The Garden - Beading Afternoons

A few minutes here and there. The task is not quite so daunting as it first appeared......though I'm finding my supply of beads rather limiting.

The Garden - Beadwork

Who would have thought deciding how to bead these ladies would be as time consuming as choosing their centers.

I'm not going to count how many I have in the box.
(Just chose another bead and watch the snow fall gently...................)

Signora - One Day Later

The lips were easier than I thought.

Signora - Progress update

Those moments when I have to sit down I usually picked up the hoop. I can finally see some real progress.

The Garden - Quilting on the LA

I don't know why I was so hesitate to start doing this. I think I was feeling there would be some loss of fine control but it doesn't appear to be.
Considering I used the LA to quilt Naomi's Boat this should have been a natural.


This is going over the earlier neutral stitching of the confetti and net. I'm using mat thread and matching to the predominant colour. Some is variegated as I had a thread that worked, and most is a solid colour.

And while I was taking the photos today I got thinking about a visit I had yesterday with some like minded creative people and one was talking about all the bead work she does.......

then the little worm lodged itself in my brain.
Maybe I should bead the flower centers................................................................😕

The Garden - Leaves....Lost count

I can add more leaves if I need them but from this point........ I need to start Quilting.

The Garden - Other than Flowers

The garden is going to need leaves, lots of them. If we stay with poppies they come in many sizes and shapes from frilly to a recognizable ovoid.

I've cut a number but other things have to happen first. (Diddly eh!)

I sewed the two parts back together, shortening the gap about a third.
Chunks of related colours were glued into the space.

About 60 stems were cut in 3 colours, and fuse tacked at the top of the strips only so leaves can be woven in.

Now I just need to make more............. leaves.
AND I need to decide When to quilt.....And how to attach those flowers.  😁

The Garden - All? the Dancers

Just 3 more centers on the small purple flowers then I can start on the foliage.
I finally got that straight in my head.

The Garden - Brown eyed Susan and..

The Garden - Flower centers 2

Who would have thought this would be such a troublesome item.

I've tried several combinations and so far.....9.

I will think twice about fusing painted cloth and then trying to hand stitch fiddly bits ....................tough work.

The Garden - Flower centers

Still pouring rain outside.
It looks like the weather channel was right for a change. We 're on our way to 50+ mm of rain, (mind you that's really only a couple of inches, but in winter with the ground frozen.....). Wish we had had this rain midsummer last.

But my Flowers............ they needed more definition that the addition of their centers should provide.
I'm still just playing with the colours but there are some interesting possibilities.

I had been a little lukewarm with the flowers on the background. When I removed them to audition centers I grouped them.

What a difference.

The feel of the meadow full of mixed flowers may not be the way to go.


And I pulled the background and narrowed the field. I'm still thinking about stems and leaves.

The Garden - Can you believe More?

I'm not sure I like all the colours............................

The Garden - and some Blue

The Garden - Playing with Pinks

The Garden - the Flowers

I'd been thinking about the flowers since I started this piece. Looking for lots of colour I was leaning towards a mix of different flowers. I played around this afternoon with paper cutouts and glue and cloth.....and decided to go with simple Poppies.

They come in so many colours and varieties.

After I played with construction styles, petals sewn or glued together,

I chose a gathered strip of cloth, a line of running stitched to pull up the fabric and a notched a curved cut on the other side.

It sounds straightforward but as I decided to use a fused fabric to add some dimension, it doesn't draw up as nicely or as easily. Here, smaller is better than bigger.

Looks good.
Now to see what other lovely material is hiding in my stash.

The Garden - the ground

Totally different feel here.
The colour of the flowers, leaves and stems are muted by both overshadowing and age.

The space between the two parts is undecided at this point. I'll see how the flowers develop.
Their number and size will determine the spacing (height) of the whole piece.

The Garden - A Month Later

Finally got the decks cleared and went to back to this piece.

The first thing I did was cut it in half. Dragging the bottom half around was a nuisance. They can be  rejoined when the it's time to work on the centre section.

Again this is all background for the larger, dimensional? flowers that will be applied at the end.

A little more green and some faded background flowers..........

Another New Year

It occurred to me today this blog has been running for 6 years. It seems so long ago. I've certainly enjoyed the experience and truth be told it's been important to keeping me on the path. So here's to at least a few more years.

It was a busy holiday season and then after everyone went home I spent a LONG time on the couch.
Today was cathartic though as I finally submitted my entry for the SAQA show and Conference being held here (TO) in March. Now I have to wait 6 weeks to hear whether my piece was accepted. The competition is overwhelming...but we'll see.

So I've cleaned up the present wrapping center ( my work space ) and am ready to dive in again.
I have worked on my Spanish lady, not as much as I had planned. It's very slow work. I don't mind that but it's certainly not 'watch tv' work.

I also decide that when I finished each needle of colour, I would switch to either a different colour or locale. I'm finding that works very well for me.

So January 2 2020, here's the Senora so far.