I’ve managed to blog for 14 days in a row and have gotten quite a bit done in the first two weeks of January. Today I worked on stitch class homework (what else do I do?). We are to choose a folk art design and make an applique sample in that style. I have chosen the Kyrgyzstan culture and the shyrdak rug designs in felt.

 I am interested in these rugs/designs as these are the types of rugs that were used in traditional yurts.

 They are made with bright colors and intricate cut designs and I thought they would work well for applique.

 The plan at the moment is to use hand made felt to make the applique. I already have some prefelts that I thought I could use. I have to check and see what color they are.

 I actually like the ones that are made with natural colored wool the best but I think I’ll use brighter colors for my design.

 Here is a cut out I made of the planned design. This may be a bit tough to cut out in felt. I didn’t glue this in my notebook yet as I thought the colors were a bit much. I made add a bit of paint to make them more like the colors used in the photos above.

I also did some stitching for the cover of my applique book. You can see that the bottom piece has been stitched and the top piece still needs to be done.

I finally finished the final edge on the bead book. Such a relief. That fringe takes a long time.

Here’s the finished page. It’s a bit over the top.

Here’s a closer view of the fringe.

 This is all the pages stacked together. Now I have to bind them. This is a bit daunting as I think if will be difficult to hold together. In the past with this type of binding I’ve used large safety pins to hold the pages in place. My safety pins are not this big!

 You can see how the edges get progressively longer.

 It took about 120 yards of thread to sew all these beads on. The book is going to be really heavy.

 But at least it is finished.

And I’m happy with it even though it isn’t something I would have done on my own, I enjoyed the process. Next step is backing each page and beginning the binding.

This is one of those days that I don’t have much time to do anything creative. I have to go set up and volunteer for a fundraiser today, plus do laundry and go to the grocery. So I just have time for a little bit of work on my bead book. The back of each page will be covered by a piece of painted organza that will be fused down. The organza really doesn’t cover the stitches very well. Since I used brown thread, it shows against the back quite a bit. So this is my solution.

I’m doing a little coloring today. Hopefully more will be happening tomorrow!

I worked this morning for 2 hours on beading my last page. Another 2 1/2 inches of fringe complete.

 So now I just have the top edge to complete. Quite the fringe, isn’t it?

 This afternoon, we had our local fiber group. This time we learned about free form crochet. If you enlarge the photo, look at the bottle in the center of the table in front of the orange bag. Jan has covered it with free form crochet.

 Carole is working away.

 And here’s Bunny doing a double crochet.

 I haven’t crocheted since I was a child. It took a bit to figure it out again. But we were making “twirly” stuff.

 Mine was a little wonky. But I actually like the effect.

Here’s another one I started with knitting tape. As if I need something else to do! But it was fun. Next month we are going to cut linoleum blocks.

I was busy at work today collecting and organizing items for an auction that one of the organizations for which I am a board member is holding this Saturday. So it was a little crazy and not much beading happened. Maybe an inch of fringe.

Sorry the photo isn’t the best. Now that I look again, maybe it was an inch and a half! Hopefully, I will have time this evening to finish this up. I did get the organza painted with Dye-na-Flow paint that will cover the back of each page. I heat set it this morning. Now just need to put some fusible on the back and cut into 4 inch squares. I’m ready to start binding. I’m not sure why the book isn’t ready!