Beading Tortoise

Do you know the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare? (Click here to read it.) I am the Beading Tortoise! One of my favorite sayings is "slow and steady wins the race". Not that the BJP is a race, but I am up against a deadline and starting to feel like I must hurry and not enjoy myself as much.

I have greatly enjoyed working on my February piece. I love the colours and the swirls, although I do remember saying way back in June that I didn't want to bead more swirls!! Maybe practise has helped me like them more. Although the end of this piece is in sight, I always tend to dawdle near to the end, since I don't want it to be over. My logical brain says "get on with it" and my emotional brain wants to soak up every last bit of the beading. Kind of like when I finish a great novel in which I loved the characters and am not ready to open a new book or get to know any new characters yet!

Anyway, I have finished the hardest step for me and that is turning the outside edges in and slip stitching the edge closed in a straight, neat fold. It's the "straight" part that is difficult. But I remind myself that it is hand made, not a perfect machine made edging, and is supposed to have character (ie. be crooked!).

Can you see the little pink snowflakes on either side?!? It snowed at the beginning, all throughout the month, right through to the end of February - mountains of snow. This is a carry over technique from my December piece (still unfinished because I am uninspired to work with red and green now!) and my January piece in which I had 6 beaded snowflakes.

I have also finished the hand quilting part to hold the layers together. I took a photo (near a sunny window to show the contours) of the back so you can see how much hand stitching I do on each piece.