again, and again, and again

it's happened again... the on-going, ever-present, continual, wait-for-it, dependable, here-it-comes, yes, she's changed her mind again...

like the song

"again, and again, and again"

I don't think I'm fickle... I think it's more about not having a clue 

that could be spun as a positive, "she's always willing to try again when something turns out to be not quite right"

whatever one might think of it, I've tweaked things yet again, but I may just be on the right track

finally.

it took until Wednesday to finish Grey's birthday gift... I was hoping to be done sooner but the added time gave me a very significant advantage (over myself!) in that it gave me the time to really think about what the heck I've been doing and what the heck I want to be doing... his gift was a painted book and it was more than a bit of a struggle at times but in the end it came out ok

that evening I picked up a piece of hand-stitching and the instantaneous feelings of joy and relief that washed over me were a tad overwhelming and in that moment I knew, regardless of what other artistic techniques might catch my eye, it's thread and cloth for me forever

that moment of clear understanding also made me more determined than ever to figure out how to use sketchbooks to help me develop my ideas - my usual way of using them has been as a repository of samples I wanted to keep and a place to glue down bits of paper, notes and quick sketches, but I never actually worked in them

in this challenge I have been painting and glueing my way around the page, getting it done to a point I was happy with and moving on, page after page in a watercolour journal

nice to flip through the painted pages but where was the development of ideas in that? 

it felt more like scratching an itch

(not that we are encouraged to work in that way, it's just what I was doing)

so now that I kind of knew what I was wanting and as much as I like "beginnings", I wasn't sure where to start... I had a sketchbook of the repository-style on the go but it was 14" x 17" and way too big with not a lot of blank pages left to use... and besides, as I said, I do like beginnings

an hour later I had it completely taken apart, all the stuff I was no longer interested in was gone and the remainder ready to put into a new one - over the next two days I took those half-dozen samples etc. and began a new sketchbook, this time adding some drawings and notes, snippets of fabrics and thread - not fancy, just capturing thoughts

today I cut the most recent Sketchbook Challenge piece out of the watercolour book I've been using up to now and attached it to a blank two-page spread

notes of how I did it

today I looked at it fresh, thinking about what I could do - I want to embroider on interesting surfaces and so for a start I'm working on them

I had the three small samples of paper strips on linen I made last week so today I started making cloth ones using cotton, silk and lace, thinking about layers and peeling, paring back to what was

for years I have saved small bits of cloth and lace so I had a good pile to work with... but every piece I chose had to relate back to the initial work in some way

the blue/gold silk below will get crinkled and puckered when I stitch it

last week I also made larger cloth and paper bases to stitch on - the piece on the right is one of those, what looks like stitching is a fragment of lace pulled and stretched, tacked in place

below, the piece on the left was made on the same day - the piece on the right almost two years ago but I just found it today... various papers joined with free motion stitching... I like what I like I guess

thinking about the strips and the lines that form as they are laid down and brushed with glue, edges tear or roll, distorting, moving as if they are flowing water

so I drew that and made notes about options for filling in - then gathered a few things so I can make a sample of that

below, textured silk on the left, tissue paper stuck on card-stock with cmc on the right

starting out in pencil, with a big eraser, a kind of "safety net" I suppose, but I am determined to not try and  make it pretty - this is a working book, a place to capture ideas and move on

I'm very happy to be getting this figured out and though I want to capture a few more thoughts I am also keen to get on with the next prompt from the challenge and start a new page all over again so I'm giving myself one more day to focus on this and that's that

after all, there's just nothing like a beginning