Phoenix

As a result of having 20 or so projects to be done last year (I work by academic year, apparently--September to June...  Gives me my summers off), and having seen how long it took me to do my projects last year, I was considering dropping a few projects.  I mentioned this train of thought to a friend, and her reaction was "Don't you dare drop [her daughter's], it's her 18th birthday."

So I started looking through my books for something to work from.  I have a decent amount of material on the embroidery of Kalocsa, since it is the most popular style of folk embroidery.  Ironically, this is also why, while I don't dislike it, I try to minimise my use of it.

One result of having such 'standing orders' in regards to cards is that every year, I have to find a way of making each card better than the preceding.  Since my skill level isn't exactly skyrocketing from toddler-scribble to the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (which a) I own a digital facsimile of certain pages of, and b) you really, really, should have a peek at; check Wikipedia or the Morgan Library), it's more on the level of presentation that I have to work.  In the case of this project, it was taking a circular tablecloth pattern, and stretching it out into a hanging banner, and finding another, similar pattern to fill the bottom of the sheet with, lest it look too empty.

Tracing the design, and preparing it for colouring was as usual, a bit time-consuming, but really, no worry.  And this is where the trouble began...

For some reason, I decided not to follow my own instinct and knowledge in how the flowers should be coloured, but decided to try and match the colours in the book with my pencils.  I was half-way through colouring the banner before I stopped, looked at it, went "wait a minute..." ...and noticed that the colours were all wrong.  I don't recall what everything wrong was, but I distinctly remember that the cornflowers, which are light blue, somehow ended up dark, but dark, blue.  Between comparing the book-colours, and laying them on the sheet, the colours were no longer what they should have been.  Unfortunately, as is wont with coloured pencils, I couldn't erase this glaring flaw.  I had to scrap the whole thing, and start from scratch.  Which I did, swearing under my breath of course.

The second time around, despite now having less time in which to finish the project, went smoother than the first time, as I now had a familiarity with the design.  Tracing, lining, and colouring (now trusting my knowledge to the colours I knew, and then adjusting for the ones I needed) went quite quickly.  Scribing went nicely as well, with the exception of what I consider one of my quirky flaws--no matter how centred I set my guide text, I always seem to pull to the left.  The text, as usual, is a simple Hungarian birthday wish, expressing a hope for much happiness, joy, long life, etc., etc.  I'm not translating it.  It would just sound awkward and stilted were I to do that.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you the Phoenix:  a project reborn of the ashes of its preceding incarnation.