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A Journey

On this Leap Day where it seems so wonderful to have an extra 24 hours, I will give you a glimpse into the journey that took me from this ornament cover




to anticipating making this one.
Diagonal Peyote Cover


There were a few delays and tangents taken during this journey, but it certainly was one I enjoyed.

My journey started in November when Tena and I walked into Strung Out on Beads and found those wonderful, gorgeous ornament covers.  They stuck with me for months and Lisa, the shop owner, assured me anyone could make them.  She was right by the way.  I took the course Lisa offered on February 12 and became mesmerized by the process of taking inexpensive beads and creating something simply breath-taking, at least to me.  During the 13 days between the class dates I made 7 covers and a very simple bracelet.  During that part of the journey I exhausted the variations I could imagine.  When I wasn´t knitting or beading, there were a few almost futile searches for something else.   The first few were written patterns and although they were more than likely well written, the jargon was all foreign to me.  There were too many terms I didn´t understand.

The next step was looking for something on YouTube elementary enough for me to follow.  There I found this image:
Image from Jill Wiseman Design

This is from Jill Wiseman Design, a project called Starry Night.  Although this wasn't quite what I was looking for, I did locate the type of instructions I needed.  The journey continued in the Wiseman website and lead me to the Diagonal Peyote cover pictured above.  I watched several clips probably investing 3-5 hours.

The zigzag design of the Diagonal Peyote cover attracted my interest but when I watched the video I realized I could not make it without learning the peyote stitch technique.  This lead to hours of practicing the stitch causing the yet unfinished wrap bracelet below.

My first peyote stitches done over and over again

Continuing on the Wiseman website I found this image as well

Wiseman´s Pretty Posie design

This project required new beads called Super Duos and I purchased some, unfortunately not enough, but I have four of 18 flowers made so far.

My first petals 

In a little over two weeks I went from no idea how to start, to making a few and discovering there is a multitude of options for ornament covers.  The journey to get here has been wonderful.  Retirement is great for such adventures.

Oh and BTW, I did finish the first Chili sock and started the second.


One done and one barely started

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