Beaded butterfly bowler

I mentioned this in my last blog post. If you follow me anywhere, you have already seen a picture of this hat, but I said I wanted to take some detail pictures.

I have been fascinated by bowlers since I was a child. Although I did watch Laurel and Hardy, I think I really noticed them when I first saw The Avengers. I loved Emma Peel's incredible outfits, but loved Mr. Steed's classy and elegant suits, complemented by his bowlers, brollies, and shoes, just as much.

In 1999, on a visit to California, we went to a huge fleamarket. It's amazing how just thinking about it brings back memories of individual stands and the layout and even individual pieces (I still miss the fantastic tie-dye shirt I bought there and wore until it fell apart).
I can even see the table before my inner eye on which I saw the vintage bowler. It was love at first sight, I just had to have it and didn't even try to haggle. A few stands down, a seller admired it and asked me where I got it. I was so proud of it.
Granted, I haven't worn it often because it's a bit hard with my long hair, my hats tend to ride up in the back where the hair is caught between collars and the hat rims, but it makes me smile just to look at it. Shortly afterwards I got myself a ladies' bowler at an antique shop. I have pictures of both hats here if you want to have a look.

Beaded hat rims hadn't been new to me for a while, there were friends who made them and who also made bead loomed hatbands and beaded embellishments for hats, but although it had always been on my list, I was always too lazy to get a hat and work out a pattern (my bowler is taboo for such shenanigans ;-)).
Then one fine day I spontaneously ordered a bowler off eBay that was a good price, not top quality at the price of course, but also no fancy dress party hat, was quite big (planning to put the hair underneath, but haven't quite worked it out yet, also because I'm growing my bangs out which have been at a very awkward length for months) and had no lining which was perfect for me as I wanted to put embellishments on it although at the time I wasn't sure yet what.

I started on the bowler just as spontaneously (two years after I bought it, lol), putting my seed bead boxes next to me and (quite) randomly choosing from my colors to make a very colorful, very happy looking rim. I wish I could say how much fun it was doing that, but to be honest, as much as I love the result, it pretty much bored me to tears. I doubt it's something I want to repeat anytime soon.
Next I took a break in order to decide what to put on the hat. That's when I made the butterfly pendant with my friend Michelle's fabric design and immediately I thought of the bowler. Make it even happier and more colorful and put butterflies on it!

My first plan was to bead embroider butterflies and make them fly around the hat in a spiral, but then I decided to bead the wings seperately - although I know that wing patterns are different on the front and back, and this would mean, patterns are the same front and back - because I wanted them to look light while for the pendant I had wanted something sturdier. Then I would bead the bodies, sew on the wings, stiffen them in different positions, but not too much, and sew the butterflies to the hat.
As you can see, there's no spiral. I just couldn't stop myself and kept making new patterns, a few after real butterflies, but most with fantasy patterns. I seem to have a problem with empty space (which is confirmed by my walls)? There was even a short moment I thought of adding flowers, but it was really just a moment.

After working on it a few weeks and making 13 butterflies in very different colors, I told myself it was enough. Yes, even if there are two spaces that to me scream for more wings, but enough is enough.
Another long post, sorry, but it was a long project.
Now where are the detail pictures?
I don't have any. I tried it in the garden, in the light tent, inside in daylight, but the variety of beads I used either puts a glare on one wing or one wing is blurry. I gave up for now, but if I ever manage, I'll make a page for it.

What I do have are some pictures in the garden, so you can at least see more than one side.

Creative energy

Wow, it has been a while again, but that actually fits today's topic quite well.

My creative energy tank had been not empty for some time, but locked, you could say.
I always have a list of ideas in my head some of which have been around for months or even longer, and I kept adding new ones.
That isn't new, I have always done that and my guess is that 90 % of them never got realized, either because I forget them again very quickly (as I usually don't write them down) or because something new caught my attention (oooh shiny) or because I couldn't figure out quickly how to do it (I can experiment forever once I get hooked, but I can also abandon stuff very quickly before even starting on it) or because they ended up in the infamous WIP drawer (which is actually the code word for drawers or cabinets all over my place).

For quite a while, though, I had absolutely no motivation or energy to get started on anything. At night, I would be lying in my bed and work out all kinds of fantastic stuff that would have revolutionized the craft world, no doubt ;-)
The next day, I would aimlessly click through websites or change TV channels and think I should really get started on something now, but couldn't get myself to do it most of the time.
It's not that I didn't make anything at all, and once I got into that almost meditative state, I would keep going, but it was still a far cry from how I used to work and I had no idea what was going on and really let it bring me down at times.

Maybe I should have realized earlier that it was kind of a jewelry burnout. I guess I was so used to making jewelry that I didn't even notice that not only did it not make me happy at the time, but it also squashed my urge to make anything else because I felt I needed to come up with new designs instead.
A generous portion of Weltschmerz on top of that didn't help.

So I decided to leave one of my very active sale groups, which sadly had not been successful for me for too long, to take some pressure off and do something for myself that had been on my list for almost 1 1/2 years! I'm planning an extra blog post for that because I want to take some detail pictures first.
Then of course there was something completely new on my list as well which I'd like to tell you about.

I have been intrigued by other crafts for a long time. I like to watch videos on pottery, sewing, weaving, and more, but two crafts really caught my interest - spinning and embroidery.
Now I had/have friends who spin - not nearby unfortunately - but I never thought I would want to give it a try and now I'm still struggling with a beginner's drop spindle after weeks without producing more than about five inch of usable yarn. I'm beginning to think that should have been a sign, but hey, der Dekan thoroughly enjoys helping and has fun! Not that it makes things any easier. I'm not giving up yet, though.

Hand embroidery is a different topic.
In elementary school we had what you could maybe call a stitch booklet. It wasn't a sampler, from what I remember it really looked like a little booklet and each page was for practising one particular stitch. I was absolutely terrible at it, maybe not unusual for a 6 or 7 year old, but on the other hand my school experiences made me think for a long time that I wasn't good at any kind of craft.
My second experience with embroidery came after being at a yarn shop - with about 17, I had discovered knitting for myself in my early 20s, way later than all the others in my circle - and not being able to resist a lovely tablecloth kit with little violets. 1 1/2 violets was my limit, my sister finally finished it.
That's it. I never touched embroidery yarn again. Then, many, many years later, I discovered metal threads on a British website - oooh shiny - while looking for a particular calendar, and even later a friend made a kit from RSN tutor Becky Hogg which I fell in love with, a little goldwork fox. It took me a long time to do the jump and order the kit myself, and then it took me even longer to start on it. I can't say how often I opened up that box, admiring the metal threads, but being too wimpy to give it a go.
A few months ago then, Deana from vuvu_ceramics wrote something in an Instagram post of hers that really gave me the kick I needed. I can't remember the exact words, but it was about just giving things a go and enjoy them, no matter how they turn out. I've heard that before, but the way she said it ... I can't tell you why, but I commented that I had a hard time with a kit I got because I was afraid messing it up, and then Lauren (Confesstress) chimed in with encouraging words and some help ... well, I actually started working on my kit.
I won't lie, it was hard. I had never heard of couching and punching threads and cutwork and purl and passing and all that. Also I hadn't expected my hands to hurt that much, but holding the embroidery ring and trying to shape the metal threads to sew them down at the same time was tough on them. I had to force myself to take breaks although I didn't always want to, being so determined to not let this become a WIP.
And I finished it. Is it perfect? Heavens, no. It has flaws and flaws and flaws which I'm not going to list (you can see them, anyway). But I finished it and was happier than I had even expected. Take that, stitch booklet!!
Actually there was one flaw that I felt I needed to hide, so instead of leaving the face without embroidery as intended, I added white seed beads in two sizes to it, so now my fox is squinting a little, probably surprised to finally see the light of day.
At first, I wanted to give Foxy some grass and flowers to sit in, in beads or in an ambitious attempt to use more embroidery stitches that I didn't really know (although someone who shall stay unnamed may have bought a lot of randomly chosen thread colors), but after coming so far I really didn't want to mess the fabric up.
So instead - and I really hope Becky will forgive me for changing the design, even if it's not a lot - I sprinkled small and tiny golden seed beads all around Foxy randomly. I guess I can't do without beads, also I love to combine techniques.

And here's Foxy now.
If you made it up to here, thank you very much for your patience!

These two pictures were taken under my daylight lamps, but look how beautiful Foxy is in warm light!