This morning as I was playing, making mandalas (making them is as good for meditation as coloring them), my mind focused on a friend who we know won't be with us much longer. As I put the finishing touches on this mandala, all I saw was angels and hearts. Here's to you, my friend. May the angels welcome you and give you peace.
I made another one from the same base. I see many paths, some dark some light, some twisted and curved all connected to or surrounded by other objects and I thought about how our lives were connected, as improbable as it was and thanked God for her presence in our lives all these years.
I'm in the process of making and publishing coloring pages and have many made up by now, but I haven't decided whether I'll share these two with the public. Right now they're my personal reflections of the past nearly four decades.
My beadwork is still defying me. I've put aside the chenille stitch I was working on. Sometimes it went smoothely, and other times I couldn't make heads or tails of it.
I finally got the base for an open 3D heart to work. Now to just finish it. My hands don't seem too delighted to manage needle and thread (something I've been doing since I was four years old.
On the other hand, I'm getting better at making coloring mandalas. This is Tulip Cross made with a different technique than I've used with previous mandalas. It's a little more structured than some of my first ones.
I started downloading free mandalas to color, finally looked at one and thought to myself "I can do this". Then I started playing around making them and I have more fun making them than coloring. It's relaxing and fun.
I've been going through my Bead Patterns Boutique shop cleaning up some errors in listings. I started the shop while I was recovering from hip surgery 8 years ago. Obviously, my brain was still foggy. All this time, I've never noticed I left out some crucial information. I don't know how I managed to sell anything.
I'm trying to get a schedule set up to allot time to all my endeavors, but I've been so lax in that respect for so long that's a real chore.
The new year is starting out fairly well for me in spite of the storms keeping me practically house bound. I've made some progress with the Chenille stitch tutorial.
In order for the stitch to make sense to me, there has to be a design in it. That's just me. The stitch is beautiful just worked with two sizes of beads of the same color.
I've made a few swatches in order to test bead sizes etc. Here are two. for the one on the right, I used size 11 throughout. I thought to create a little texture, but I wasn't happy with it. The one on the left I used size 11 and 15. I like it much better.
I was still having trouble remembering which turn to use on the left (there are 2) and seeing the logical placement of beads that is now very clear to me.
I'm still working on the tutorial. I have all the illustrations done and enlarged to meet Hub Pages standards (I think). Now I'm just trying to string words together in sentences that are comprehendible.
I hope to find a filter to take pictures of this gleaming, glittery bracelet when I'm finished.
I'll let you know when I get the tutorial posted to Hub Pages.
