough. As a painter, I’m used to mixing my own colors, and it’s a bit tougher with beads. Next time, though, I’m going to try mixing some bead soups to supplement my color palette. Like Kali, if you're working with glass beads, you'll soon learn that there are only so many colors and those you have can't be mixed like paint. Even the Delica line, which has by far the most colors, is limited in some areas. And, for bead embroidery, Delicas are less than wonderful because of their large holes and tubular shape. When you need a color you don't have, you might try changing the appearance of the color with the thread color. For example, if you have transparent yellow beads and you want them to appear lime, you can stitch them with green thread. This only works with transparent beads. Here's another way to "blend colors" that works with any beads (matte, opaque, transparent). I discovered it 25 years ago when my bead thing was making multiple strand necklaces such as the one below. (Note, all the pictures in this post can be clicked-to-enlarge so you can really see the details.) Notice how this is a red and black necklace, yet in the center of the necklace the red and black blend together making a smooth transition from one color to the other. The chart below shows the basic technique for accomplishing a blend between two colors (click to enlarge). The pattern is: 5B, 1T, 4B, 1T, 3B, 1T, 2B, 1T, 1B, 2T, 1B, 3T, 1B, 4T, 1B, 5T. This variation of the pattern takes 36 beads to go from one to the other color. But it can be done with more or less. For example, the center section of the pattern only takes 14 beads (3B, 1T, 2B, 1T, 1B, 2T, 1B, 3T) to achieve the transition. While one could make a random blend, I often use a variation of this pattern. Let's look at the red/black necklace in detail. Below is how the strands look before attaching the clasp. And here is a detail showing just the center part where the colors are blended. By changing where the blend happens in each strand, I also achieve a vertical blend from strand to strand. Below is the red side of the necklace. Notice there are no black beads in the upper part of it. I tried, but they were such a strong contrast in value that they made the eye go right there. I wanted the eye to come to the center of the necklace and enjoy the blending of the two colors. Below is the black side of the necklace. Here I have put some red beads in with the black because without them it seemed unbalanced in value, too dark. And below is a detail showing how the center of the necklace looks when worn. I've used this technique in many multiple strand necklaces over the years and have always liked how it looks. When I began stitching beads on cloth, I often needed colors I didn't have or that don't exist. Could I use the successful stringing blend for my bead embroidery? Yes! Above is my November BJP (2008-9) . Wanting to bead a fairly realistic butterfly, I needed to blend the colors, especially on the edges of the wing and where the wing meets the body. By using backstitch and changing bead colors in a similar way to the chart above, I was able get the look I wanted. When you backstitch several lines of beads next to each other that all have color changes in them, you can create a beautiful blended look. I also blended colors in the short stacks that make the body of the butterfly. For my April BJP (2008-9), I used this method to blend colors in the waterfall and flowing creek water. Above is a closer look at the water. It's actually only 3 colors (white, clear and smokey topaz). I used a dark brown thread color where I wanted it darker and white thread for the lighter areas. Plus I blended the colors in each line of beads, similar to the pattern shown on the chart above. For the skunk cabbage, I used a different method for blending. Again using backstitch, I stitched a line of beads in one color, a different color next to that, and a third color in the ditch , on top of the other two lines. This gave both texture and a subtle shift in color to stems, leaves and flower. I've marked the places where I used this method with white arrows. Below is a detail picture showing one of the other skunk cabbages. I've probably only scratched the surface of what is possible in the color blending department. If some of you have found other ways, I'd love to read about it on your blog! FYI I designed the red/black necklace based on colors in a Japanese kimono as a project for Margie Deeb's book, Th e Beader's Color Palette . See pages 91-93 for step-by-step instructions how to make it. Also, if anybody is interested, I might be willing to sell Kimono Necklace . I also designed several other pieces for Margie's book as projects or to illustrate specific color palettes. Two of them also involve color blending: pages 55 and 163. If you don't have this book and have any interest in expanding your color comfort zone, Margie's book is a must have... at least check it out from your local library!

So, how do I manage to write a post about a 10-day trip to Arizona when I took close to 2,000 pictures? I call my friend Christi , who says, "What are the top three experiences of the trip? OK... if I pick my top 7-10 pictures for each of these three things, then maybe, just maybe, I'll have a reasonable post!!!! Thanks, Christi! #1 ~ Desert We bushwhacked and hiked in the desert Northeast of Phoenix every chance we got. I fell in love! Yes, I never would have predicted that both Robert and I would develop such a deep passion for the desert. Everything about it, from the tallest saguaro cactus to the wee little wildflowers, is compelling and beautiful. Highway 87, north of Mesa toward Payson, is a desert gold mine!!!! Granite boulders on Boulder Mountain, one-mile stretch along Hwy 87, NE of Phoenix. Prickly pear cactus! Notice there's one heart-shaped paddle... my fave, of course! Saguaro and prickly pear cactus silhouetted by the setting sun... Oooooooh! The pretty cholla cactus in the foreground is the devil in disguise! Also called chain or jumping cactus, it's spines are barbed. When they get into your skin, they stay there. The ends break off when you try to pull them out, leaving the barbed points in your thumb to fester. Please, don't ask me how I know this! This is Robert, my husband, tossing a rock on the "victory pile" at the summit of Pine Creek loop trail off Hwy 87, NE of Phoenix. #2 ~ The Grand Canyon Although we viewed three movies about the Grand Canyon before we went, they hardly prepared us for what we experienced there. We both love taking pictures, and took hundreds of them at the Canyon. In retrospect, I believe that taking pictures ensures that I see many details of the place... that I notice composition, color, form, shadows and highlights. But it's possible I miss the whole, the very essence of the Canyon, while busily noticing the details through my view-finder. And then, as I look at the results, they don't even come a tiny bit close to what it's actually like to be there, seeing the Colorado River a mile down and the sky infinitely high.... However, here are a few that at least serve as decent reminders. Can you see the Colorado River (Robert calls it the Color-red-oh River)? Imagine - a whole mile down! That's 18 football fields, end-to-end. If and when there's a next time, I want to just sit in one place and meditate for a long while! We got lucky on the flight home between Phoenix and Seattle. I took this picture of the River and Canyon from my window seat! #3 ~ Motorcycle We rented a new, powerful (1800 cc) Goldwing for three days... What a blast!!!! On one of the days we joined Corinne ( BJP member) and her husband, Loring, for a day-ride to Jerome and Sedona. I knew Jerome was an old mining-town, turned ghost-town, turned hippy/artist tourist-attraction, but had no idea it was on the very top of a mountain with switchback streets. Who-eeee, what a fun ride to the top! I also knew about the famed, red-rocks of Sedona, but was not prepared for just how red and beautiful the rock formations in the area are. I took pictures while riding behind Robert on the Goldwing. I even took one of myself.... see how the wind is blowing my face? Robert and our rented Goldwing. We've stopped to photograph the red rock formations near Sedona, AZ! Above are Robert, Corinne and Loring posing in front of an old hotel building in Jerome, AZ. This cliff dwelling is called Montezuma's Castle. It was built and inhabited by the Sinagua people in the 1100s. I fell in love with sycamore trees... with their long, graceful branches and especially with the mottled, soft celedon, tan and violet colors of their bark! More pictures on my Facebook page If you like the above pictures and would like to see a few more wildflowers, cactus, Canyon, etc. pictures, you can go to my Facebook page and check out my photo albums, here . (I hope this link works...) More fun in Arizona! We had many other memorable experiences, such as dinner with Corinne and Loring, two spring training baseball games, good SW food, the Little Colorado River Gorge, a fabulous exhibit of Ansel Adams' photographs at the Phoenix Art Museum (the exibit is open to June 1st) and beading with Lisa C for half a day! We are very grateful to our friends, Patricia and Roger, who allowed us to use their vacation home in Fountain Hills as our base. We're also grateful for fabulous weather! BJP Progress Report I'm a terrible behinder right now. I've hardly started working on my March piece. Yet, the week ahead looks pretty open right now... I'm crossing my fingers to keep it that way so I can bead, bead, bead. My six words for April are: rest flow resolve stitch finish forgive The one I circled as my key word for the month is forgive . Hmmmmm.... wonder what that's about?! Well, one thing for sure... I need to forgive myself for not getting around to any of my favorite blogs for a long time.... It's on the list!

Hi Everyone! I'm in love with Saguaro cactus (above... this one may have been just a wee tyke when my Mom was born 93 years ago) and all the desert cacti and wildflowers in March!!!!! But our adventures in Arizona will have to be the subject of my next post. We took thousands of pictures... really, no exaggeration! So, it will take a bit of time to sort through them and find a few gems to post here. In the meantime, I was reading Lisa's blog ( Indigo's Beads ) and decided to comment here on a couple of the issues she had with her March BJP bead embroidery... Here's her very beautiful piece... called Springtime in Heaven. In her post, here , she wrote about making the fringed "grass" border before filling in the background sky and about how the thread caught on the fringe over and over again, making it quite challenging (and time-consuming) to bead the sky. Tip #1 . It makes sense to wait to add fringy things to my bead embroidery until AFTER I've completed everything else. But often that's just not the way it goes. Often the fringe just needs to happen and I can't resist the urge. Generally I curse the tangles and keep beading, just as I imagine Lisa did. However, when it really gets to be a problem, I take the time to cover the fringe so that it doesn't keep catching my thread. There are two ways to do this. One is with tin foil. Tear a small piece of tin foil and scrunch it around the fringe. If a larger area of fringe is involved, as in Lisa's piece, I stitch a piece of netting or fabric over the fringe, temporarily containing it. The netting is nice, because you can still see the fringe through it. Lisa also mentioned that she had to break the Bead Journal Project rule of maintaining the same size for all of her pieces. This is because she started with the ribbon meadow, working from edge to edge of her predetermined size. After creating most of the design, she decided it needed a grass border. That would either mean starting over or making the piece larger than the others in her BJP series for the year. Lisa chose to break the rules and go for the larger size. I say, "Bravo!" Tip #2 . Always break the rules of any art project when it enables you to create your art in a way that works for you. I really believe this! Rules are good guidelines. But don't let them hold you back when it comes to the flow of your creativity! Then, showing a closeup picture of her beading, Lisa wrote, "oh, wow...my enlarged pics really shows my crooked lines! lol. oh well. They looked pretty straight when I was doing them." Yup, Lisa, I certainly know that feeling well! Tip #3. This issue always reminds me of looking at my cuticles under magnification. They look fine until I peer into the magnifying glass. Akkkk! The truth is this: it's the same for all of us. Any flat beading (back stitch, couching and/or weaving) can look smooth and straight... even when we examine our work with a critical eye. But when we take a photo of our work in macro or enlarge a high resolution photo to greater than twice the actual size, suddenly we see the thread between the beads and the beads appear to be crooked and unevenly spaced. Our work looks flawed. This is even more pronounced because of the nature of digital photography and scanners, which are designed to capture even slight differences in value. When I find myself feeling harsh about an enlarged picture of my beading, I try to remember to look at the whole, the un-enlarged picture and the original work, to regain proper perspective. Hope these tips help... I'm glad to be back on the computer, even though I have lots of catching up to do and oodles of pictures from our trip to sort through. I'll be around to your blogs as soon as I can... Oh yeah, and I'd better get started on my March BJP piece too... YIKES... the month is nearly gone!

There's always that one day that marks the end of winter and suddenly you're soaring into spring with all its glorious re-birthing. Today was that day for me! The crocus and daffodils are blooming earlier this year after a very mild winter. February was unusually warm... 40s and 50s, no freezing at night. My neighbor, over at Herb Crazed , grows hundreds of daffodils on her triangular property, a joy for all of us! Check out her two recent posts, one about deer resistant plants and one about daffodils. These are hers, by the way. The robins are back, hopping around moss-coated rocks in search of worms. Soon our 5 acres will team with all sorts of woodland birds. And two of them will commandeer our bird houses! This is the remains of a nest from last year, which my husband cleaned from one of their houses. If you study it, you can see that the little tykes know how to build! The sticks, carefully sized, are placed one west, one south, one east, one north and back to west. It was easier to see this pattern immediately after the nest came out of the bird house. I took this picture a day or so later and the wind had already begun to destroy it. This picture is the nest from our other bird house. I love the little feathers woven into the sticks. I think both residents were sparrows... but I could be wrong about that. Yesterday I spent the whole day with Christi of Sweatpea's Path on Lopez Island. We stitched, talked, ate delicious home-made chicken soup and walked the paths through her neighbor's 80-acre woods... 50+ degrees and sunny! Could it be better? Well, yes, it could. Add to the above that she's tamed a whole flock of chickadees to eat bird seed from her hand. They're so tame, some of them will sit or her dog's head. Wouldn't I love a picture of that!!! I fed them too. Amazing and sweet to feel their little feet on my fingers, look eye-to-eye with them and watch them choose a special seed. Chickadee-dee-dee! Words for March BJP March 1, sat outside on our deck, quietly contemplating the sky and madrona trees, then quickly wrote the first six words that came to mind. They are: Build Fly Reflect Explore Learn Dance Of these, the one which seemed the most compelling at the time was Explore, so that's my "featured" word for this month's BJP. While with Christi yesterday, I started stitching a bunch of different fabrics together, layering them. They may have to be part of it. Takin' a Leave of Absence for Two Weeks! My husband and I are taking our first significant vacation in 13 years of being together!!! We're going to Arizona, where we'll see a couple of Mariners spring training games, visit the Phoenix art museum, take a motor cycle ride to the Jerome-Sedona area, spend 2+ days at the Grand Canyon, and photograph blooming cactus (I hope) and wild flowers. We'll be away from our computers and home responsibilities for nearly 2 full weeks. Glorious!

Two bloggers have started me thinking about polarities in the way we approach working on our BJP pages. Sharkeysday posted here about re-starting her February BJP page and about wanting to make her doll's chest less prominent. And Kali posted a comment on my blog about my February BJP page , giving some suggestions for how it could be improved and a list of artists renowned for their word/image art. One of her comments was that the heart seems crowded, overwhelmed and pushed down by the words, like the whole piece needs to be tipped upward, counterclockwise. (These are my words, my interpretation of Kali's suggestion.) Well, I got to thinking about it. I can see her point... viewing it as a piece of art. Yes, she's right about that. Yet, from the point of view of telling a story, my story, about these words... about my mom and me, it's right on the money the way it is. With Mom so near the end of her life, I feel like I'm slipping off the page . I feel like the words which belong to our 67-year relationship are surrounding me, close to the surface, especially the word cry . I feel the need to experience these Mom-words as much as I can right now, because the opportunity to do so is changing. To my eyes, the piece better tells my truth (the way it is now) than it would if it complied better with the precepts of good art. That got me thinking about two polarities for our BJP pages... On one hand, we have making art and doing it right . At the other end of the scale, we have just doing it, letting it be what it is . Making Art Just Do It Do It Right Let it Be. Where are you on this scale right now? Where do you want to be??? Personally, I want to lean as far as possible toward the letting go side, because that is where I believe I will find who I really am as a person and as an artist; that is where I'll discover my own unique way to tell a story. After thinking about this, my new way to approach those times when I don't like my work will be to ask, "What does this tell me about myself, my feelings... what is the story here, what truth is showing up in my work?" It doesn't mean I won't check into all of the artists suggested by Kali, filling my subconscious with inspirations from the way they tell their stories. Nor does it mean I'll ignore principles of art. It's just that I won't force the principles in any way. They will be just one component of my subconscious process. I hope!

I look at magazines like the Feb. issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and think "I'll never be able to do collage well, especially collage with words." Then I have to remind myself about "baby steps" and about how learning takes time and practice. OK. That's the program for this year's BJP... one piece at a time... just do it... see how it grows (or doesn't)! My piece for February is finished and at least I like it better than the one for January . Here's how it looks (click picture to see detail). Originally, when I spontaneously chose six words for the month , I didn't have any sense that they were related. The word I circled as the most compelling at that moment was cry . Immediately I wanted to change my mind, to circle play or any of the other words. Three weeks later, with my piece complete, I'm so glad I stuck with my original choice because, little by little, I realized that all six of my words are about my Mom and our relationship. I wrote about my tear in the center of the beaded heart holding a picture of Mom and about my love surrounding her in my previous post here . Now, looking at the completed piece, so many associations and memories of Mom (some recent, some in the distant past of childhood) are unfolding... triggered by all six of the words! When I view it, not as attempted collage, not as art, but as a story about my Mom and me, it's a delight and a treasure! Maybe that's a lesson for us with our art... to view (and to value) it from the standpoint of what it tells us. Just a thought... The technical and design issue for me about collage with paper, cloth and beads is how to make all the elements interconnected and whole. To make the words for this piece, I created them in Photoshop and then printed them on fabric (poplin) with my inkjet printer. The heart is beaded on felt. The background is drawing paper painted with acrylic paints. When I first laid out the three elements, the paper and heart looked OK together, but the words looked dull and unrelated. What could I do to make them come forward a little, but not so much as to overpower the heart? The answer came in steps and with trial and error... First I stitched beads around the borders of each word. That helped a little, but not enough. I needed some way to enhance the edges of the words, bring the color and texture of them more in line with the little edge of felt showing around the beading on the heart. I tried crocheting a scalloped edge with a single strand of embroidery floss. Yuk! I tried drawing around the edges with marking pen. Yuk! Finally I got the idea of couching a six-strand length of embroidery floss around the edge. That worked pretty well... the color was right and it gave a slightly uneven texture, similar to the felt. Here's a picture of the three steps... 1- plain, 2- with beads and 3- with a couched edge. I'm looking forward to March and already curious about what six words will pop into my mind on March 1st! It's a fantastic pleasure to look at all the juicy, creative, fun, stimulating pieces being done by this year's BJP participants. OMG!!! We are soooooooooooooo way cool! Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous post about Mom and me and crying... I really appreciate your kindness and encouragement! Technical information: Black background paper - 8.5 x 11 inches Painted background paper - 7 x 7 inches Beading - completed on red wool felt, then stitched to background paper Words - created in Photoshop, printed on fabric, glued to paper with bookbinder's glue

It's still Valentine's Day where I live, so happy day of love to everybody! This is part of my February Bead Journal Project ... the easy part! It only took me about two and a half days to bead this heart. It's about 3.5 inches wide. Now I have to work with the words, paper and the heart to make a collage... My BJP plan for this year is to do collage and to include six words (all verbs), compiled on the first day of the month, on each piece. I don't ponder these words at all... simply list the first six that pop into my mind. Then I circle the most compelling word, which must be visually shown in my piece. I posted my February words here ... The circled word was cry . Immediately I wanted to erase the circle, even the word, and circle one of the others. Although I feel resistance to working with cry , I know in my heart it is all about Mom. Here she is. She was 93 on Jan. 11! I took this and the picture below in November while visiting her for a week. (I live in Washington state; she's in Minnesota.) In December, her health took a turn for the worse and she was put under Hospice care by her Dr. I went again, staying for another week. This time she was very weak, sometimes unable to feed herself or sit up. Often she seemed very confused. Yet we did have several beautiful moments together when she was quite lucid. Mom and I are a lot alike physically and in personality. I'm her eldest child of five. Although we had our differences when I was in my late teens, at all other times we've been great friends, close emotionally, respectful, loving and supportive of each other. I understand that nobody lives forever. I know that her quality of life is poor, even on her "good days." I have a sense that she won't live much longer... and inside I am crying. One of my tears, in the center of this beaded heart, holds a picture of Mom. She is surrounded here and in real life by my love for her.

As you may have seen on my previous post , day 1 of each month, I grab paper/pen and write the first six words (action verbs) that pop into my head. Then I circle the one that seems the most compelling. These words will appear on my monthly Bead Journal Project piece, somehow worked into a collage of beads, fibers and papers... My six words for February (above) sat fallow, until I read Elizabeth's post about her blank canvas problems with her January BJP. Once again, let's hear it for BJP bloggers!!! Her wonderful post turned me around and made me excited to play with my words! (Thank you, Elizabeth!) So yesterday, when finally there was a block of free hours, I painted and played with my words in Photoshop, the results of which you see above. Then I printed them on fabric (smaller than what you see here on your monitor). I can't wait to get out my painted papers and beads later today. Where will this month's journey lead? Who knows? One thing I will say, cry was the word I circled. Right now I don't want to deal with crying at all, so it may be a hidden element in my page... We'll see...

I'm trying some new things this year... 1. Beading on felt 2. Using fibers, paper, multi-media approach 3. Learning collage 4. Using some of the papers I've painted 5. Including words 6. Making a hand-bound book with my 12 pages It all started on Jan. 1, when I impulsively wrote 6 words that seemed important to me. They are: Listen Lighten Walk Cherish Paint Simplify Then from those six words, I chose the one which seemed the most compelling to me at that moment. The word was walk . Why not use these words as the underlying theme for my BJP piece for January? In fact, why not write 6 words at the beginning of each month and use them as the basis for that month's piece? Well, OK, that's just what I'll do! So with the six words for January in the back of my mind, I quickly flipped through my stash of painted papers (acrylic paint on 90 pound drawing paper) and found one that appealed to me. Same process with my felt stash. Purple felt! I basted it to a piece of interleaving paper to stabilize it, got out some beads and started stitching. Obviously, the word walk showed up in my beading. Here's how it looks: That part was pretty easy. Since I'm going to make a book, I wanted the page size to be larger than the bead embroidery (which is only 2.5 x 2.5 inches). I have some sheets of deep black paper (heavy-weight, with a deckle edge) which will be luscious for a book. I decided to make the book pages 8.5 x 11 and cut the painted papers to a 7" square. So now, I'm defining my BJP page as a 7 inch square , which will include some beading on felt of any size I wish for that page. Now we get to the difficult (er, I mean challenging) part for me. What to do with the painted paper and the beading??? How to put them together??? How to add elements of collage??? How to add the words??? Yikes! Suddenly I'm all tense and don't know what I want to do or how to do it. "Calm down," I remind myself... "It doesn't have to be perfect. Just do it. Think improvisationally." That works for about 5 minutes and I glue some wrapped fibers on the paper to extend the idea of walking from my bugle bead pathway onto the paper. Then I'm stuck again. I worry that the fibers aren't the right color . I worry about what to do next. I write some words on the page and worry that they look amateur... And so on... Worrying about my art isn't the normal me. I worry about that too... Finally, Marty's post " Editing and Improvisation ," about ripping out beads in parts we don't like, rescued me from all the angst I was feeling about my piece. Somehow reading her words created a turning point in my mind. My self-talk changed to "This is a learning experience. I'm trying something new. I'll get better at it as the year goes by. It's a journey of discovery and everything I make is simply a marker along the path." So here you have it... The first marker! Fini! Tomorrow I get to write 6 new words and continue the journey into February! BTW, some of you readers are excellent at collage... all suggestions for the next piece are welcome!