December done

December man is done and I am pleased with him. Think that he his a bit scottish with his tarten looking kilt. Unfortunately he could not have his sharks flag in his hand. I enjoyed working this young man and unfortunately he did not quite work out as the skier that i wanted.

Diane

Punto Mat Finished

I have finished my punto antico mat and I am very excited. It has been a two year project with stitching on it once a month until the last six months when I tried to do more.
This weekend I have been at an embroidery retreat for our area and it was loads of fun. lots of sharing ideas and seeing wonderful things that others do as well as a couple of projects to make.
We made wonderful encrusted tassels, using beads and rajmahal threads and also a origami box.
We also received some coloured pellon so that has given me inspiration for one of my men.

February coming along

This is the layout and partial stitching for the February piece. January has been skipped at the moment until I get this piece out of my head. I spoke earlier about going to a function and appearing invisible. I hope that you can see my invisible man appearing in this stitching - he is hidden by the black and white figures all over him. He has been fun to stitch and lots of time spent thinking during this one. I think when his face bead is stitched on he will appear.

The background was white silk with a striped (pale yellow) chiffon and I machine stitched rows across the figures. My little man was cut out of a piece of fused fabric with a satin stitch edging and stitched on with the beads.

December BJP

My december piece is about halfway there, but faceless at the moment. This young lady is dressed in her christmas best and enjoying the festive season with stars on her shoes. The background is constructed with threads fused to pelmet vilene and then a chiffon scarf fused over the top. The chiffon has white spots representing the snow that occurred while I was on holiday in San Francisco. I think this little lady will be called Emmy but it will depend on her look when her face is attached. Having the little face beads means that proportion has gone out the window as her face will be little compared to her body. She is also dressed with a wonderful necklace - obviously her christmas present.

Bee Material

Detail of the fabric - two sided use.

A couple of people have commented on the bee material that was used in the corner of the November lady. It was a sample piece from the furniture factory in San Francisco a number of years ago. It has been used in a couple of items but this is one of the major pieces that I made using the material.
This bug bag that I made with the bee material several years ago, is called Bert and is the third of the bags that I made using this pattern. The first was called “Matilda” – she is yellow and green, while the second was Esmerelda – all green in colour.

BJP stitching is continuing with December piece started and also the February piece semi beaded. Today was going to be a day with more stitching but unfortunately my mum phoned at 9.30 am to say that we were going to preserve peaches at my sisters. It was a fun time with the three of us working together – an annual event and a reminder of when we were young and my mother preserved lots of fruit for the year ahead. Her 16 year old son kept coming and sampling the wares and saying that bottle is enough for breakfast. We ended up with about 30 jars of peach slices all different sizes so that is great.

November Done

This was my inpsiration for the november colours - it is a polymer clay face that I made a while ago and my first attempt at encasing a face with beads. A friend and I followed instructions to make the polymer clay canes, but as we only had blue, yellow and white the colours are quite strong. I have a mould which makes the faces hence the one that I have used on the November piece.

I felt that my patchwork man was turning into a woman and after I attached the face she looked a little lost and not quite frazzled enough for the November month. I added two colours of drop beads so it looks like her hair is standing on end.
Hope you enjoy this young lady, with her bounce in her step. I have still not named her but I am sure if she hangs on my design wall she will be named soon.

Catching the comments.

Thank you for all the comments. I forget to read them but glad that people are seeing them. To answer a couple of questions the little faces are glass beads that I found in the bead shop in Queenstown, New Zealand (www.queenstown-nz.co.nz ) when I was there in August last year for a conference. Unfortunately I only bought 10 of them but I have an idea for a different face for the January piece so hoping that inspiration will come for another month.

I have had lots of fun doing the backgrounds that I think the beading is covering it but I am also learning how to put less into the background. I have found in my stash several other things that might get used for backgrounds so my idea of having 12 peices the same size is officially flown the coop. I like the way I have finished the november piece with the machine stitched edge and the fact it is not square I found hard to work with initally but put the scissors away (I kept trimming the edges) as the perfect, logical me was coming out and I was forgetting the creative part of the process. I am looking foarward to stitching on the february piece and have decided that my calendar is obviously from Mars or PERN (Practically Earth Resources Negligble - for Anne McCaffrey fans) as it is different ordered to the Gregorian Calendar in my day job.