With Zen Bead Embroidery, there is a ton of fairly relaxing (if you do it right) work, but it can sometimes leave you with just a pile of confusing colors and patterns.
Often, the “Frame” is what turns it into a piece of art…
I have to say that I loved doing the embroidery above but when it came to framing, I was clueless and had to go to professionals for help.
I was really happy with how they framed my pieces. (Please forgive the photography. That was definitely NOT professional.)
The color is certainly not RARE but some of these Cobalt bottles are.
I’m an addicted collector so to me they are not unusual, but I am always on the lookout for that one truly rare piece.
I don’t really remember a time when I didn’t love blue. It’s more to me than just a favorite color. I am moved by blue; all shades but cobalt especially.
I still have my very first piece of cobalt glass. It was a prescription bottle that contained medicine for an eye infection. I was six years old. I was miserable but instantly calmed as that dangerous looking medicine box was opened to reveal this magical flash of color…a Cobalt bottle.
I was distracted from my awe for a moment when they told me what came next. Eye drops? I was to voluntarily hold my eyes open so that someone could drop unknown liquid into them? I don’t think so. But then the thoughtless threat from a tired parent…”Do you want to go BLIND?”
I looked at that intense colored, blue bottle, and took my medicine. I didn’t ever want to not be able to see that BLUE! I have collected blue glass ever since. I have a lot of it.
Much to the annoyance of my well intentioned friends and family, I surround myself in blue. My clothes are blue. Every room in my home has a blue theme. My car is blue. My oldest grandson’s eyes are a STUNNING blue!
If I were to lose my sight, blue might be what I would miss the most.
Blue affects me.
Inspired by https://sddpblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/01/not-to-be-taken/
When my son was about 20, he picked up an old Porsche to rebuild. He worked on it for years, including finally finishing major parts of the body work while it was parked in his grandmother’s driveway. She forgot it was there, drove into her driveway late one night and totalled the car. He is 43 now and has hauled it around with him to every place he has lived…Nebraska, Arizona, and several places in Washington state.
At one point, in support of his project, I told him that though I didn’t much want to work on the car with him, I had a supportive parallel project going that was just about as time consuming, so I challenged him….a race to the finish line.
I won and I gave him MY project a few years ago.
That car now lives HERE at my home, along with my son and his two sons. He plans on the three of them finishing it together. I really hope so as now it has become a symbolic “principle” of the whole thing.
But I am thinking maybe I start a new parallel project and re-challenge him. What do you think?
Made with beads and my son’s great-grandmother’s mostly glass buttons.
I Live with SIX MEN!! Among them they have NINE CARS, two motorcycles, and five bicycles. There are piles and rooms and sections of my house and property that are filled with house-painting equipment, construction and carpentry tools, classic cars “projects” and giant workout equipment. This is how they would spend every weekend…
I don’t consider myself a sexist (in favor of either gender) but I cannot think of a female equivalent to the HUGE Mustang (Ford) Car Show I attended this last weekend, at least nothing with comparable sound effects! (I mean really! I needed EARPLUGS!! Every open hood meant these competitive THUNDEROUS revs! Would you need earplugs for a Quilting Show??)
So recently, to do some hormone balancing in my home (this is different than feng shui) I went into the only room in the house that is still completely MINE, my Group Therapy room and office.
I’ve had to do a lot of downsizing to make room for the newest male arrivals to my home (my son and his two sons), and in my culling, have come across a lot of saved bits and pieces from my Mom, Aunt, Great Aunts, Grandmother and Great Grandmother. So I took old lace tablecloths and made a backdrop to which I attached (with tiny white painted safety pins) all that feminine energy!
I can now sit in my pink swivel chair and look at the history of the women in my family through their hats, their hankies, their doilies, aprons, and their fabric, lace and ribbons.
I really am obsessed with this word “Curve”, and I guess I am not alone. There are so many entries this week! I thought I was done yesterday but I kept remembering other CURVES I really adore! So here are some more!
The Nautilus-one of my favorite shells
Curvy Shell Family from Fiji
But my real favorite Curve in the shell world is the ingenious Operculum. Defined in nature as a lid, a cover, or, get this, a trap door, it is a beautiful, smoothed by the elements, curved chunk of shell used by all sizes of Hermit Crabs as their protective “front door”.
Definitely NOT one-size-fits-all!
In Fiji, the locals would keep special ones in their hands, kind of like a “worry stone”, constantly rubbing and smoothing it until the combination of friction and skin oil had it gleaming like a “cat’s eye”
They were also called the Shiva Eye, and they made them into jewelry.
“It is the third eye in the middle of the forehead of the Hindu God Shiva. Representing wisdom, it is thought to have the ability to look beyond the obvious. It symbolizes the flow of life, the constant change of the universe, spiritual knowledge and creative visualization.”
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=shiva+shell+meaning
This is the other side, exactly how they end up on the beach, worn down to “door” size for a variety of crabs and snails.
If you could slice the tips of these shells off and then sand and polish the nub down to a button shape, you would have an operculum. And, on the flat side, you would see the swirl of the shell’s life and growth, sort of like the rings of a large tree.
OK, that’s really it for me and my Curve fixation. I’m done now.
No more curves………..
well, maybe just this very last example of Curves that “inspire” me…just for the Yoga part of it though. Honest.
This is my daughter-in-law’s big brother,
posing for a Yoga and Meditation Calendar a few years ago.
Pretty inspiring Curves, don’t cha think?
They are all so different….so beautiful. I took these pictures in a hurry so not that crisp but the Curves are endless.
I just realized this isn’t even my favorite shell.
And I already said this was the last post for Curve……uh oh.
another “collection”, my only excuse is I live and work in “no shoes” settings.
winter sunset
San Juan Island frogs
Vibrant eyes, amazing heart
determined to be Vibrant.
Details
Curve
