Third Time's the Charm?

I've debated whether to sign up for the 2011 BJP since I have five unfinished (four not even begun) ornaments for this year. But I've missed beading. I've been doing other things, quilts mostly. I find I don't change gears easily or quickly. Nor do I have a dedicated spot for my beading activities. I always have more than one project going at a time but I tend to work on one until it's completed or I get good and stuck. So when the quilting muse took over that was pretty much it for beadwork. I have also learned that I tend to think too much about my projects. I fret and worry and stew instead of actually stitching.

What I want to do for 2011 is try to ignore the "journal" aspect of the Bead Journal Project as much as possible and let myself play in my beads instead. I think it's the idea of journaling my life events that bogs me down. I journal with pen and paper and words every day. I'm not so much of a visual journaler I guess. But I believe Robin herself would agree that picking a color for the month, stitching beads down as my spirit moves me, and maybe adding a few charms to represent something specific would qualify as bead journaling.

I confess to not visiting my fellow BJP bloggers often in the past few months too. What can I say? I've been sewing, not surfing cyber space. The beauty of this project is that I can go back at any time and see what y'all have been up to, and I probably will. The muses are fickle creatures, here one minute and gone the next. When my quilting muse takes off I'll come back here for inspiration and motivation ;- )

Magpie Sue

You might want to check out...

my latest post about the creative process with our BJP pages. Writing it was stimulated by Sharkeysday and Kali.

Robin A.

Revelation

While I was journaling this morning - on paper - I had an insight I thought might be helpful to share with other members of the BJP.

This is the second time I've participated in the BJP. The first time was in the first year. My primary media is quilts, not beads, so that first year I made 8.5" x 11" quilts which I then embellished with beads. My intention was to make a ground or base of fabric and then use beads to tell the story each month. It didn't quite work out that way, and now I finally know why (or think I do!).

Because patchwork is my primary form of art making I ended up using fabric and the prints and colors in them to do most of the work in my journal quilts. The beads became merely the icing on the cake. At the time I was frustrated with what I was producing but couldn't figure out why. There was nothing really wrong with the work itself. It just wasn't fulfilling my vision of what I thought the BJP would be for me. That could be the reason I have yet to finish the final two quilts and why I didn't feel comfortable submitting photographs of the completed ten quilts to the BJP website.

This year I made a commitment to use a single piece of fabric as my base (and a much smaller format) in hopes that the beads would then be able to take center stage. It seemed to work in January, and it's looking good for February too. Now, with this insight, I may be able to accomplish the goals I had back in 2007, try out some new-to-me beading techniques, and even finish those two journal quilts!

Magpie Sue

Here's a link to my Flikr set of journal quilts from the first BJP so you can go have a look if you'd like.