bead sketches : month two

And now there are 8 ...

February's collection - month two of my '52 weeks : bead sketches' project - is finished.

More playing relentlessly,

more diving deep,

more showing up faithfully.

I also did a lot of wondering about why I haven't imposed 

a project like this on myself before.  In truth I suppose because the time is NOW

and I wasn't where I needed to be to take this on before now.

Just showing up to do the work has great benefits.

I'll write more on that subject later as thoughts solidify, but for now

I've an amazing sense of freedom with this work / play

that I've never, 

ever

had before.

There's surely a lesson in this approach for me

although I can't put it all into words yet.

For this month I thought it might be of interest if I noted where

my inspiration, or word prompts, or weekly idea came from.

They are written below each photograph with links.

~ bugle bead inspiration arose from HERE ~

~ exploring some thoughts about THIS ~

~ describing in materials the meaning of THIS PHRASE ~

~ experimenting with the pattern of THESE ~

Feels  so good  to be back with my beads.

: : :

Postscript:  A few hours after I published this post I came across some

excellent words that seem to fit right in so I've come back to note them.

You don’t need more motivation or inspiration to create the life you want. You need less shame around the idea that you’re not doing your best. You need to stop listening to people who are in vastly different life circumstances and life stages than you tell you that you’re just not doing or being enough. You need to let timing do what it needs to do. You need to see lessons where you see barriers. You need to understand that what’s

right now  becomes inspiration later.

by Jamie Varon, from 'To Anyone Who Thinks They're Falling Behind'

: : :

To view all of the  52 weeks : bead sketches  posts, starting with the most recent,

CLICK HERE

Read More

If it weren't for her love of beads ...

Read More

Beaded bezels and oh, so much more!

If you think you might have trouble being taught some beading skills

by a fella ...

or if you have any sort of allergic reaction to  C O L O R 

then do not and I repeat, DO NOT

take a beading workshop with Thom Atkins ...

for a fella he certainly is, and he is most definitely

not afraid of color.

Not one little bit.

Every year the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum, WA,  holds a fantabulous Quilt Festival,
a week-long event that includes special workshops by visiting textile & embellishment artists.
Thom was part of this year's talented contingent ~
and so was his very talented and beadiful sister, Robin Atkins!
You may like to revisit my January post where I wrote about them during Thom's one-person exhibit,
"Ten Year's of Beaded Quilts" to see more examples of his work.

For our "Beaded Bezels & Borders" workshop we were given
design kits filled with fun fabric by Laurel Burch and multiple baggies
filled with coordinating beads ...
I enjoyed this approach a great deal for it pushes you away from your comfy spot
and tweaks your thinking into a whole new realm.
It's always good to visit new & unexplored places.

Here's a couple examples from my yet-to-be-finished sampler ...

a "fence" with a lacy edge and a

peyote stitched bezel around a flat-backed cabochon.

Here's my shisha mirror *loudmouth* bezel ...
I can see myself there on occasion.

Thom is looking very serious, but in actuality our workshop was filled with loads of laughter.
Here he's clarifying one of his methods,

patiently answering the dozens of questions we fired at him.

The demo table was covered with examples of his own samplers ....
be prepared to swoon.

Shisha mirror cab at the top, flat-backed cab on the bottom.

We learned how to stitch the rope edging as well ...

This detail was from his cat piece ... 

I loved the flouncy effect of all those beads around that cab.

Fearless with color, that's how I'd describe Thom's work.

And this is the sampler that almost disappeared  into the bottom of my bag.

Isn't she a BEAUT?!

If you ever have the opportunity to learn firsthand from Thom,

oh, I do hope you'll take it.

In the meantime, his bountifully beautiful new book has just hit the streets,

"Beading Artistry for Quilts: Basic Stitches & Embellishments Add Texture & Drama."

Check it out.  Many more samples of Thom's work are viewable online.

And then there's this ...

included in his bio, a most interesting excerpt:

"Some 30 years ago, his sister, Robin Atkins, taught him the basics of bead embroidery

on fabrics.  He's been fascinated with beads ever since, but sewing beads onto fabric and

making stained glass didn't produce a decent living.  He was also tired of the fragility of glass,

so he went back to college, where he learned about welding, forging, silversmithing, and

bronze casting.  Bronze casting gave him back the tactile surfaces and the subtleties of

three-dimensional curves and negative space.

A car accident terminated his career in sculpting in bronze.

While recovering from the surgery to repair his wrists and thumbs, 

he thought about sewing beads onto cloth in such a way

that the beads and the fabric both had a say in the design.

He's been working with the delicate balance between beads and fabric in his designs ever since."

Making the most of our human condition.

Isn't that the best of what we can all hope for?

: : :

Thank you for visiting today ... I hope you have enjoyed all the 

C O L O R

Read More

Stuck between some rags and a hard place...

A little w.i.p...

modern day "rags" woven onto a make-do loom, once the bottom half of a box of notecards.

Light as a feather and easy to hold, just 5 by 7 inches.  Splendid idea, wish it had been mine...

... Jude Hill's  'Contemporary Woven Boro' class is in full swing

and this tension technique comes from creating a small frame from whatever we have at hand.

I know I'm not alone when I say I  ***LOVE***  this process, weaving without a foundation...

The warp is from torn bits of an old silk blouse...all the rest scraps from this & that.

*****

A silly question...ever tear cloth with your teeth?

I'm an expert now: chomp down hard at the place you are starting the tear

and pull strong & steady with one hand straight out in front of you.

Heh, you never know when such skills could come in handy...

They co-mingle so nicely, all those tiny ribbony pieces...

Here is the back looking much like an Apricot Surprise birthday present.

Fray heaven!

I couldn't tie bows (more on that below) so the ends are knotted instead...

*****

So what about this "hard place" I mentioned in the title of this post?

I am unable to sew.  Not a stitch.

Unable to use my right hand for most anything at the moment...

The doc says he can fix me up, only a matter of time...time which is ticking faster now with my boro mates.

So this is why you are not seeing any basting...no surface embellishment of any kind.

 Hope you like *puffy* as much as I do, it will have to suffice for now.

...just wanted you to know...

*****

While so many parts of our country are still covered in deep snow & frigid cold,

we were able to enjoy THIS today... 

View from the Painter's Studio

~ painting by Caspar David Friedrich, 1805 ~

Till later my friends, always so good to have you stop by,

Read More

Bead Journal Project for January...

Wishing on a Blue Moon

This year, rather than working from a theme, I am journaling about whatever feels important to me in each particular month. The month of January began with the occurrence of a "blue moon" on New Year's Eve. This moon seemed to effect quite a few of us in some sort of profound way or another. An airline pilot friend wrote an amazing story about his flight that night. It seemed I really had no other choice in the matter - I too, must journal about this event.

What does it mean to witness such a phenomenon? Why does it effect us so? I stood in the dark for a long time on that eve.  It was icy cold.  Trees and shrubs had dropped all their leaves and seed pods hung in silhouette from stark, dormant branches. I have always been in love with the dark, never having fear, not even as a child so for me, this night sky was a velvet cloak, a large comfortable mantle of stars.  And I let it cover me while that giant blue moon took all my wishes right up to the heavens...  

The piece is about 7 1/2" square, give or take. I'm going to attach each page to an 8" square backing (as yet to be determined.)  I've chosen a square format this year for a couple of reasons.  One is to purposely break my attachment to rectangles and two, is to force myself to deconstruct the resist dyed Merino felts in order to reassemble them into something entirely different. Some background on the felts I'll be using can be found here. This piece is a combination of two felts cut & sewn together.  You can click on any photo to view it a bit larger.

Aside from figuring out how to combine a mix of textiles, one of my biggest challenges was deciding how much of the felt should show and how much I could cover up with beads & stitches while still maintaining a feeling of balance. I wrestled with that A LOT.  I have decided to hold onto the mantra "it doesn't have to be perfect" while I continue to figure that one out.

New things I'm discovering this time around:

how much I like rough edges, selvages, and my preference for piecing together irregular shapes

while keeping all those uneven edges...

...how much fun it is to try combining different textiles

 and then add stitching...

...how rewarding it is to learn from others,

like how I learned from Jude at Spirit Cloth

about turning down a corner to reveal its better side...

...and then there's just how far sheer determination can take you

when you've got your mind set on using that teal-colored wool vest!

A couple other notes: the piecing together was hugely difficult for me, so constructing the base on which to bead took the most amount of time - oodles of time. I never thought I'd be able to say that the beading was the easy part! In addition, I totally enjoyed learning to needle felt, couching yarn and I really, really loved stitching, way more than I would have imagined.

So there it is - finished at last!

Read More

Bead woven treasures...

I was delighted yesterday when I saw the subject line, A Treasure Bracelet, over on Kaite's blog.  I knew just what her post was going to be about and I couldn't wait to read it...  

Kaite, who is way over the Big Puddle from me in Australia, found her inspiration for making one (or two) of these bracelets from Robin Atkin's book, Beaded Treasures - Finger Woven Bracelets, Necklaces, Tassels and Straps.  Since I also learned this technique from Robin, I wrote to Kaite right away and offered to blog about my own experience.  I just lovelovelove the power of beads to create international communication and sharing!

I too, had some difficulty with my first bracelet (above) but I think that's to be expected when it's the *first*. It feels to me like there are not enough beads and the ones I did use, are too widely spaced. I also wove them with the stacks & loops too high so they all stick out too far.  I've since learned a fairly easy fix for these issues (by using a tapestry-like needle and weaving in more beads) but I haven't done that yet.  A mixed blessing, since this actually provides a good comparison photo when I put it next to the second bracelet which I like much better.

For those of you who like to see the backside of things as much as I do, this one's for you:

These bracelets DO feel wonderful on the wrist.  You can pack them full of all kinds of beads & trinkets that hold special meaning or memories.  Or just play like crazy.  Robin has even done all buttons, oh my!

 They don't take long to make once you get going...really.

Have you made a woven treasure bracelet? If so, it would be great to hear about your experience. Until next time, friends, share with each other. 

p.s. Kaite, this has been fun!

Read More

Needle felting sampler

Honey, I shrank the kids vest!

I just couldn't give up on that teal colored wool vest (or maybe not all wool) that I wrote about here.

The color is too perfect, just what I need for my January page of the Bead Journal Project...so this time I boiled the heck out of it on the stove. Using a couple of long metal spoons, I agitated the pot for about half an hour, dipping the whole soggy mess twice into cold water baths. It did not shrink too much more from the washing machine experiment, but it did shrink some. Enough for me to call it a keeper.  

This is part of said vest, above, used as a base for a little needle felting sampler.  Although you can still see the knitting stitches in the vest material, I like it because of the texture.  Pardon the odd assortment of colors - I was going for contrast, not *art*.  The wool, yarns & fibers I played with are left to right:  hand spun wool-something that I traded for in a swap; Noro yarn (wool/mohair/silk, from Japan); hand dyed Wensleydale locks; Cascade Yarns (all wool, from Italy); hand dyed silk (throwster's waste); Merino wool roving (spiral dyed).

This was my first venture into the world of needle felting and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to tack everything down.  Lots of that ease had to do with this little gizmo:

This is a "pen style" needle felting tool, made by Clover, which is fitted at the moment with three needles but you can use only two, or even one needle, depending on the details of your hand work. I chose this style especially for its grip since I am blessed with grandma's hands, arthritis and all. You've gotta watch out for these puppies though - I think the word "barbed" is an understatement.

One last observation before I get back to the worktable...Merino roving is definitely the cat's meow!  (Apology to my dawg, sorry woofie.)  The way the roving behaves while its being felted is unlike any of the other materials I used and since you can pull off even the slightest little wisps of wool, the possibilities for subtlety and the layering of color are going to be a whole world unto themselves.

Till next time...

Read More

Upcycled wool...

...by deconstructing sweaters?

Why not.

While figuring out the parameters for this years Bead Journal Project, I realized that over the coming months I was going to need a lot more felt - a LOT more.  My primary felt pieces will be the resist dyed merinos that I wrote about here, but since even these will be deconstructed & pieced back together with other textiles, other felt, I knew I needed to get the additional felt from somewhere.  Rather than buy new, I decided to make my own.  Or I should say, decided to engage in some serious wool recycling...and shrink my own from previously-owned.

Which brings me to this little blue number.  Isn't that a purdy periwinkle?  It's one of a few sweaters I found at a local thrift shop.  I came away with about a half dozen for my experiment at a very reasonable cost.  After a bit of research on the internet about the best way to felt in a washing machine, I began cutting.  I had a moment's hesitation before making the first snip - how could I ruin a perfectly good sweater?  Yet a closer look at the sales tag told me that this beauty had been on the rack since August 2008, so my guilt quickly faded away.  I removed all the seams (except for the front neck), as they are bulky and can cause the garment to shrink unevenly.

They say it's advisable to choose a sweater with a high wool content.  
This one is 50% lambswool, 40% Angora and 10% nylon.

I did the same cutting to this sweater vest which looked 
and had texture like wool, 
but was missing its tag so I was unsure of its true content.

It had some lovely silver buttons, which I've saved  :>]

(To see any of these photos a bit larger, just click on the image.)

Top loading washers are best due to the type of agitation they provide, but since I don't have one of those, my front loader was just going to have to do.  Due to the high volume of lint that this process produces (and the possibility of seriously clogging your washer!) I bagged each sweater in its own pillow case and tied the top tightly with jute string.  Here they are, ready to get shrunk (or the process of "fulling" as they say in the felt world.)

I washed each bag separately and each load had two pairs of jeans thrown in with them to help with the agitation - HOT water with a cold rinse - and a little less detergent than usual. Next step, into a hot dryer.  For the blue sweater, I decided to air dry one of the sleeves so that I could compare shrinkage.

Although both shrank, the sleeve from the dryer (left) shrank more. It is also denser and softer.

Unfortunately, the teal vest barely shrank at all.  Since this was the additional wool I was going to use on my January page (the greeny-blue color is perfect!) that was a disappointment.  But I am not giving up yet and I intend to experiment further by boiling said vest in a pot on the stove.  If anything, that'll serve it right for not fulling on me!

Here is the result of the blue sweater, not as dramatic a difference in photos as in real life but definitely more dense, more soft and the knitted texture has disappeared.  I would guess the overall shrinkage to be about 20%.

Before

After

Another detail of interest was the difference in edges of the air dried sleeve and the dryer sleeve.  It is subtle but I hope you can see it below: the dryer sleeve (left) has a beautifully felted edge...almost rolled...whereas the air dried sleeve is flatter.  Embellishing the edge of the left sleeve would be more appealing to me than than the right.  A matter of personal choice in the end, still, it's helpful to learn how to control edges.

I like this concept of recycling, or upcycling, wool.  The possibilities are endless, even for the most hole-ridden, tattered and unloved specimens...

Back to the BJP...here are the two hand dyed merino felts that I am using for my January page, as they looked before I started cutting & stitching.  Must solve the issue of finding more teal-colored wool. Anyone have a sweater they'd like to ditch??

Stay tuned...

It is always a pleasure to have visitors here, so thanks for stopping by.  Your comments are greatly welcomed and appreciated.  Till next time...

Read More