beading away

Sometimes I wish I had a window in my studio, but since it is in the basement, that would be kinda hard to do. I guess I could always make my own window to look out of, but what kind of world would I put in my window? Would it be a mountain view, ocean view, or some science fiction landscape? So instead, I just have all my beaded creations sitting on the shelf looking down at me or hanging on the walls.

I've been quiet in the blog world, but that doesn't mean I haven't been creating. I've been working on the Land of Odds-Illustrated Tapestry challenge for the past three months. Really, I have been working on it longer than that as first I had to chose a mystery book and then read it. I hate to confess, but I never read any mysteries ever until I came upon this challenge. I did read a couple back in my high school days but I could always guess the ending before I even got one quarter through. I found the book I wanted after about two chapters of a Patricia Cornwell book. I was hooked. So then with the help my my multi talented husband, I dived into the project.

Unfortunately at this point, I can't share anything visually about it or else be disqualified from the competition. Needless to say, doing a flat tapestry of such a large scale was a true challenge to me. I can do the most convoluted three dimensional doll ever, but flat...flat...flat. Wow, that was something. I didn't lay out too much of the design except to convert the cartoon (image) onto fabric. Then I began to just let the pattern unfold under my fingers. I used tons of blue seed beads and crystal and pearls and even have a dimensional doll embedded into the design. I finished with tons of time to spare, then realized it didn't look right. I measured the finish piece again and began to panic. The dimensions of the tapestry were all off. I couldn't figure out what happened! I printed the pattern out & transferred it onto the wool, but still it was off by my calculations by 2 inches. As usually, I went to Chris & he came to my rescue. He first asked me if I measured before I started. And my reply was "no, should I?" Well, indeed I should have before I started on such a mammoth project. I have a really bad habit of just plowing into a project and then realize I misread or miscalculated some vital information when I'm at least 3/4 done. Well, seems that I'm short two inches on the length of this tapestry. Thank goodness, I'd learned my lessons from the past and gave myself more material to work with. So, thinking I was done, I now have two more inches to complete. At least I found out this before I got too close to that August 30th deadline. Oh, and I have to write an artist statement for this piece too. This time, I'm not going to worry as I'm going to just write about how I created this humongous flat piece of art. So I'm now in the finishing stages. I still got to figure out how to mount it with the over 10 pounds of beads on it. We are thinking of mounting it in a frame just for strength.

Well, Bead Club tonight at 1 Stop Bead Shop in Dublin. And yes, not being a fan of blue, this has really truly be a unique challenge for me.