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

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One day

A perfect autumn morn;  still, warm-ish ... seamless

... until the sun appeared with her own side seam

highlighting an oceanographic hemline outside ...

right angle seams inside.

Not particularly seaworthy,

but my very finest emotional thimble.

Destination ...

your drifting days are over.

Smooth sailing over calm seas,

peace at the end.

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Abundance, of sorts...

Our merry band of dyers reconvened, armed with the bounty of the season...

solidago (goldenrod), spent blooms of deep purple hollyhocks,

madrone bark, perennial sunflowers,

the last of the red carrot tops,

and a sumptuous, aromatic pile of wild blackberries.

Cooked to (hopefully) perfection.

Finally, I was able to attain two of my favorite colors on the same cloth...sage green

and purple.

I almost fell into a swoon.

Of particular interest was the mottling effect caused by

the resist marks of the blackberry seeds.

As it happens, I am nearing the end of this very good read...

along with the "heroine" of the story.

Nearing her end, that is.

After finishing Ahab's Wife (also penned by Naslund), I was craving more by this author

and although I have not been quite as captivated throughout this one,

it has been a fascinating walk through the decadence and royal life of 1700's France nonetheless.

I don't know what has happened to me.

I hated Chemistry in school and never before have I been attracted to *historical* books,

even fictional ones.

Now, I seem to be quite obsessed with both.

I found myself pre-mixing a copper mordant 

to see if the carrot top bath would become an enhanced shade of green,

and today I'm contemplating the best method to perform lightfastness strip tests 

on the cloth life of a blackberry!

When I gaze at this portrait of Marie Antoinette, I barely notice its finer attributes

such as the delicately honed lace detail or the luminous quality of the skin.

Instead, when I look at this scrumptious painting

painted by Her Majesty's most beloved court painter , Elizabeth Louise Vigee-Lebrun, 

in 1783,

I wonder about the color source for the blue dye of that silk dress...

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Navigation: bundle #4

Looks like a dirty old rag.

If you walked by it on the street, you wouldn't stop to pick it up...

if you saw it laying on a park bench,

you probably wouldn't want to sit next to it....

even if you knew there were red rose petals stuffed inside

or that it was a delicately edged vintage napkin hiding under all that *grime*.

Strange things can happen during a two-day eucalyptus and iron soak...

Heavy linen seems to love being pre-mordanted with ash water.

Oh, what a learning curve all this trial & error has been....is....

every cloth becomes another building block towards understanding.  There are moments

when it all feels uphill and quite arduous,

and

very labor intensive.

Thank goodness for important reminders.

Just

keep

going.

: : :

'Saint Vitus Cathedral'

by Josef Sudek, 1924-25

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Navigation: bundle #3

After a certain amount of bundling, you start to look for signs...

any kind of indication that something is brewing inside.

That green there in the center?

That's a promise waiting to be exposed.

Silk organza,

a few square chips of copper sheeting, some sprigs of purple Salvia 'Caradonna' 

and a handful of fresh salal leaves (Gaultheria shalon), wrapped around a small can

and simmered in a bath of red-leaved berberis for about an hour,

then left to air dry for - you guessed it - three weeks...

Do you see the imprint of the salal leaf there on the top half, about center?

Not one iota of color to be found!

Now, India says that  everything  gives color, one way or the other,

but so far (and after four tries) salal is my nemesis.

Known for its medicinal qualities, it can be prepared as a tincture or tea

and used as a poultice for insect bites & stings...

but as a dye plant...

meh.

What to try next...

perhaps soaking the leaves in vinegar first?

Sing them a lullaby?  Beg on bended knee?

There might be a wee gift in it for anyone reading who can provide the secret...

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Navigation: bundle #2

Doesn't look like much, does it?  Pretty blah.  And covered in mildew.

Looks can be deceiving.

Take an old thrift store napkin, soak it overnight in some soy milk,

stuff it's folded innards with some eucalyptus leaves, helenium blossoms, a couple nails

and a few rusty screws.

Roll the whole kit'nkboodle around a piece of driftwood, 

binding it as tight as you can with any old ratty garden twine ...

plunk the whole thing into a cast iron pot packed full with more of those euc leaves

and simmer away for a good 45 minutes or so.

Leave to air dry for about three weeks.

In case you might want some,

poor air circulation and/or lack of (drying) heat will bring on the pesky microflora.

May not be a bad thing, but I admit to going to battle with this batch of bundles

who ended up spending considerable time basking in my warming oven

and then received an extra steam treatment and a very hot hour in the dryer ...

+++++ STOP ++++++

you little mildewy buggers!

Many thanks to Fabienne for her encouragement & special steps walking me through that one ...

I had a good chuckle when I read the back side of this tag:

"Machine wash cold

Do not bleach

Tumble dry low

Warm iron as needed

Dry clean recommended"

It seems eco-printing is a made-in-heaven enterprise for rule breakers.

: : :

I have to include this one particular close-up ...

this face is for Jude ...

who still teaches me to  *see*  in many unexpected ways ...

thank you.

:::

It'll be a night for blue moon dreaming ....

let's all  just let it roll.

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Navigation: bundle #1

There appears to be no direct course ~ certainly no guarantees ~ for coaxing plants

to give up their colors on cloth.

Perhaps that's part of the thrill of it, all those unknown factors

working together to give us something we could never plan ...

like a party, where the group of invitees is such an odd assortment of characters

one has no idea of the party's outcome.

Will it break out in fistfights?  Be dull as dirt? (no offense to dirt)

Or encourage happy mingling with lots of pleasant repartee? 

Surely, the best way through a (new) thing is to just  GO ...

before you realize it,

you've set a course for yourself, one way or the other.

Back in July, I wrote  this post  about our merry band of island stitchers who happened

to take a quite unexpected detour from traditional shibori and sailed away (quite joyously) 

into another realm entirely ...

the one where  India Flint  lives.

We "bundled" our hearts out.

And over innumerable cooking pots of assorted vegetation,

a few of us lost our hearts to the process ...

For the next few days I thought I would post, one bundle at a time, my results ...

a good way perhaps, to keep permanent notes on how the colors came to be

and generally place some records here about this very special kind of mark-making.

:::

Bundle #1 was a scrap of silk (no mordant) folded around purple pansies,

madrone bark, metal washers and one rusty nail,

wrapped around a piece of driftwood, secured with rubber bands,

steamed for 45 minutes,

then left to air dry for three weeks.

Biggest surprise?  That lovely peach color (below the washers) from the Pacific madrone bark.

Some great potential there in our native Arbutus menziesii !

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Texture Tuesday...dawg days of summer

I've often wondered if it would be possible to successfully use one of

Kim Klassen's textures over an image that I shot with an iPhone app,

so for this week's Texture Tuesday challenge,  look down,  I decided to go ahead and try it.

Tell me what you think.

My dawg gal doesn't like the heat (she's got that whole collie fur coat thing goin' on)

so its fairly easy to find her

being quiet in the shade of the umbrella, giving me  * that look *

Originals were shot with Hipstamatic.  I loved the black and white, high contrast tones

but the plain white frames just had to go.

I chose two of Kim's square textures that had "frames" instead ...

above, I used 'printed'  and below,  'heartfelt' ...

awwwwww, thanks bestie ...

:::

Want to join in with us?  Come on over ... play along ...

lots of good stuff happening over at Kim's place!

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Texture Tuesday...heat

We have been bathed in heat.

The grass has, at last, stopped growing ... bye bye, miz mower machine, enjoy your vacay.

 One thing is certain ... the beans have loved the heat.

Remember that trellis I built?   It's all but disappeared beneath beanie leafage ...

it's a proverbial jungle out there.

This was the just the kind of heat we needed for bundle drying a couple weeks back ...
dry heat to prevent mildew.

Instead,

they were banished to the warming drawer in the kitchen (not an optimal choice).

We do what we must do, taught as we are to scorn the black, spotty stuff.

Oddly, it does create some interesting marks ...

I'll show you everything in my next post.

PROMISE.

In the meantime, I've been lying underneath some whirling blades

reading the most stupendously marvelous book.
You know you've found an all-absorbing tale when thoughts of it follow you throughout the day,
willing you, enticing you, to read     one     more     page.
Ahab's Wife, by Sena Jeter Naslund, has wrapped me in its watery spell.
Woven in and out and around the sea for 704 pages, it is nothing short of masterful.


My sweet companion ~ who neither swims, nor reads ~ finds other ways to stay cool

and claims the last shady spot nearest the pond.
Must keep a lookout, you see, should any wayward duck decide to land in HER territory.

On another trellis the sweet peas are running riot, but they won't last much longer ...
they are ephemeral beauties, not fond of heat
so I enjoy every moment I have with them.

They are, after all, my namesake and the reason I came to write this blog in the first place.

: : :



Linking up this week for another Texture Tuesday over at Kim's place.
Our challenge?  Anything goes ...
so I went for it:  texturizing layers of grunge, blurs & special effects using the Snapseed app.
Mosey on over and see what the rest of the crowd got up to ... so much inspiration!

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The weight of water ...

... might hold our dreams when we're landlocked

or frame our life when we don't swim

and although great tonnage can be moved by engines across its wide expanse,

silk floats effortlessly in a moonlit tide pool ...

: : :

Beyond Layers is having an Instagram-ish week.

This is my offering for the prompts  water  and  dreamy ...

multiple processing using Infinicam.

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