Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. It has been awhile since I posted. I worked on Christmas gifts this month and have not even started my page. One gift in particular reminds me of my pages so I have included that picture.

I want to say again how much I have learned this year (beading and blogging,) and how thankful I am that I joined the group, I feel I have grown in my beadwork and have this project to thank. Thanks to Robin for being our sponsor, for all in the group for posting and commenting on everyone's and all of the incredible beadwork out there.

Here is the gift I mentioned.

November page and how it happened

I have been wanting to do a page with some knitting on it for awhile. I finally settled on the colors and yarn and started searching for a pattern to make a swatch from. I wanted something that was open. Turns out I was journaling again. The page reminds me of a trellis with a door knocker or portal (window) to another place.

I found the pattern in a book called The Prayer Shawl Ministry put out by Leisure Arts featuring Lion Brand Homespun Yarn. Although that is not what I used. I picked out the yarn (Curious Creek Oban in Plum Thunder and Glacier Lakes) as I had wanted to use both colors for awhile and the two colors are usually the ones I go to first (purple for sure, and normally turquoise but blue works too!) The yarns are wonderful to knit with and feel really good.

The book talks about the meaning of the colors which happened to be my birth month color (purple) and also my boyfriend's ( blue.) The colors mean: purple - wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity and mystery; blue - stability, trust, loyalty, faith, truth and tranquility. All good words. Prayer shawls are made as a gift for healing (people pray while making them) or for protection or for celebration. I picked this because I liked the pattern and a new friend I met in Phoenix on my recent trip there got my interested in the book too. But it turns out there was a deeper meaning for me behind it. And I will take all three reasons for why prayer shawls are made.

As far as the beads go, I wanted to do another rivoli with the lace (netting effect) to it and while looking for the rivoli came across the square and decided it needed to be on my page too. I seem to go from a more complex page to a more simple one, but I like that.

I am posting a picture of the material on my page, a picture of the swatch before I covered it and a picture of the completed page. I also put together all six of my pages and took a picture and am posting that too.

I can not sew straight for the life of me, if you look too closely at the page with the material only you will see what I mean! Good thing my stitching to get my material on my backing is mostly coverd up. The colors on the completed page is a better reflection of the color of the yarn.

We traveled across the country last week to TX and saw the Grand Canyon and Sedona. I am posting a couple of pictures from there too.

Finally we have another foster dog, Cookie, so I have a couple of pictures of her. She came to us yesterday. She is a real sweetheart. If the organization did not pull her from the shelter she would have been put down, however the organization I belong to has a great realtionship with the local shelters so they will always know about German Shepherd's that get into the shelter system and that should never happen. Still breaks my heart though and while it is so hard to foster a dog and then loose her, that reminds we why we do it. And they always go to good homes.

Happy beading, and knitting everyone. And Happy Belated Thanksgiving.

Grand Canyon

Sedona

Quote I like regarding dogs

I just finished reading a book called Dog Years by Mark Doty. There were a couple of quotes in there about dogs that I wanted to quote here. They are both from the same poem: The Housedog's Grave by Robinson Jeffers

I've changed my ways a little, I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream, and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there...

I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.

The last line of the poem says it all about loosing a companion be it animal or human.

Here is a link with the whole poem: http://www.sarbin.com/otis-n-jake/stories/housedog.html

October page

Finally, I am done with my October page. I had a lot of fun doing this one. Truly felt like I was journal beading. The colors matched the season and also my mood. And boy did the beads talk to me. I have done beading in pink and started adding orange the past couple of years, but yellow (not counting amber or gold) is really new. I think part of that has been inspiration from one of the Curious Creek yarns I like, Sunrise on Daffodils. (See the link to the right if you want to check it out.) I have included some in progress shots, and some close ups. This piece was very hard for me to photograph, so the pictures do not do it justice. I have a vintage button which is really cool. And I love this material. There is so many great quilt material out there in the market place, just like beads, very addictive.

There are techniques or pieces I learned and adapted from Paula Walter (class,) Diane Fitzgerald (book,) Marcia Decoster (class) and one from the newest Beadwork, which of course I could not find at the moment. I even came up with another way to bezel a rivoli, so that was pretty cool.

I also discovered my page could be turned two ways. Since I like bead weaving so much, it was fun to bead some of the pieces separately and put them on the page.

Finally, I am hoping I can get my knitting idea together for November's page.

We will see! Happy beading and knitting everyone, Nancy.

Inspiration - recent trips

Hi everyone, I am hoping to complete my October page this weekend and will post when done. I have included some pictures from my recent trips to central Illinois and Missouri along with Port Townsend, WA. The lighthouse is in Hannibal, Missouri which is along the Mississippi River.

The Japanese Maple tree is from the front of the house. Two closeups and one of the whole tree. I love to watch it change colors. Happy beading and knitting, Nancy

Greetings

Hi everyone, have not posted for awhile. I have been working on my page. It is slowly coming along, but I like it. I was in central Illinois over this past weekend for a fall color drive festival. It was a nice time, unfortunately the trees had not changed too much. This coming weekend I got to Pt. Townsend, WA for a knitting weekend, then to Phoenix for work. So no posting for awhile. When I come back I need to finish October and on to November! Have a good few weeks everyone, Nancy

Quote of the day

I forgot to add this on my prior post. I really like quotes. I came across this one today in an article about dealing with stress:

"Life is what we make it - always has been, always will be." Grandma Moses

How true!

October day

Today has been a grand day so far. After I took my Disco to the park this morning, I went back home to get my camera so I could take pictures of some flowers I always admire. When we went back out, fog had rolled in, which rarely happens where I live in the SF bay area. I ended up taking over a 100 pictures. When the sun came out it, the pictures I took looked like they were at night. I posted my favorite ones at photobucket. Here is the link: http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u82/thunderdog101/An_October_Day/

I have added three of my very favorites out of all of them. That was hard to pick, I was really happy with all of them. Even a lot I did not post.

I also got my beaded face pin from the swap today and some cool goodies, which will probably find their way to one of my pages. Can't wait till next year for the next swap. Swaps are a lot of fun, you get to make something you like that is fun (although you have to give it up) and get something cool in return. I love to get things in the mail. I have posted that picture too, and here is the link from the website for Sassy Art Goddess: http://www.sassyartgoddess.com/Beaded%20Face%20Swap%20V.3.htm

My pin is by Connie Welch.

On to beading and knitting for the rest of the day. I have to finish my sock for my last class. I will post a picture when done.

October page - flower

I should add that the flower on my October page is from techniques I learned from Paula Walter.

October and inspiration - pictures

Better late than never, the pictures I referred to in my last post. My October pages and the inspiration.

Inspiration

Every so often I look at things (artwork by others and things of my own) and realize how I like to work around threes or odd numbers. Part of this has to do with balance for me, but also from early photography classes I took and the law of threes, about not centering your main object, putting the horizon in the top third of your picture, etc. That has stayed with me a long time.

I played Morwyn's color game. (http://anothercountry-morwyn.blogspot.com/2007/10/52-inspirations-heres-1.html.) My colors are burnt umber, silver, cobalt blue and ivory. Nice combination. I will need to make something in those colors, either knitting or beading or for a page. I think I even have all the colors in beads anyway.

I am using different colors in my October page. I will post a picture later today. I will explain the colors now though. The piece is called Dahlia, and there will be no dahlias in it. Just the colors. I picked up some dahlias several weeks ago at our local farmers market (good thing about living in CA, mine is year round) and the colors were yellow, orange and pink and I determined I would make a page in that color scheme and October is the month for that.

As far as September goes, I also noticed (again) how dark it looks in the picture. For now, September sort of represents a dark time for me so I am going to leave it as is unless something really jumps out at me later on in the 12 months of this project. But there are 3 sets of three in there, three black briolettes, three main beads (well one is a pin and the other was a button,) one of which has three beaded arms or beaded strips coming out of it. I was really happy with that as it was totally a spur of the moment way I beaded it (beads talking again) and it came out pretty cool.

Another thing looking at everyone's work and my own blog reminds me is how much joy I get out of beading and the other craft/art work I do. It is a good thing to remind myself when I am feeling down, or feeling sick.

No farm tour last week, but we did have a nice time at the beach.

Happy beading everyone, Nancy

September page and other activities

Hello everyone, it is a nice day here in northern CA. Tomorrow I think we will be going for a farm trail tour and seeing some farms in Sonoma County. Should be fun. http://www.farmtrails.org/.

I joined the beaded face swap sponsored by Carol Strand-Siebers, http://www.sassyartgoddess.com/, I have posted my pin. The picture does not do it justice. One project I finished this month. I also had an opportunity to go to an open house at a local airport. They had an exhibit on raptors. I got some great close up shots of a hawk and a kestril. I have posted those too. Foster #3 has been adopted, KoKo. I found a shot of her, my dog (Disco) and myself taking their picture I sort of liked, so I posted that too.

Now on to the real reason for this post. I worked on my September page and am either blocked, or it is done as it is and needs mounting work and cutting off some loose threads I see are still on the piece. I have hardly any beading. I really like the material I selected and I guess I do not want to cover it up. Also, the material is so dark, beading on it does not seem to work too well, or at least with the beads I want to use. I still can't quite get the hand of putting material on the pellon I bead on. Or at least finding a process I like well enough. I more or less sew it on, but I don't want the thread to show. So this page I sewed from the back (I am using very thick pellon) and pulled the piece off center a bit. I don't know if you can tell from the picture. The page is called Dragonfly of Autumn (just came up with that and it sounds kind of cool so I will keep it, even though no autumn colors in my page!) It has a dragonfly button on it. Which probably needs some beads around it, but it is what it is for now. I will be moving on to October. October's page may be something different again. I have and idea that has been talking to me for awhile, new color scheme among other things, that I want to explore. So I think that will be my path this month. Stay tuned, I will probably post pictures as I go. No Flickr pictures yet, though. I don't like my September page well enough yet to post it there.

Happy Beading everyone until I post again.

My pictures:

My bead face brooch, Live Your Dreams, as I said, the picture does not do it justice:

September page:

Self portrait with dogs:

Updates

I still have not started my September page, but I have almost finished my face brooch for the swap. I have to get it in the mail by Monday to hopefully get it where it needs to be on time. I will post it when it is done.

I have done other bead projects this month too, so it has been a good beading month even if no page yet. It will not be a completely covered page. I am going to bead on material and leave some of it open.

Updates

I had a great trip to a local quilt and bead store last week end. I wanted to get material to go with the beads I had picked out for my revised September page and got some beautiful material. Now I wish my page was bigger so I could use a whole pattern. But I have a general idea of what I want to do. I have been beading on other projects and knitting this week, so bead journal page yet. I also joined the face brooch swap and need to get that done too. I have been planning that in my mind. We also have someone coming to look at foster dog #3 this afternoon. One of those happy sad things, I hate to see KoKo go, but if it is a good home...

Have a great rest of the weekend everyone. Nancy

Blogging

I am getting enthralled in blogging land today, so much excellent work out there, one page leads to another, than another, and so on. I am not sure I can put this into words, but when I see people without a dog when they are walking I always think they need one. I have been thinking this along the same lies for awhile about art/crafting/beading/creativity, but looking at blogs and websites today got me thinking it again, everyone has creative instincts and in their own way I wish those people that think they are not creative, knew that they are. I guess my thought is, people should be creating! Well, not everyone, I know that it is not for everyone and there has to be buyers for those of us that sell our work and those that make their living that way but the urge to create I think is in all of use, just comes out differently in some people. I can remember when I was younger making doll clothes for my Twiggy doll or my art classes I took in high school. My family all are creative, my mother has been making our Christmas gifts for years. I have an aunt that is an artist, she did not do that for a living. But I do have a cousin that does machine embroidery for a living (sports jackets and things like that,) that's a big deal in some parts of the country. I have a brother that could basically build a house if he wanted to. And on. And lucky for me since I like beading so much, I have always been a big jewelry person. In grammar school, I remember wearing rings on each finger!

Now I better get back to my housework and a potential shopping trip, or at the very least, beading. And as always, do I wish this program had spell check! I am too lazy to cut and paste into Word and do it that way.

Have a great day!

Artful Blogging + September page

Well, leave it to Somerset Studio to start a magazine on art blogging, called Artful Blogging. And it is great, wonderful graphics, a great source of information. And hints about blogging. I never thought of this, but of course there is blogging etiquette! Looks like it will be coming out 4 times a year and can be subscribed to. Looks like the first quarterly subscrption issue begins in February 2008. The cost is $59.95 for a year.

On to my September page, I think I have changed plans for this month. I had one page all lined out in my mind, got the beads and am now inspired to do something almost totally different. Although the colors appear to be close, some new ones. I used to belong to a bead of the month club. Which was great, just got to be too expensive since I was still buying beads elsewhere. Anyway, I found a full month I had kept together and am thinking on using that for my September page and may stick a face in, or at least some larger focal beads.

I just looked at one of my earlier posts that listed all of my ideas on my pages at that point. I am so glad I wrote them down. So if I go with my idea above for September, I will be taking two off of my list of page ideas, new colors and more faces. And thanks to Beadbabe49 for reinspiring me about using faces. Grace, you are correct, I had a great time doing my last page. It evolved as I went along. I changed it many times. I kept putting different beads in the lower right corner and finally ended up with what is there now.

I hope to keep up with the blog every few days this month and even post more pictures. As I mentioned, the magazine is very inspirational.

Flowers and Faces, The Three Graces

It has been so long since I posted, almost a month. I can not believe it. I am nearly done with my August page, but needed a break. I got my break and got inspiration from two recent classes I took. One was Etruscan Treasure by Marcia Decoster (picture in this posting and link to her website to the right.) The other was Oothecal Bead by Rachel Nelson-Smith. (Rachel's link will be added to my list too.) It was wonderful to switch to beadweaving. I will post my necklace with my Oothecal beads when done. One of the things I did in August was to go through some of my bead and other magazines and rip out projects I liked or thought I would do and inspirational pictures of projects, for the color or an idea it gave me. That was fun, relaxing and inspirational. Gave me the incentive to work on something else too along with the classes. I ordered beads for one of the projects and am halfway through with it. That picture I have posted. It was a project I saw in Step by Step Beads from the July-August 2006 issue. I don't recall being stuck by it last year, but this year, wow! Plus I used a color I have been trying to get more accustomed to and that is lime green. You can order kits or the components (which is what I did, I had to have my usual turquoise/blue colors) at www.twistedsistahbeads.com. I am also posting pictures of my August page in progress, which I have named, Flowers and Faces, The Three Graces, which will be obvious once you see it. This is a theme(s) I like (flowers, faces and goddesses) which repeats in my work. I also happen to have a fountain in my back yard that is the Three Graces. Never thought I would like a naked fountain, but I do!

Finally, we are on foster German Shepherd #3. Her name is KoKo. I am posting her picture too and also #1 (my Daisy girl) and #2 Lucie. Daisy was with us 4 months, very hard to say good bye to her. Her adopters are great people and are okay if I check back with them and even sent pictures of how well she is doing. I also had to change my picture on my profile as it had Daisy in it. Now it is a flower.

We had Lucie a week, so did not get too attached to her. She was an 11 month old puppy and I called her the devil dog upon occasion. KoKo is such a sweetheart, it seems as if she was used for breeding a lot and is still very shy. But she is coming around!

One final comment on my August page, I may be done. There are some open spots I planned to fill in, but may leave them open. We will see. Still no final plan on how I will mount my pages. Anyway, thanks for stopping by and happy beading, Nancy. P.S. I will comment on this in the main blog, but oh my goodness, such wonderful work this past month! I checked each entry, just did not blog on them. I did not see anything I did not like. Talk about inspirational!

Here are the pictures:

Etruscan Treasure


Leslie Pope bracelet

#1

#2
#3
#4 and possibly done (?)
Close ups
Daisy

Lucie above, and KoKo below.