Butterflies Spring Up

Here it is April already and only this page and one more to do before this year of the Bead Journal project is over.

My April page is very similar in feel to my September page, this time it is Butterflies that are showing up as a symbol of transformation. The photos are from our trip to Montreal and the butterfly house at the Botanical Gardens there.

It was an amazing experience to be in and among all of the butterflies. One of those times when you step out of yourself and become one with nature. I have found that all of what I consider my most spiritual moments have come from being with nature. Swimming with dolphins (in the wild), Honu (green sea turtles) and other fish; watching lava flow yards away from me; and other experiences like that.

It is kind of funny that I find nature and the earth my greatest inspiration and yet if I mow the yard I itch from head to toe, I have a brown thumb, and bugs absolutely love me. Sometimes it is strange how life works out.

The red stylized butterfly was a piece that I started when I was teaching a class at Turquoise String Beads in Massachusetts. I had never gotten around to finishing it but as I started thinking about putting this page together I thought of it. I liked that the red of it picks up the red in the flower and the top-left butterfly.

One of the early decisions for this piece was to pick what I wanted to do for the border, after some discussions with Wayne and pulling out my bin of ribbons, I chose to make the border from some thin ribbons and threads couched onto the piece. I used a jade ribbon for the main edge and used a metallic variegated thread to attach it, outside of that is a heavy metallic thread that is couched on with a rayon thread. I have repeated this on the back. Once the whole piece is glued together I will put a thin red ribbon on along the outside edge attaching it to both the front and back edges.

This piece will have less thread work than any of my last few pieces. After attaching the borders and finishing the beading on my abstract butterfly I attached it to the piece, I had originally intended to bead the whole surface but I liked the way the red Ultrasuede looked so I left some of it showing. I used beading to edge some of the leaves and flower petals and extended the lines so that they brought the fabric more into the design.

Next came some dark green metallic thread to trace the edges of some of the leaves in the lower right photo. As of these photos, this is where we stand. For some reason this piece isn't coming as intuitively as the last couple did but I am very pleased with it's bright happy feeling.

I haven't mentioned it yet but there is good news on a couple of levels for the Bead Journal Project. First we will be doing it for another year (YEAH!!!) The 2008 BJP will start in September and if anyone is reading this who isn't already involved in the current BJP the registration is open until August 15th, 2008. You do not have to have any experience in bead embroidery, although the pieces do need to include some beading. We had some absolutely new beaders do it this year and they all learned a lot and got to try out new things. Probably just as exciting is the fact that Pink Moon Hallow has created an incredible website for the Bead Journal Project. Each of the participants from 2007 who finished 8 or more pages will even get their own page with photos of them and links to their blogs, websites etc. I just need to get my act together and get all of my photos the correct size etc.