May FULL MOON # 10

Here I am once again late - :( - sad face, best laid plans that go a stray. My little piece of art goes to Gwen and it is being posted today.

My inspiration for May was the little piece of enamel work I did with my sister in law Terri. The piece always reminded me of the Full Moon shining on the beach. Going through my 'po' I found these little turtles. I then thought of a novel I read years ago set in S Carolina and related as part of the story about the turtles that come ashore at night to lay their eggs. So I Googled Carolina and turtles. Sure enough there was the story about Logger Head Sea Turtle that lives its life in the ocean, only to come a shore at night to lay their eggs. These turtles will lay eggs at 2-3 year intervals and 3-4 clutches may be laid in one season at 12 week intervals.  Clutch size will average around 115 eggs.

Lynn Hranach

SEED MOON #4

The full moon is here!!  And it arrived early as far as I can tell!  I have been entrenched in making jewelry for the Camano Arts Studio Tour and have hardly come up for air.  You are all invited to come up!  The information can be found through my websitewww.kathydannerbeck.com or through the Camano Arts Association website atwww.camanoarts.org .  I would love to see you!!

The project for this month has been in the works for a while.  I too did research and found that this is the month for planting, seeds and all the good things that Peg told us about.  And this full moon is also called the pink moon.  So in trying to do something that fit with the moon names and knowing that Beth loves gardening and plants....I came up with “Strawberry Fields Forever!”

The strawberries are sort of pinkish/red, they have seeds on them, and Beth loves gardening!  The slight little snafu is that all the berries didn’t ripen yet so there is only one in the spot now....but with more to come!

The berry is felted and then bead embroidered!  Fun to make!!  If only we could eat it too!

 Kathy

Snow moon *8

I was very hungry to do some bead embroidery.  I was interested in Lynn’s ocean and beach passion.  I wanted to add a little sparkle to Lynn’s Little Altar. 

I designed an ocean beach-to-horizon bead embroidery piece to use blues, shells, and several different stitches.  Blues are not normally colors I find easy to work with but this time I wasn’t uncomfortable. I wanted all kinds of bead embroidery textures.  But after the piece was about a third of the way finished, I decided that the design was not well balanced, and that the piece would feel heavy and overworked when it was finished. 

In the meantime, I’ve been studying about watercolors, and playing with photographs in Lightroom (a great program!).  I put some watercolor paper in the printer, printed a photograph.  I discovered how the printer inks (dye based) liquefy with a bit of water, and I tried adding watercolor to the photograph.  Pretty darn interesting!

So I decided to take another tack for my February project.  I found a photograph that I took several years ago and printed it on watercolor paper.  It was taken in January, at Ebey’s Landing on Whidbey Island, looking across to the Olympic Mountains.

I played with watercolor painting it to enhance the printed image and then sealed it with archival varnish. And like lots of things in life, when I was looking in one of my esoteric stashes of unfinished project ideas for some certain beads to add to it, I found these vintage two hole beads instead.  They inspired me in a different way, and I got to do some bead embroidery after all.  You might call it embellishment, but I’m calling it embroidery! 

I’m happy that this is a lighter, simpler, and more fanciful solution to my original desires for this month’s Little Altar spot.

 Nancy Strahle

Snow Moon 4

Love &
 Hope Stitched Heart
It was hard to figure out what to do for Lou. I like Halloween also, and it is the month of her birth. But that was not it. Then maybe magic! What I wanted to do could not find the supply needed for it and ordered but it was late in coming. So it came down to the month of love, February, so thus the heart. I have made these before and also taught a class in beading using these little hearts. It is always a joy to work with beads as it calms me working with my hands. Each stitch is taken with a wish or hope even if I am not aware of or know the person that will receive it. I do look forward to meeting all next year.

Marilynn