Day Forty-Seven: Batik Bird is Appliqued, Quilted, Beaded, and Finished

Today I discovered beading. Where were you for the first sixty-three years of my life?

Is it possible to love too much? Well, of course it is; it's called obsession, and it's always provided fertile ground for poets, songwriters, and salesmen. Romantic love, power, fame, money, even chocolate....but, beading? Yes, beading. To this artist, who has always drawn with a pencil or pen, there is something quite mystical about making a line with hundreds of tiny, glittering dots. Like reaching up to the stars, tracing one's finger across the sky, and creating a line that wasn't there before. And all this using the wrong needles and the wrong threads and some cheap beads picked up at Michael's. A day spent with snarled thread, broken needles, pricked finger tips, and, yes, sheer delight.

Tomorrow I'm off to my local bead shop to get the right tools, some advice from the experts, and, of course, more beads. Where it will all end, I dare not speculate. But I'm already thinking about making a completely beaded bird. In my mind's eye, it is already complete, and when this happens it means I won't rest 'til the image is brought to life.

But for now, I will enjoy my Batik Bird and her very simple beading, and thank her for the new joy she has brought into my life.

Peggy