New Fabric

I rarely (like twice) ever buy fat quarters that are pre-bundled in combinations that are supposed to go together, but I did this week and I had bought a set of Asian inspired fabrics a couple of years ago and hadn't even untied the bundle yet!
So I did some ironing tonight...I had to stay up and wait for a phone call and it kept me awake anyway...so here are my newest fabric quarters...I'm about ready to make up a few more 4x4 squares for the last of the basho pieces and have been thinking that asian fabric might be fun...on the other hand it's been mostly batiks so far so I can't get too wild.

Moving Along...

Nothing exciting for now...just the background work that has to be done to get the basho pieces finished so they can be put together in some format....27 completely finished, 36 beaded, 8 more to bead and then17 backs to do.

Passing On the Award

It is, of course, impossible to just pick 5 people whose work inspires me, so I'm going to go through my list of BJP'ers and pick 5 at random...

One goes to Diane Redmer Moore at Mountain Salt Studio whose big hearted pages for the bead journal project have been a constant inspiration this past year and who I am happy to see will be going on to 2008/09 too, so we get to play together for another year!

One to Vivage, whose work grew with each month, but who always stayed true to her own vision and who surprises me each time I see it.

One to Caroll152 who gives new meaning to the word rococco! I kept looking closer and closer because I didn't believe it was all beads!

To Karen Cattoire here in probably the most exotic location of any of the bjp'ers, vanuatu, in the south pacific...and I am amazed that she's only been beading for 2 years...wow! Her combination of beads and stitching has gotten me interested in learning more about traditional embroidery.

To Thom Atkins, here and here, Robin's brother, whose larger bjp pieces (larger than mine for sure) have inspired me to go a bit larger next time around and to add more fabric combinations/manipulatons to the mix. The first link leads to his quilts page on his website and the second to his bjp pieces. The pieces are all great but the february page just grabbed me and made me pay attention!

And that's all for now....I could have listed a few dozen more inspirations and a number of them aren't bead related at all, but thank goodness, was only asked for 5!

No Time

My friend linda from Born Under a Bead Sign gave me this lovely award but life has suddenly gotten too crazy to spend the time needed to pass it on right now....so I'd like to accept it, but put off passing it on until things settle down around here...okay?
We're okay but a friend is in dire straits, so I'll be back when we get him settled...I hope!

May TIF

WIP's (works in progress) become F's (finished) today! My May take it further challenge is done...the theme this month was based on what we call ourselves...artists? makers? anything at all?
I usually just go with artist and then if someone wants to know more I will add mixed media fiber artist...that either intrigues them or loses their interest entirely....oddly enough it's usually women who are interested and men who aren't (grin)...
So this little window holds a book of a few of my most recent mixed media fiber art pieces...

Turquoise Girl with Dreads Pin/Pendant

She's finished and in my shop...thanks to everyone for commenting on her!

Too Much?

I may have gone a bit overboard on the dreads!

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback...my Etsy shop is up and running again! I'll be adding items occasionally but mostly I'll be back to being focused on my august exhibit.

Hanging or Standing?

Any preferences? Any suggestions?
The first one would hang...the second would just stand up.

Little Houses

I've finished the little house pin/pendants and am now working on their tags. My friend cheri, who actually makes a living at this, suggested a little hanging tag to pin them on, so when you're not wearing the pin, you can hang it on the wall like a miniature piece of art. Isn't she clever!

Qarrtsiluni

My photo is up at Qarrtsiluni, if you'd like to check it out...there's some fine poetry and other writings on the theme of Water, if anyone is looking for inspiration!

My Baby Turns 35!

Hope you've had a lovely day...glad you liked the card and photos!

Beadbabe/Digital Photographer

This has been a great week for my photographs....a heart image I sent to pia jane bijkerk will be considered for her book, My Heart Wanders here.
And another image I sent to qarrtsuluni for this seasons theme of Water was accepted and will be published online shortly.
In honor of all this activity, I thought I'd redo my header...how do you like it?

Hey, if the beads ever get too small to see, maybe I can do photography fulltime!

Speaking of beads, I've got all the houses beaded and backed with pseudosuede and a pin/pendant finding and just have the edges to finish. I'll post them here and then onto my Etsy site for sale.
I'll also be putting up my seahorse instructions up for sale as soon as I get some kits together. I'll be offering them as just instructions (in pdf. file you will just be able to download or I can send them to you via email) or as instructions and a kit, for those folks who don't want to buy whole tubes of the different beads that go into one of the little seahorses.

Bridge in Fog

This is more like it....caught the mood better.

In the Moonlight

I'm just a bit further along with the leaf and last night I went out and took some photos of our bridge in the moonlight...not as good as I expected, so I'll have to read a bit further in the book to see what the settings should be.

Back to Work

After two ferocious days of over 90 degree heat, it looks like today we'll have temps in the 70's...that's more like it!
Even most of the restaurants don't have air conditioning here since we so rarely would use it! We're not used to such heat after living at the coast for almost 20 years!

So...I'm sending off my cyberfyber postcard to susan today, going to our farmer's market which just reopened for the summer and working for a couple of hours at the visual arts center, where I usually bead as I greet visitors and answer any questions they might have about the exhibits.

I didn't get far enough on the leaf piece to finish it in time for the opening tonight due to the heat....wow, when it's too hot to bead it's TOO HOT!

Did I mention it's been really HOT here?

another rhody

Hot...hot...hot

Looks like we're going to get all our summer in just a couple of days! It was over 80 outside, almost 90 inside and 100 on our sun porch...although right on the beach it was a lot cooler. One of the few times the weather was better over the hill. Before it got too hot this morning I took some photos of our rhody....which often blooms in march, but it was so cold this spring so far it waited until may to bloom!
This was the porch this morning while it was just 80....by the time it hit 90, the cats and I were outside under the willows in the shade, but by 3:00 it was over 80 out there too and not enough breeze to really cool you off, so we just lolled and read....well, I read, the cats lolled...;)

New Stuff

Some house pin/pendants I'm working on and a large leaf pendant with beetle that I'm collecting beads for...

Finished

Cyber Fyber Postcard Trade

I decided to join the cyber fyber trade this time around with Susan Lenz here....there are lots of postcards or atc's left if you want to trade too....and the nice thing is you get to pick the one you want...I LIKE that!
I did this 4x6 p/card on one of my extra pieces from the bjp project and just added the little dancing figure....the face and hands are metal beads/charms, the dress is cotton in another pattern from the backing fabric...the letters are plastic beads, the legs are glass bugle beads and the feet are striped pressed glass daggers...I'll back it with some heavy paper to make it a postcard...
For some reason the photo is greener than the actual piece, but I was too lazy to fire up photoshop to fix it...so just imagine it more turquoise blue, ok?

Still Working on the Unknown One

I'm not working terribly fast on this one, as I'm also working on some pin/brooch designs....I know I said I wasn't into jewelry right now, but it usually just takes me about 3 seconds after I make that kind of statement to change my mind. Still, right now it's only designs...haven't actually put needle to fabric or even iron to fusible, so I may not have stuck my foot all the way into my mouth just yet.

Sun Break

We had a sunny afternoon on friday, so we took a short drive up the coast to pick up a few more beads for this last piece...on our way back, we took a sideroad along one of our favorite parts of the coast and I took this photo. I probably have taken hundreds of photos from this site over the years, in all seasons and kinds of weather....I never get tired of it.
Today it was back to the cold and the misty rain, so I got a bit of work done inside...

BJP ?

Still not sure what this is, but I'm really enjoying working in pastels, which are a stretch for me usually!

Who's On First?

So I've got everything collected for my may bjp and suddenly this other face, fabric and beads pop up and insist on being done first! Not sure what it is going to be...maybe I'll have 2 may pages as this is a pretty important month for me...or maybe this will be a part of the altar I have planned for my august show, tentatively titled, Our Lady of Perpetual Waves of Inspiration?

Riff Raff?

I had to laugh this morning while reading an information page on a town in Bali called Ubud....their description of the town included these two sentences....

"While it once was a haven for scruffy backpackers, cosmic seekers, artists and bohemians, Ubud is now a hot spot for literati, glitterati, art collectors and connoisseurs."

While I'm personally quite comfortable being lumped in with scruffy backpackers, cosmic seekers and bohemians, it rather sounds like they prefer their tourists to be a little "higher" class, lol!

Maybe we could pass ourselves off as connoisseurs if we ever find ourselves in Ubud!

Bead Journal Project 2008/09

Just another quick note for anyone wanting to sign up for next year's BJP....here's the link to the website....it's easy to register and I understand there will be a help page for those who don't yet have a blog but would like to.
The deadline for signing up is August 15th, so you've got lots of time to decide!

Cinco de Mayo

is a big holiday in Mexico (and parts of the US) and I'm celebrating my 400th post here at Beading at the Beach!
I didn't think I had that much to show/talk about when I started this blog in March 2006!

I'm still collecting for the May bjp piece and have been doing more backs for the basho pieces and am now at 23 completed. Someone asked for an idea of which part of the book each piece was inspired by so I'm including a link here to the site that has several translations of the book and lists all 44 "stations"....so you can see what number a piece is and then check out the corresponding station number to see what text I started each piece from. I have to add that I didn't try to illustrate each station but used it as a starting point and then also added my own feelings about each piece and what was happening with me at the time. This is easiest to see on the first piece and in the show I will be adding a page of text to share what each element in that first piece represents. Some of the other pieces have a much more tenuous connection with their station!

Went inland yesterday to visit friends and got to experience 75 degree weather...heaven! On the way home we took the long way and managed to get some shots of our big river while it's still pretty small...about 16 miles upstream....and an old wooden railroad bridge that crosses it.

I'm still playing with the bjp pieces....here's the shorter legs with large beads on the bottom...the o-rings are keeping the pieces about half way up. I'm gonna live with it for a while...;)

I finished the small face finally...I don't think I'll be doing much jewelry for a while...it's just not what I want to be doing and so I drag my feet on it and it just sits around and stares at me. I have a nice brooch for my mom for mother's day, so I won't need to make anything until christmas...

Sooo....happy Cinco de Mayo and I'll be back when I have some work done.

May Day

This May is a big month for me...it's been 5 years cancer-free for me, my son has his 35th birthday this month, we moved to the coast 17 years ago in May and last May I signed up for the bead journal project!
Today I'll be starting the last bjp piece for the first year and this is what I said at the beginning of this wonderful project, on my post of May 19, 2007:

"Now that I've got most of the fabric selected and fused and ready for beading, I'm collecting other bits and pieces I want to use sometime during the next year. I am at year 4 of my breast cancer diagnosis and all the tests and exams are still coming out clear, so I'm going to do my bead journal on the theme of Facing Forward. I've always collected faces and have been using a lot of them in my earlier series of Guardian Spirits, so I will be using a different face (bead, cabochon or pendent) for each month. I'm also beginning to make a few of my own design from polymer clay and may use them in the later months when I'm happier with the results......I have to keep reminding myself that I'm a beginner at face sculpture and not to expect too much at first. It also helps me to remember how frustrating beading was in the beginning when I felt like I was all thumbs and there was thread showing all over the place!"

So I'm celebrating lots of things this month and the page will hopefully express my feelings of joy and thankfulness at still being here! On to the last page of "Facing Forward"....thank goodness I have the whole summer to decide on next years theme!