First, I have to make a confession. There were times when I wasn't a fan of bead embroidery. In a time where I was all about airy wire crochet and knit, the only bead embroidered pieces I got to see were huge bangles. Don't get me wrong, I always admired the technique as such, the colors, the craftsmanship, but those bangles looked so heavy to me.
Over the years I got to see more and more very different pieces, though, and I noticed how the look began growing on me. I think I hadn't even been aware that some things were bead embroidered, and obviously I didn't remember that I (had?) owned a pendant myself that my best friend had given me as a gift when I was about 11.
The other day when I went to look for some beads, I noticed a box on my storage boxes. My storage boxes are in shelves, so a flat white box is rather inconspicuous. I opened it and found two sheets of "Stiff Stuff" which is used for bead embroidery. I very vaguely remembered ordering it months ago, but why? It probably had to do with a project that I am actually working on now.
Having nothing better to do at the moment I decided spontaneously to make my first embroidered pendant and picked a labradorite cab, round because it seemed the easiest to do as a beginner. Then I watched about three minutes of a 45 minute video to see if it was done the way I thought. This is not supposed to be showing off, but after all I already knew basic peyote bezels, so I just needed to make sure about what stitch to use for the start and how to finish the edges for the backing in the end.
I gathered some beads that seemed to work well with the lab and played around. This was actually rather fun to do and I even found some more beads I had completely forgotten about.
When it was time for the final backing, however, I noticed that I hadn't ordered of that.
After looking around on eBay and finding one piece of Ultrasuede, a bargain at £9.999 (it was obviously a typo) I turned to my trusted bead advisors - everyone should have at least one of those - and asked them what they preferred to use. Then I ordered something that looked right to me from the picture. When it arrived a few days later I found it wasn't the right thing. After banging my head on the desk a few times I looked around again and found a new bead store in the process. Nothing wrong about that, is it? :-D
Well, and when my order arrived, I glued on the Ultrasuede (with a little much too glue it seems, now I have some small spots on the back, but given the strained relationship between glue and me it could have been much worse), did the edging and couldn't resist a few more tiny seed beads around the firepolished crystals before adding a brick stitch bail.
There's no stopping me now! ;-)
First of all, a very Happy New Year to all of you!
I know I have been around even more rarely than usual in the last few weeks, but we had a little crisis here at home and I spent what I had hoped to be a relaxing vacation with some holidays in between on and off at the vet's instead and running after Ponder with different kinds of food. Now it seems he's finally on the mend *knocking on wood because we have to see how he'll be doing without any meds now* and I have a little time for myself before I have to go back to work next week.
In fact I wouldn't have had much to show you, anyway, except a few beaded bottles. I guess my muse didn't like that vet thing much because she was out of the door like a lightning. She has not been ready yet to play with wire.
So it was a good thing that my wish of a needle felting starter kit was fulfilled for Christmas.
I have been wanting to try that for decades, I think, but with everything else going on I thought I didn't really need something new, not to mention that I didn't expect to be any good at it.
Now, however, I felt that it didn't really matter if I were good at it or not, and it's not as if the tools take up that much space. It's a large brown box with a small plastic box in it that holds all the tools, and 40 baggies with colorful roving - I didn't count them, but that was what the description said - and a foam mat.
It didn't take me long to try it out, and of course I started with making a (flat) cat using a cookie cutter for the general shape. That cat did take me long. I don't have the right feeling for the felt yet and when the perfect moment for stopping is. I kept poking and poking and poking ....
When making the second animal, a fat little rat that came out a tad more feisty looking than I had planned, I started poking myself again and again. I think it has to do with getting or let's say trying to get faster, without much success yet, but at least I didn't lose that much blood or turn Ratty into a vampire rat ;-)
This is the last one I have made so far. Don't ask, I just grabbed a color and went from there, but doesn't the gnome look rather comfy snoozing like this?
There are a lot of colors that I normally wouldn't use, so I have to think of something I can do with them. That's also why the cat is orange, I figured it was a good color for a first attempt that would probably go very wrong.
Everything I won't be able to use in the end will be felted into a ball for Gundel, she doesn't mind colorful!
