Stitching and Beading and a Collage

I am moving along on my embroidered jeans jacket. I made one more wonky star (not stitched yet, up on the top left) and the rest are from a set of graduated regular stars that I found in my studio. I have no idea when I bought them but they are so old that they are brittle and I have had a couple of arms snap off. I haven't washed out the blue marker on all of them, but I usually do it as as I go along. This is a sideways view, the left being the top.

 

I did some beading on my second ornament, but have a lot more beading to go on it. The views are all from the same ball, but so different from each other.

My FiberWorks group has chosen our monthly challenge for the year and we chose to do collages. The word for January was Winter. I started with a 10" square piece of Pelltex and adhered a piece of ice dyed fabric in grays and lavenders. I used ModPodge to add torn pieces of a photo of my yard after a snow storm, some lavender silk Dupioni, some over-dyed printed fabric, some threads, some die-cut trees in a dark gray card stock, and a few Mother of Pearl buttons. What do you think? does this look like a collage to you? There seemed to be great variety shown at the meeting. 

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. For some reason I cannot leave a comment on anyone's blog, something I really like to do. I don't know why and don't know who to ask. Has anyone else had this problem? 

New Projects

I have two projects in the works, one another embroidered jeans jacket. I really enjoyed working on my last two and this is a good winter project when I am away from my studio and sewing machines.

I don't love this one as much as I did my blues on a white jacket. It's tricky working with these sharp points and I think it looks a little like a cartoon...Shazam! I'm hoping I like it better as it goes along and there is along way to go. I will do stars of different size and shape and hope to do seed stitch in variegated thread on the background. I'm using size 8 perle cotton wit this one, instead of embroidery floss.

Project #2 is from Paula Nadelstern's website, Opulent Ornaments. They are made with fussy cut pieces from her fabulous kaleidoscope fabrics.

I just started on one six inch ball. After the fussy cutting and applying to the ball (Lots of stretching and pinning) then comes the fun part of beading, using sequins, seed beads, fancy sequins and colored head pins. I am only partly through the beading on my first ball. I plan to make several and will display them next Christmas on my living room coffee table in a big open glass bowl.

I'll post my progress on both pieces each week, so please come back and please look at Paula's website. I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.