Wentzler Wednesday Wailings

This was supposed to be a Woohoo Wentzler Wednesday. The Autumn Faerie was supposed to be complete in all her beaded glory.

I am just shy of being three quarters done with the beading, mostly done with the third leg of the border and just the fourth to go. BUT, and this is a huge BUT, there is some doubt about whether there will be enough of the lavendar beads. The chart called for only one package but as I reached the halfway point and rounded the corner to the third leg of the border, I began to worry. The beads left in my ceramic beading dish looked pretty sparse to me. Granted these truly tiny petite seed beads are deceptive ... there are always more of them then you think in any given space ... but I was worried enough to set my Ott light on the floor, get down on hands and knees and finger comb the carpet for any stray beads that might have fallen to the floor. For the record, carpet combing recovered seven lavender beads and two black beads, one white bead and one ice blue bead from previous projects. I guess the older beads were too enmeshed to be picked up by the vacuum. Anyway, I am holding my breath as I continue to bead today, hoping for a Woohoo moment rather than an Aaaaargh moment. Any wailing you all here from the general vicinity of the western shores of the Hudson today will indicate that I ran out of beads and had to wait till a reorder comes in to finish this long-suffering faerie.

It remains to be seen whether the next Wentzler Wednesday post will boast a photo of a finished Autumn Faerie or just a sad tale of more beads on order. Whatever the case, the next post will include a new project, Tracery Dragons.

It was a toss-up between Teresa Wentzler's Tracery Dragons or her Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking for the next Wentzler BAP. The dragon won out for several reasons. First, there weren't as many colors to pull to kit it up: only 46. For a Teresa Wentzler piece, that is a shockingly limited palette. She usually requires 75-100, filling two bobbin cases this size. Secondly, after spending nearly two years on The Autumn Faerie, intended as a gift for my daughter Angela, I wanted to stitch something for myself. The Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking will be for my grandson, Liam. Thirdly, Tracery Dragons is one of my Crazy January Challenge pieces, so it takes priority over something that is simply in the 2011 binder, waiting its turn to come up in the rotation. I am still hopeful that I will be able to get to Liam's stocking this year, though ... I finally seem to have found my momentum when it comes to BAPs. And it doesn't hurt that I have joined a fantasy group blog ... seeing photos of the other members' work keeps me inspired and motivated. Who knows, I may even finish Liam's stocking and have time to start one for my granddaughter, Piper. Though not a Teresa Wentzler design, it will still be a companion piece to Liam's: it's a Woodland Maiden in medieval costume. Since the stocking I made for my son, their father, was a Woodland Santa ... well, you can see there is a definite theme in place. I'll eventually have to come up with something equally woodsy for my daughter-in-law, to complete the grouping. Maybe just a woodsy, wintry landscape ... she is an environmental educator for the state parks system, so something with animals and trees would be suitable ... maybe a family of deer. But I am getting way ahead of myself. For now, I will simply concentrate on my dragons! One can only hope the dragons won't take as long to stitch as the faerie. Nothing to show just yet but I promise a photo next Wednesday.

Just the odd thought: At this rate, I am going to run out of alliterative "W" words before a year of Wentzler Wednesdays is out ... of course, I can always go back to one of my weird childhood pasttimes: reading the dictionary ... I was a very geeky kid, long before the term geeky came into being. I can just see myself making a list of suitable words and playing with combinations ... so I guess I am still a pretty geeky adult, some unkind folk might even say a pretty geeky senior citizen. Some things never really change.