About to begin anew!

Here it is almost September, and it's not only nearly time to start school again, but to begin our new Bead Journal Project for 2008/2009.  I have been toying with several ideas but haven't decided on one.  Last year's theme for me was flowers that were my own photos.  This year I'd like to do something that is more extemporaneous and less planned.  I think I will try to work a little smaller so I can be sure to finish within a month, so I will not be in a panic all year worrying that I won't finish in time.  I did finish in time last year, but much of the year, I was behind and it gnawed on my conscience.  I hate that panic feeling of being behind.   

Since I last wrote, we've found out that we're going to be first-time grandparents in January 2009.  Since our daughter, Sarahjoy, lives in Costa Rica, it will involve a trip to the tropics in the middle of the winter.... pretty hard to take!  LOL!  Unfortunately, their house is small, their business is growing (www.boyerotours.com) and they have a baby coming, which means they no longer have a guest room for us to use.  So, we are busy looking for something nearby that is more of an apartment than a hotel.  I have been looking on line for some places, and found a few... need to get our daughter's input.  

I have spent most of the last month working toward our county fair.

 I am the co-superintendent of the Textile Department at the San Juan County Fair in Friday Harbor, WA. That's me on the left in white and Christy H, also a BJP-er on the right in rose.   This year, the state judge awarded our department with the black and white ribbon for our fair.  Every year he/she gives this award to one department..... and I am proud to say that our department won it this year!  You can see how proud we are of this award-- two cheshire cats there!!  

Here is a photo of the whole barn from the end, so you can get the "flavor" of our little fair.  We are truly a small town fair!                            

Every year I look forward to the fair, and spend a lot of time there in that building.   Actually, except for bathroom  and lunch & dinner breaks, I spend most of five days sitting among the most beautiful creations made by our local artists. This year, I also demonstrated hand quilting on a beautiful antique Dresden Plate quilt top.  You can see the quilt frame there set up on the left.  

  Of course, just before the fair, I realized that the baby quilt that I was working on for our new grandchild would not see the fair if I didn't finish and enter it in this year's fair.  So, I pulled a couple of late night sewing and quilting sessions and finished it in time to enter it!  I named it "Star Baby".    It was all paper foundation pieced to get those peaky points.  Sarahjoy chose the fabrics and the block patterns, but she had no idea how I would place the fabrics.  I am pleased with the way it looks!  We will deliver it to her in January when we go down to Costa Rica to wait for/greet the baby.

I spent the week prior to the fair, sewing with my favorite 6-1/2 year old twin boys! They are infatuated with birds, and know names and habitats of all the different types of birds, so we sewed our own little birds. We stuffed them really hard, sewed on beads for eyes and added florists' wire for legs. They were so on task and devoted to the project! I was really surprised that they could concentrate for three hours a day to sew! We used my sewing machine, and they got to take out the pins! It's different to sew with young kids! They don't have the coordination to push the pedal, guide the fabric AND take out the pins all at once, so as long as they were focused on the fabric, helped guide it under the needle, and took out the pins, they got credit! It's amazing how much attention the pins need when you are 6-1/2! Getting the pins into the pin cushion is really important. Since the fair we have been working on quilt blocks. They are each making four 12"x12" blocks, and will be latticing them together and adding borders, then quilting them before Wednesday afternoon! We are ready to add the strips between rows, so I'm sure we will make it! We have three 3-hour work times left together. At the end of our last session, we laid out all the parts on the bed to see how they will look when we finish them. It has been fun to work with them!

End of August

Well, it's been a while. I just can't seem to get into this blog thing. I have been working on my July page, and finished it. It was really intense. I started out thinking that I would only bead part of the purple on the page, but as I did more, it became obvious that I had to fill in all the purple. That little 6x6 is really heavy!!! A little more "literal" than I had wanted, but I am pleased with it. I have been listening to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on tape while I've been beading..... really helps my concentration, and I find that I tune in and catch things I didn't get when I read it the first time.


In the month of August, we also had our county fair. It was a fabulous experience as usual. It's an old-timey little fair, and we get to visit with friends, acquaintances and neighbors that we don't usually get to spend time with. This is a picture of my friend Megan showing her mother, Betty, the quilts and other displays in our department. They were so sweet together. This photo represents to me the best of our little town and fair.

I am co-superintendent with my friend, Christy, of the Textile Department. This department includes all quilts and anything sewn or made that STARTS with fabric. I have been a superintendent for over 25 years, and it's almost second nature now. I am blessed to have a great group of friends and fellow-quilters who help with the logisitics of the department. We are so thankful to have them! The weather was cool, but only rained one evening during the fair. We had a wonderful five days!

So since the fair, I have begun my August page for the Bead Journal Project. I started out with the center of my sunflower. I wanted to do something three dimensional, so chose some little gold colored washers and made stacks of brown beads with a gold bead on the top of the stack. I really like the way it looks, but as most of you have already learned, if you do the stacks first, you get tangled in them for all the rest of the beading you do! LOL! Well, I am still glad I did them, because I like them soooo much that it keeps me working on it. I am enjoying the process with this one more than the previous two. I think I am also growing in terms of my beading technique.

So, since then I have outlined each petal, and filled in part of them with a variety of fan-like beading images. These were tricky to do since the petals are a variety of widths, and the square beads I was using for the "center" of the fan are a variety of sizes and shapes. So I decided to have the fans stack in a random kind of way. I also realized that I might not have enough of the SAME beads to use in all of the petals, so decided to do 9 of the petals intensely and figure out what to do in the alternate petals later. Maybe something a little different.... maybe nothing at all. I will be glad to take suggestions! ;-)

So that's where it stands as of this moment, until I get to a big bead supply. I live out in the boondocks..... literally at least 2 hours from anything! We do have a bead store in town, but it's limited, and when you know what's out 'there", it makes it hard to settle for something just because it's here. I did find some little metallic stars to use around the edge of the center of the sunflower. I am playing with how to mount them..... the hole goes in one side of the star between points and OUT the other side on the point, so it's hard to get them to sit any particular way. I may have to touch them with a dot of nail polish to get them to stay!