Showing posts with label unfinished. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unfinished. Show all posts

Friday, April 13, 2012

Friday the 13th - Let's Dig up a Zombie!!

As I told you earlier this week, I have lots and lots and lots of partially finished jewelry designs. I get started on one, full of enthusiasm, and then get attracted to another bright shiny project, and forget all about the first. And before you know it, I need to rent a storage unit to house all these "dead" projects.

Of course, we all know this is NOT my storage unit, because it is too neat! LOL

So anyway, I decided that something needs to be done about all these unfinished projects - they date as far back as 2007! So I have decided to resurrect these dead projects, one at a time, until I have cleared out all boxes of unfinished projects!

And what else would you call unfinished projects that are brought back from the dead, except "Zombies!"


The first Zombie project I am reviving dates back to 2008: it is a hybrid (mixed media) design involving both wire crochet and beadweaving. I call it Iolite Fringe, and I first showed it here in a post back in December, 2008! It's interesting to go back and read that post, because you can almost smell the Zombie starting to decompose, as I talk about how tedious the fringing is, and how it is going to take forever to finish. And I was right!! I have been "working on" this project for 3.5 years, and it's still not done!

This is box 1 of the 2 boxes which house my zombie beadweaving projects:


Here is the bag containing the iolite fringe project, untouched since 2008:


The poor necklace is in there, along with all the seed beads and gemstones.
I opened the bag, and pulled out the necklace:
If you look at the necklace, you can see that over on the right side, the fringe is nice and full, and essentially finished. But that leaves the front and the left side still undone, and then my absolute least favorite part - the ends! The bag in the center contains the gorgeous top-drilled iolite I am using (I love iolite!), and the other containers are the various seed beads I am fringing with.

On the left side of the necklace you can see a bit of a bend in the base of the wire crochet necklace - this was the only negative effect suffered the years of captivity in the Ziploc bag in the bottom of the box, and I was able to easily manipulate the wire back into shape, so yay!


This is the fringe portion at the bottom of the necklace. My goal is to add enough passes of fringe that the wire base is no longer visible. The challenge will be to replicate my weaving style from 3 years ago - and I suspect this will be the hardest part for me, because as we grow in our beading skills and influences, our style changes so much!

So, this is my first Zombie project - I will start working on it later today, and will finish it when I finish it. I know it got put away because it was too tedious, and that's what has kept it locked up for years, but I must attack the zombie with all my willpower, or it will defeat me!

And while I am fully resolved to clearing out the unfinished projects, I make absolutely NO promises to not start any NEW projects along the way - a girl's gotta have a little fun, you know!

Monday, April 9, 2012

Zombie Projects

Zombie Projects? Oh, yeah, they're zombies alright. I have a huge box (OK - more than one box), full of zombies, and I'm betting you have some zombies, too! Especially if you are a beadweaver....

Zombie Projects? Remember that shiny new project you couldn't wait to start? Literally, couldn't wait ... so you put away the project you were currently working on, and started the new one, and then another one, and another one - how many unfinished projects do you have lying around?

Just over a year ago, I actually went through all my unfinished projects and made a list. My iPad was brand spanking new out of the box, and I had downloaded a nifty organizational application that was going to let me list all my projects, and give them deadlines (if I wanted to).... ooh, I had a PLAN. I was getting organized! The solution to all my problems! When my list of unfinished jewelry projects grew to 20, I reorganized my list into subgroups: Wire, Chainmaille, Beadweaving, and Cold Connections - and when I passed one hundred unfinished projects, I gave up! And I still have NOT touched a single one of them. Just organizing my Zombie Projects became a Zombie Project! Ooooh ... irony.

At the very end of last year, I re-dedicated myself to blogging, and I have to admit, blogging about my work has made me much more productive. So last night, I decided to start a new feature (in addition to the wildly popular "Wednesday Worktable" ... wait while applause dies down...)

Zombie Project of the Week! My goal is to revive at least one Zombie project every week, and either finish it, or take it apart and get rid of it.

Of course, at the rate I'm going - I probably still create 2 or 3 zombies a week, and if I only revive one per week, I am still digging myself a big old Zombie hole, but we'll work on one thing at a time -

And in the spirit of Zombies and Blogging, the first Zombie I'll be fighting next week is ..... the first one I found a blog post about when I looked back through all my posts this morning:

The iolite fringe necklace.  Jeez - a 2008 Zombie. Such a pretty almost-necklace! Stay tuned for details!