success, completion and fighting fear

From the Jewelry Studio:

it's finished!

this piece actually came together exactly the way I saw it in my head -- yeah!

it has been entered in its intended challenge, but even more important, it has a promised buyer

it doesn't get much better than that!

the rework on this piece is finished too

it originally had two small magnetic clasps, but it did not meet the "wear ability" test -- those clasps did not stay closed if you did anything but walk around holding your hand out for folks to admire the bracelet --- nope, that won't do!

so I took the back off, stitched on one of my new style toggle and loop clasps and put the back on again with a 3 bead edge instead of the 2 bead edge it had originally

much better!

so I have returned to trying to create a "chain" for this piece

attempts to create a flat beaded piece just won't work on this one since the piece itself is so dimensional, so I have decided to create 3 tubes of beads on each side and braid them together

something I've not tried before -- so what's new!?

so far, so good, but here I am again against a deadline -- I have 3 days to make this work to be able to get it into the challenge it is intended for

geesh!


A bit about moving in:

last weekend I had some help moving some furniture into my newly finished (by the contractors) studio

these two pieces of furniture have been repurposed from their former lives in other rooms of another house

this week we got them fastened to the wall behind them (tall, narrow pieces are at risk of being pulled forward -- not a good idea!), I scrubbed them with Murphy's Oil soap, cleaned all the glass and installed contact paper on the painted shelves (when I washed those the paint crocked off -- not a good thing!)

the very bottom shelf of each of these will be filled with art books, and I plan to fill the other shelves with my fabric -- it will be good to have that where I can see the color but it is safely behind glass to be kept clean


Taking a little break:

we invited our daughter, son in law and grandson to come and have dinner with us last night, and since my son in law was working yesterday, my daughter and Mr Cute came earlier in the day to spend some time

while Mr Cute was having quiet time, I gave my daughter a sewing lesson

she brought some flannel and made her very first pair of pj pants for Mr Cute

this is the face of a successful sewing lesson completed!!

and Mr Cute gave them the seal of approval by putting them on right away and spending the rest of the evening in them -- fun


Dealing with artistic fear:

I worked on this piece a little bit this week

I've done a lot of stitching on the bigger trees

True confession time:  while I am still committed to this piece, I am not happy with the way those trees look

it's time to "Be Brave" and risk ruining it

for the last two days I've been thinking that what I need to do is either a lot more fusing of more varieties of colored fabrics over parts of those trunks or to paint them

or there is option three which would entail many, many, MANY more hours of stitching

I'm leaning toward the fusing of more fabric -- mainly because I know I can do that in small steps -- and I'm really afraid of the paint thing because .... well, I just am (and I know that may be in the end how  I put the snow on them)

no wonder so much work has been done on beading this week -- I'm trying to deal with the "Fear Factor" on this piece!

like I said -- time to Be Brave!