Back to the Challenges

 At the beginning of the year, I came up with a series of challenges, all related to the fact that I was turning 52 this year and there are 52 weeks in a year. 52 for 52. I intended to create 52 things (art/crafts), read 52 books (that's actually my usual goal number each year, so not exactly out of the ordinary), take 52 photos of ordinary beauty, blog 52 times, play 52 board games, listen to 52 albums, watch 52 movies, and...um, I think that's it? No, that's not it. I also wanted to write 52,000 words of fiction by the end of the year.

I have fallen behind on almost all of them. I have changed my internal rules about many of them. But, today I am determined to get back on track. There are 12 days left in June and when June is over, the year is halfway done. So, my plan is to use these 12 days to catch up on everything. Then I will get back to a more manageable weekly schedule for these things.

Except, actually, the writing. It was a really low bar I was giving myself there. 1,000 words a week is less than 150 words a day. For this one, to catch up, I'd rather just increase my word count goal for each day for the rest of the year. I subtracted the small amount of words I've already written from 52K, divided it by the number of days left in the year and came up with 245 words a day. I might/probably will write more about the writing stuff here later, but for now that's enough about that.

I've written about some but not all of these categories because I wanted to keep this blog focused on art and creativity, but I think I'm going to let go of those parameters and just let it be whatever it wants to be. Since I am going to need to write a blog post every day for the next twelve days in order to catch up to where I want to be on the blogging part of the challenge, I'll probably talk more about some of those other things soon. Or not. Who knows?

Anyway, I finished this hoop today.

Except for the part where I need to shift the fabric's position so the hoop hardware is actually on the top. Also, looking at it right now, I feel like I might want to add another orange bead in there. And one more sequin rain drop? Hm, maybe I'm not quite as done as I thought I was. Let's just say I mostly finished it.

I chose orange batik fabric for this because I was using one of my already wrapped hoops that I was recycling from a previous project. (I love glitter ribbon and need to get some more.) I started laying down tapestry wool French knots, ran out of what I was using, got some more, and only then realized that I was mixing blanc and ecru (white and a little less white). It was very subtle, but I could tell the difference in the colors when I looked at them in the light. I decided to lean into it and just make the whole cloud an even-ish mix of ecru and blanc and I think it turned out nice, though you can't even really tell from the photo. When looked at in the light, it reminds me of buttered popcorn. 

I know I've probably said it before, but orange isn't really at the top of the list in terms of colors I like to work with. But I feel like I've reached for it often enough lately that I ought to rank it somewhat higher. Orange can be really vibrant and lovely and I'm coming around to appreciating it more and more. Also, looking at this is making me think I could make a rainbow set of cloudburst hoops, maybe. Maybe.