Singin' the Blues

Last year I challenged myself to use more pink in my work as I had got a little stuck in my (green) rut. I managed to find a palette of pinks with which I was happy, generally mixing in some brown or cream to prevent things getting too saccharine. This year (you guessed it) it is the turn of the blues. I actually have a reasonable stash of blue beads, but rarely use them, so it shouldn't mean buying more beads...except, well when you start looking there are some VERY pretty blue things out there!

I also decided to move into 3D with the bead embroidery, now I feel I have served my apprenticeship with flat pieces, and am moderately competent! I asked Renetha Williams Stanziano to make me a fish shaped form and she made this for me:

And look, he is BLUE! He isn't that big but when I started I realised that working on a form is quite different to working 2D.

I raided the local fabric store for buttons for eyes, and looked through my books and the internet for some inspiration. At around the same time I ordered some spike beads from Beads of Bohemia, and when they arrived I had the idea of making a longhorn cowfish, so the first beads were added...

The placement of the mouth went a bit wrong so I had to reposition, but soon I was off with the actual embroidery. I also made some beadwoven fins in (of course) herringbone stitch, using some of the new Rizo beads between the ribs. The pectoral fins worked well, but in the dorsal fin the Rizos flopped sideways so had to be reinforced, the fireline I used is exposed a little but I think it is better than hiding the Rizos under a lot of other beads. Here is the current status of my fish whom I have named 'Finnegan' after all the 'begin agin' I have had to do!

The main colour of beads will be blue but with the orange and lime accents he will be quite exotic! I still don't know if I will completely cover the surface in beads

And finally, the OTTBS blog colour challenge for February 2013 happened to be 'Blue and Brown' so I decided to use some more spikes, this time in milky turquoise, and made a modified version of Sabine Lippert's Scheherezade, which I'm calling 'Dunyazade' (the name of Scheherezade's little sister, to whom she told the 1001 nights' tales)

So the 'Blue' year is well under way!