Well well, the end of August fast approaches and my planned deadline is almost met. You can see that the needle and thread has been working its magic for me over the past few weeks.
It has been great sitting out on the deck under the gazebo while summer sun has heated our world to new record hot temperatures. As long as the breeze blew a bit I was able to sit there and stitch many afternoons away and think of all the remaining projects that are waiting for me to complete.
I had great fun designing the two leaves, well actually one leaf (on the left side) and one grandouis flower (on the right).
I have to tell you that both ideas came from a little loveseat that is in Lou's Aunt's nursing home. It was placed in the ladies washroom. You should have seen me going in and out with sketch pad in hand several times as I tried to capture new placement ideas. I didn't want to stay in the room too long incase others needed the respite. So I made about 3 trips and each time brought out a new sketch. I will try to scan and include them here for future references, or in case one of you other gals decide to take up beaded jacobean projects. It never hurts to get too many ideas floating around.
Well since last picture I have added the tree trunk. Believe it or not, these are brown oval shapes from a necklace I was able to acquire at a garage sale last year.
On the left leaf I have used all purples and soft maulves to make this leaf look a bit like a fall leaf. But oh my, does it ever sparkle in the full sun shine. I found the larger round maulve and almost seethrough beads from a child's hair band this summer. The darker maulve beads were from Mill Hill. The two just fit together like a hand and a glove so I'm delighted that I had both here to work with. I outlined it all with shiny black beads. I found these in a magnetic healing necklace on one of my travels with DH this past summer. There were just enough to fill in the outline of the leaf and the veins inside. After all I did have to remind myself that this block is to illustrate that winter is coming and all the flowers etc will be going to sleep shortly.
Now my lovely flower on the right side of the work. I had so much fun with this. I'll try and describe it to you. There are pale pale blue teardrop centers in the bottom 3 petals of this flower. There were the icy blue that you could almost see in frost that lines the plants on those really cold autumn mornings. Then from there I surrounded the empty space directly around the teardrops with a vibrant blue...yes, we do have vibrant colours in the fall also.
Going from there I made one outline in bright gold and one in a darker gold....early fall tones and then later in the season when the glow has gone and only the dull shades remain.
After that, seeing as I knew snow would follow I decided to make a bed of white beads. This is now holding the remains of the flower for the coming months.
Have you ever noticed that pale winter sun shine that brings us a little bit of warmth in the cold winter days. I call it my Winter Sunshine. Well, the next round is to represent our winter sun. You can see very pale almost orange shaded beads there.
Following that, I chose the colour of winter ice. You can almost see through it with its blue transparency look. These beads (both the orange and the blue ones) were purchased this summer from a Farmer's Market stall in a town about 25 minute drive from here. They fit perfectly into my imaginary Fall/Winter season Jacobean Tree of life.
The last part I have to do is the last flower of summer. They are usually the most beautiful of all. I am thinking of something sparkly yet dark to bring out their lasting beauty even once fall has tiptoed into their lives.
Stay tuned for this last step of my Bead Lust Project for Oct, Nov and Dec.
Hugs
Dee
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