In The Garden At Midnight - December 2010 BJP

Who knows what happens in the garden at midnight? I don't. But I can imagine. And I imagine that during the time of the longest nights of the year, some irrepressible flowers just have to show themselves, but only to the lucky few who are watching. And if it is too dark and too cold and too snowy for the flowers to come above ground, they remember what it was like to bloom during the bright, warm, sunny days, and they dream of blooming again. Perennials have strong spirits, and they use the dark, cold, snowy time to build strength and to look toward the future.

In December 2008, I did another dark, sparkly piece. You can see it below. I enjoyed working with these dark beads so much that I decided to do another one. I deliberately did not look at the older piece before starting this one, and now I find they look quite different from each other. This year's page above is darker than the earlier one below, and it's even darker than the photo shows. Perhaps I acquired some (ahem...) more dark beads. This year's page seems to have a simpler, more unified design. And of course, there are the larger flower and leaf beads on the new one.

Here is the December 2008 page:



Technical Details:

The foundation is Lacy's Stiff Stuff painted with Dye-na-Flow Azure Blue with a little black mixed in.

In addition to the larger leaves and gold flowers, there are three very cool 30 mm (1 3/8 inch) bugle beads. There are 5/0 triangles, rounds in 8/0, 11/0, and 15/0, some 10/0 rounded triangles, 11/0 pointy triangles, hexes, Charlottes, cubes, cylinder beads, fire-polished round beads, and some 3 mm bugles. A large majority of the beads are dark blue or black with an AB finish.

The backstitch dominated (again!) but I did use the stop stitch and the lazy stitch in a few places.

The piece is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.

I used both Nymo navy size B thread and C-Lon black size D thread.

What I Was Thinking:

I really enjoyed working with these dark beads again. After November's page, which seemed to take forever, this page went fast. I started after Christmas and finished it on New Year's Day. I didn't finish it in 2010, which bothered me somewhat. but I could have. I just couldn't manage to stay up till midnight to keep beading (and to look at the garden). As I was working on it on New Year's Eve (We know how to celebrate!), this page was my glamour. It was a perfect complement to my LLBean flannel-lined jeans, sneakers, and fleece top.

Issues That Came Up:

I did not enjoy using the C-lon size D thread. It really seemed to drag through the Stiff Stuff. I think I'll save it for fringe.

It really did bother me that I didn't finish by the end of the year. I know that makes no difference to anyone else, so I'll try to get over it.

Now on to BJP 2011! I'm ready to start!