It's called "Garden Sampler", is a design by Nancy Rossi of the Kooler Design Studio and published by JanLynn. 14 ct Aida and DMC floss...
Started a new piece, a kit that was in my project bag. Decided I needed to do something simple for a while to get my mind off quaker motifs before I dive right back in! It's called "Garden Sampler", is a design by Nancy Rossi of the Kooler Design Studio and published by JanLynn. 14 ct Aida and DMC floss... I aso have pieced together two pieces of cotton that I think will be my February bead Journal project background. You can make out the basting for the felt I have put on the back --- it will be 5" x 5" finished and I THINK I will be offsetting it so that the pink will be no more than 1.5" of that. Beads are picked out --- WAY more than I need --- and I THINK I know what I want to stitch but as to what it ends up like, well, that no-one but the bead goddess knows!
0 Comments
Not the most even of curves and there must be a trick to stitching in points (I wonder if I am having tension issues, even though I used a hoop and went so very slowly). Also not sure I like my color choices.
Anyway, I'm calling it "North Wind" because that has been what January has been so far: cold, snowy, wind from the north... Still needs to be "finished" (binding and backing, maybe into a flat-fold): Xīn... This is the pinyin spelling for the Mandarin character for "heart"! My thought for this February is "Xīn", which is an emotional component, or radical, in many Chinese characters, like yearning, love, even forget! Seemed appropriate since Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year (the first day of Spring festival) are on the same day this year! And one of the traditions for Chinese New Year, besides jiao zi, is a branch of cherry blossom... at least that is what I remember from Beijing, that and the couplets that decorated the front doors of each and every house. Kind of hard to portray a jiao zi in beads, I don't know characters well enough to embroider a couplet let alone bead one, and no way do I have the skill to do a tiger (this will be the year of the tiger). So... Two pieces of fabric, one a pink batik which almost looks like cherry blossoms and a deep red Asian fabric with couplets printed in a lighter red; a branch of cherry blossoms in three shades of pink beads attached a matte blue-green metallic seed bead stem, and the character "Xīn", very stylized (apologies to those who can write characters!), in red seed beads. I had a preconceived idea of how I wanted the cherry blossom branch to go, but it did it's own thing and I decided to vary the blossoms according to background and to exend the beaded branches with Kreinik very fine braid. Thanks to Robin for advice on how to smooth out my backstiched lines, and to everyone on BJP Blog three for the example of letting the beading tell me what to do! Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái (Congratulations and Prosperity) to all, especially those of you who are tigers (your birth year would be 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, and, if you are like me, older than dirt, 1938!) beadlust wrote on Feb 8, '10 I'm so curious about your knowledge and experience with the Chinese language... And I love, LOVE your beautiful piece... so clever to make the two fabrics uneven and the blossoms different on the two fabrics. It's subtle and beautiful and joyful! Much heart here! Robin A.
thatyankstitches wrote on Feb 8, '10 My knowledge and experience with Chinese comes from two years living in Beijing, three months studying Chinese (Mandarin), and learning that I'm so tone deaf that even taxi drivers corrected my pronunciation! Basically, I was only basic baby steps in pinyin; I could identify a few characters; count to 1000; and I managed to bargain in street markets with the aid of a calculator! Otherwise, I'm a total loser in Mandarin! deesnl wrote on Feb 8, '10 You are a total winner in this piece though Carol! I can only agree with Robin in that I LOVE this piece. It breathes such tranquility and yet because of what you have done with the fabric and beads it is vibrant and alive at the same time. I must look up what you have done to january! |
AuthorBorn in New Jersey, I grew up in Southeastern Ohio. Attended university at Bowling Green State University (B.Sci in biological science, 1964), University of Southern California (M. Sci in biological science, 1967) and University of Florida (Ph. D in zoology, 1971). Archives
April 2024
Categories
All
Follow Me to...
* 2012 Color Palette Challenge
* 2012 WIPocaplypse * 2012 Bead Journal Project * Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012 * Crazy Quilt Journal Project Challenge 2013 * Crazy Quilt Journal Project Challenge * Cross Stitch Crazy * Cross Stitch Crazy forum * On Beads and Needles * Black Swamp Quilter's Guild * Craft Kingdom Quilting * The Crime Readers Association * Blog #3 BJP 2010 * Blog #1 BJP 2011 |