Although I don't feel as though I've got much done recently I do seem to keep stepping outside my comfort zone a lot, and once again I had a go at it today.

Issue 22 of Bead magazine has a colour theme and one of the necklaces we're featuring is a lovely one called "Klimt-esque" by Penelope-Jane Derringer, which is a kind of collage project.

I thought it would be interesting to send out the instructions beforehand to some volunteers so we could see what colour combinations they chose and how theirs varied.

Anyway, in the course of discussing this and how to illustrate the steps with our fabulous proof-reader, Lynn Davy, I said how much I hated beading square stitch and before you know it, she'd offered to make the necessary samples and leave it up to me to assemble them and turn it into a finished necklace...

So far so good- I have a few fears about colours etc. but figure I can pretty much work with anything, so don't think about it too much...

Then the parcel arrives and I'm really pleased to see the colours are all good, the beadwork is lovely and all I need to do is sit and assemble it...

Completely outside my confort zone!

You have no idea how often I checked the instructions and photos to make sure I was "doing it right".

It seems to be so long since I have followed someone else's instructions to complete a project, I have lost all faith in myself being able to do so. And I guess the fact the last 2 times I attempted this still are unfinished and needing starting again doesn't help.

I guess when I'm doing my own work I either know exactly what I'm doing; don't know what I'm doing but have a vision of what I want the end result to be; or am not worried as there isn't anything else to grade myself against. But when following someone else's instructions, I'm trying to replicate their piece and I want to make sure I get it right.

This seems really ironic as when I teach my stuff, I constantly try to emphasise that you just need to relax and if it's different to mine that's not wrong.

I think I need to bead more- I've lost my beading muscle!

Anyway, once I recognised that fear I got on with finishing my necklace and really enjoyed it. It's a great project and you can really have fun embellishing it, which I liked. Of course, it's even better if you can convince someone else to do all the boring square stitch for you!