what you can do with the dangedest things....

Here I wanted to show how a picture is more than just a whole: often the parts are even better.

This is a pic I snapped in the front yard last summer. I tried to get a good pattern from the over all pic, but couldn't get the graphic aspect I was looking for.p>

As I have mentioned in previous posts, there are pictures that really look great, until you try to turn them into a pattern. Suddenly you're faced with ho-hum at best, a mish mash of speckles at worst. But that doesn't mean the picture is worthless as an inspirational basis for a pattern

The bracelet pattern above was taken from the picture you see at the head of this article. I used the edge along the bottom of one wing, heavily enlarged, and set the pattern assimilator on 2 color.

Once I had the basic shapes I wanted, I went in and cleaned up the shpes enough to give smoother edges and balance. Then I had fun with my favorite colours.

Anyone who knows me or any of my work, knows how much I love bright colours and bright pastels (not the wimpy pale ones!) Black is my favorite way to get colour to pop.

Using Black always reminds me of my friend Ann, in N.C., (who is an uber knitter and cool lace maker - she was sooo patient with me when it came time to learn lace knitting.). Ann swears that Black makes every other colour look better, and I have to say I agree in most cases.

I will probably play with this pattern more, but the basic bold statements of shape and colour are there, ready to have fun. It's the sort of thing that says "carpe diem."