Daily 30

So I have continued doing my dailies even though February's challenge has come and gone.  I have gotten to a point where I anticipate the creation, and I can't wait to get up in the morning to dig into something that can just evolve into whatever it wants to be. 

That's not to say that I am finding any less joy in designing. On the contrary. I think that this daily exploration-- without boundaries or expectations-- loosens up the right brain and gives me a bit of spark in my other designing adventures. 

It can be tough to come up with new ideas. My biggest fear with the cross stitching is that it would become stale, but with my daily work, I am trying new color combinations and patterns that I might not have thought about before. I am exploring different stitches in patterns that for a long time were outside of my comfort zone. I am thinking of embellishment in a different way, too.

I am embracing a little more chaos.  

And I am finding such delight in it.

dream bag

Yesterday afternoon I finished one of the Dream Bags that I had fashioned in my mind. 

Most of the bag is made with recycled & repurposed bits of this and that. Scraps that I always knew would tell a story of their own.  The cross stitched motif is one of my free form designs. The outside of the bag is hand dyed linen and the thread used is a hand dyed cotton. The bag is about 5 inches deep and 4 inches wide. It is lined with vintage cotton fabric. The fringe is also vintage. 

Cotton drawstring, and the charm is a piece of wooden ruler with a copper bail, the words on the front are a piece of vintage postcard. 

It would be perfect to hold a person's runes, a handful of crystals, secret wishes scribbled on scraps of paper. Small bits of special. 

More stitching today on Tangled...tea and maybe another dream bag on the docket. 

Ephemera & Upcycled Jewelry

I have always been fascinated by found objects and finding new purpose for old and seemingly worn out things. Even though I plan on shifting my focus primarily to my needlework designing in 2012, I know that I will still dabble with some of the repurposed jewelry to sate my need to tinker with stuff.

These are some of the pieces I have done in recent days.  This charms and pendants in this group are made with paper pieces that I manipulated digitally and then printed, adhering each to repurposed wood. I added a bail and a ball chain. They are quirky and fun and very different!

I came across some old wooden yard stick pieces and had a bunch of vintage postcards complete with pencil writing on the back and stamps. This is what I've done with some of those components.  I intend to show some of these at the craft market in St. Clair in a few weeks.  

Always on the look out for things for mixed media creations, and I will really be watching now with the classes I am enrolled in for next semester. I need to replenish my beautiful junk stash. Lots of painting and sculpting ahead of me!

Blooms

I have been creating various flowers from yarn and other fibers I have recycled and rescued from various thrift stores and flea markets. The latest are crocheted, some from cotton floss and others from needlepoint wools that I crocheted then hand-felted just enough to give them a vintage-y feel.

I have attatched the cotton flowers (so far!) to stems that I also found at the thrift store. The leaves have a velvety feel to them rather than silk and suit the flowers well. They are longer, and the weight of the flowers leaves them to bend slightly and give them really nice movement.

The felted blooms are going to need a stiffer stem because they weigh a bit more, and I need to attach them with a bead. 

These have been so much fun to make, and I am enjoying digging through the baskets of threads, yarns and other fibers I have collected (and continue to scrounge around for!)