Peacock Bauble

This must be some kind of record. I finished my first project of 2019 at lunchtime on New Year's Day. Although in reality it is more of a late finish for Christmas than an early finish for the New Year. I enjoyed making the Dragon Bauble kit so much last year, I made a beeline to the Spellbound Bead stand at the Ally Pally Knitting and Stitching show, to buy their new Peacock kit. I was warned it would take a bit longer than the Dragon kit. It turned out to be true because I started both kits at the beginning of December. While the dragon was completed just in time for last Christmas, the peacock was still coming together on Christmas Day this year. 

There were some parts  I ended up redoing due to silly mistakes - the floral motif at the front of the net was done 3 times. It was the thorax that gave me the most trouble. If I followed the instructions I ended up with too much thread in the covered bead to pass the supporting wire through. After several attempts I came up with an alternative method which required fewer thread passes through the central bead. It looks a bit more organic that the original version but it does the job.

The tail is my favourite part. It used similar techniques to the Emperor Bauble It was however another reason for the slow progress. When I do these bauble kits I leaves the threads on as long as I can in case they are needed to attach later components. It is much easier to do this than start a new thread. But the loose threads were forever getting caught on the tail feathers - another exercise in patience.

I also bough the Vela Star kit at Ally Pally. This was a much quicker kit to do and I was able to make one star for my parent's tree and one star for my tree before I embarking on the great peacock adventure.

Like last year we had two trees in the house. The girls made a beautiful job of the family Christmas tree in a gold and white colour way. It went very well in out newly decorated playroom.

My resolution last year was to "Create a sacred space" by tidying something every day. I can't say that I achieved that but at least the playroom  looks better than last year. I will admit that was due to Graeme's efforts rather than mine. So I will continue trying to get on top of the clutter in 2019.

I am also going to challenge myself to get out of various ruts. Work was very busy last year, particularly in the first 6 months and I gave myself lots of free passes. I didn't exercise as regularly as I should and the weekly menu became very routine. I have already started addressing the exercise part. I started going to a Zumba class just before Christmas and am taking advantage of a small yoga studio which open on the High Street in town. The weekly menu is going to take a bit more effort because my family quite like the routine. Fortunately as none of them read my blog, they don't know what is heading their way!