Step Fifty One: Revenge of the Mutant Crochet Flowers...

Dearest Sylwi,

Step Fifty ONE??! Eek! I'm excited and a bit sad it's coming to an end. :-)

Whilst I was creating my Step today, I began to wonder how on earth I am going to find the motivation to create anything, once these 'Fifty Two Steps' finish next week?

I've stumbled and tripped my way through this year, experimenting and playing, but only because I had a weekly deadline and rendez-vous with you. Without you, I would have let every excuse get in the way of making time for being creative.

I really don't know what this next year is going to be like; whether I'll continue experimenting, or if I'll let things slide and rarely break out the art materials. I know I've done one thing this year, though - I've certainly conquered my fear of creating things... I've learned to block out that voice in my head, the one that used to make me give up on an idea, before I even began.

Although, today, maybe I should have listened to that voice! heee! ;-)

With only two Steps left, I knew one of them had to be an attempt at crochet. I tried it before for a Step, but  it was such a disaster, I couldn't bring myself to post the pictures. Ha! Today though, I was determined to post whatever the results turned out to be.

Using a little pamphlet on crochet that my Mum gave me a couple of years ago, I learned how to do a basic chain stitch.

That bit seemed simple enough, so I (foolishly) :-) decided I needed something more challenging to post.

So, I searched for crochet flower tutorials on YouTube. None of the tutorials there were basic enough, so I ended up having to ping back and forth between several different tutorials, to try and work out how on earth to make the flowers. I guess it didn't help that the tutorials were for different types of flowers. (ahem!)

I was dissatisfied with the first flower I made, so I made another... and then another ... annnnd another...

Each one was as bad as the last, but for a different reason. :-)

I decided on one last attempt. One last flower. I would concentrate really, really hard and surely it would turn out perfect?!?

... or not.

*long sigh*

ha ha ha ha ha ha! :-)

See you back here next week, for one last Step. {sob}! ;-)

Lots and lots of love
Fi
xx

Step Forty Three: Layering Paper

Dearest Sylwi

There's so much I want to write for this post, but my eyes are so tired, I'm going to take it easy and make a list instead!

I found out this week that the reason I've been getting so many headaches and sore eyes is that I have a little inflammation in both eyes, but also, that I'm becoming long-sighted! After 38 years of perfect vision, my eyes are beginning to fail me! So, I'm going to have to get reading glasses. Till then (and till the inflammation clears up), I'm trying to spend as much time offline as I can. I debated not posting today, but habit kicked in and I thought I'd do a quick upload. It's all a bit scrappy, quite frankly, but never mind! hee! ;-)

Anyway, here's the list...

The pros:

- this is something I've wanted to try with paper for a while
- I found this beautiful vintage flower pattern in a great free source of embroidery patterns online, so I could get on with cutting, rather than trying to design my own flowers first
- I really enjoyed embossing the paper and layering it
- using tiny little adhesive foam pads to build up the layers of paper worked really well
- I'd like to continue exploring other ideas with this technique. Not sure what exactly!
- I really enjoy working with brown parcel paper.

... but...

The cons:

- I'm not sure I like the contrast of white paper against the brown (although, I've discovered that I love white paint on brown paper!)
- I loved the first flower in the centre, but as I kept adding to it, I started to dislike it! It started out much better than it finished! ha ha!
- it doesn't look that great from the side, as you can see the foam stickers behind the flowers
- I'm too tired to play around with lighting to take a photo of it tonight. I hope you can kind of work out what I was trying to do
- I had intended to do the black bits with thread, but had no time, so just inked them! (cheat! ha!)

Sorry to hear you had such a rough week last week. I'll be back to write much more tomorrow and to comment properly on your post.

Hope you're okay. Lots and lots of love,

Fi

xx