FEBRUARY BJP PIECE 

Phoenix

This piece has been great fun to do.  The background is a piece of old cotton painted with acrylics. I washed most of the paint out again to leave a smoky sky. I roughly sketched the shape of the phoenix and the points of the flames with a washable quilting pen and then sorted out a palette of beads. Once I'd done the bird's head and added the jewelled collar, the rest developed as I went along. The bugles and daggers seemed made for the wings and the tail feathers grew after the legs had been done. The flames are a gradual mixture of golds, oranges and reds using beads of varying sizes. The tail decorations were made  separately by threading bugles on to wire and fixing a flat paua shell bead at the end of each one to pick up the colours of the body. With a thick needle I made 5 spaced out holes near the base of the tail and threaded the pieces of wire through and secured them together at the back. The rim of multicoloured beads was added after stitching on a backing piece to cover the mess of threads!

Slightly tongue in cheek symbolism - I can imagine myself as the phoenix rising from the flames of a tough few years. The bird also represents me trying to fly almost exactly a year ago! I stepped out at the top of the stairs in the middle of the night thinking I was going back into the bedroom - we now have a night light on the landing!