Here's looking at you, kid ...

Last year I used this collage in one of my nostalgia posts about a Steiff King Charles dog, a tin full of vintage glass eyes for plush animals, and a shoe company.
These are just a few of the eyes in that tin, and since my collection has pretty much reached its limits, I doubt that many new eye patients will turn up who need them.

A few days ago I had an idea what I could do with at least some of them.
As you can tell from the picture, the eyes don't all look the same. Most of them are not flat in the back, but have a little (or not so little in case of the pink/red eyes on the bottom right) bump for the wire. I also think it might help the eyes better to sit in the plush animal's eye sockets.
I can only use the flat ones and I have been wondering if there is a way to make the others flat, but for now I chose a pair of old brown eyes of which I have several. After all I don't want to use eyes for jewelry and then need them for a patient eventually.

Some of the eyes are made from colored glass, but the really old ones, like the ones I have used, have a black glass pupil in clear glass and are painted on the back to give the eye its color. Many of these vintage ones have lost some paint which is a pity. Of course you can repaint them yourself, but I'd rather use a damaged one because to me they have a special charm.
They have to be flat if you want to use them in bead embroidery.
In this case, I glued them onto the backing very carefully because of the paint and then let my muse guide me - from the bezels that give the iris some extra shine to the white of the eyes for which I used three sizes of beads all around the iris to give it that wide eyed look, the black around the yes and the "lashes" of silver coated dagger beads only at the bottom edge.
It makes me wonder what they see!

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Eyes

When Laney announced the topic for the October design challenge at Art Elements - Eyes - I didn't even think about not entering although I had no idea what to make (as usual ;-)).

I have always been fascinated by eyes. If I were a better photographer, I would annoy my cats day and night taking pictures of their eyes. Ever since I was a child, I have been drawing eyes, I still do sometimes if I'm in a meeting, but I don't think they are any good, so none of those doodles has survived.
I have created eyes in wire and beads.
Eyes are important in many of my HeatherCat pieces and I can't begin to tell you how often I ripped out the eyes in my fan wall portraits, even after the whole portrait had been loomed, sometimes just to change out one bead for a better look. It is amazing how a tiny "light reflex" can brighten up an eye or make it incredibly creepy.

This pair of earrings started out as a basket that became too big because I miscounted my stitches. Sometimes I just stare at a piece of shaped wire, no matter if it's crocheted, knitted or woven, and manipulate it to become something else. In this case it became an eye shape.
Do you remember Gozer from Ghostbusters? Gozer had those glowing red eyes that let you hardly see the white. They inspired these earrings. I wanted them dark and creepy and staring, adding white would have made them too human. I wish I had had red lampwork beads that big, but these blue and green ones work nicely, too. The lashes are supposed to add to the out of this world look.

My second idea was very different.
Cat eyes. I could get lost in them. Not that I don't love other animals' eyes in all their varieties, but cat eyes are the best, and I wanted to bead some. Not elaborate ones with a lot of shades because I simply didn't have the time to design a pattern for those with the bead colors I had on hand. Instead I took my inspiration from some Studio Ghibli anime movies I had watched recently. I wanted the eyes to be big and impressive.
This was my first attempt.

That ring was quite wide and I thought that the top rows weren't really necessary. What if I lost two of them and added something else instead that said "cat" more than just the eyes?
My first prototype was a little wonky. I had tried to add a nose as well as ears, and the nose didn't work at all. Unfortunately I had already woven in all the threads and had a hard time to find them again at first!
Now I had to try different color combinations of course, and the eyes are not all completely the same, either. This could become quite obsessive ......

That's it from me for today, but this is a blog hop, and I'd like to ask you to have a look at all the other entries, too. Have fun!

Guests
 
Beth and Evie - Cat (that's me ;-)) - Dawn - Elaine - Hope - Kathy -  Michelle - Tammy 
 
AE team members

Claire - Cathy - Jennifer - Jenny - Laney - Marsha - Niky - Susan

I'll be watching you

My inner playchild came out and, well, played. Nuff said.

I'll be watching you - Wire crochet eye pendant