Cotton Jersey Coat Hand Sewn

This is my new cotton jersey coat, entirely hand stitched with polyester thread, using the techniques I learned from the books by Alabama Chanin. And pockets! It’s got pockets!

I used the pocket technique described here, but with piping instead of a ruffle.  http://www.fromthesehands.net/tutorials/tag/alabama-chanin

A few stitches here, a few stitches there, and eventually all the details are done. I love this process.

I’ve been working up to this project for a while now. I’ve been altering a long sleeved shirt pattern every time I make one. With a few more tweaks to the pattern, it’ll be a perfect fit. It’s still a little tight over the bust.

For the lining, I had  enough fabric in either orange or gray. I bought way too much of that orange, and I had to use it somewhere.

I’m so excited to finish this coat because this means I now have a pattern for a fully embellished one.


Here's a photo of my dog.

Thanks for looking.

Green Corset Top with Sequins

This corset top uses the techniques I learned from the books by Alabama Chanin, although the pattern is modified quite a bit from the pattern I found in her book.

A friend of mine gifted me this crazy green fabric. It's probably polyester.  Since it's somewhat transparent, and I don't like polyester next to my skin, I flat lined the whole thing in cotton jersey.

These were my tests to help decide how to stitch the binding with sequins and stretchy stitches.  As you can see in the finished photo above, I did something a little different from any of these. Still, making the samples helped. I chose to use the transparent sequins on the green binding because I didn't want to use sequins under my arm pits because sequins can be scratchy, and I didn't want it to be obvious that the sequins are omitted there.

 Here's a photo of my dog.

 Thanks for looking.

Cotton Jersey Tunic with Reverse Applique

 If you're looking for me, I'll be in here.

This tunic top uses the techniques I learned from the books by Alabama Chanin.

One thing I do differently from Chanin is I use stretchy stitches on the arm holes (armscyes). It’s more work than straight stitches, but oh, so much more comfortable! I’m totally doing the stretchy stitches around the armscyes from now on.

Here's a photo of my dog. Sometimes I call him Smooshface.

Thanks for looking.

Strand of Purple Beaded Beads

Here's a strand of purple beaded beads with lampwork glass, simply strung on silk cord.

The beaded bead designs include Octahedral Clusters, Nuts and Washers, and Infinity Beads.

 

This strand is sold.  Here's a photo of my dog asking for breakfast.

Thanks for looking.

Something Old Is New Again

When I opened up the file to update it, I saw why I haven't been selling the tutorial for the Seven Sisters Pendant in quite a while. This was one of my earliest bead weaving designs, and I wrote the tutorial before I figured out how to write a tutorial very well. The only thing that was salvageable was the illustrations and some of the photos. I rewrote pretty much all of the text and shot a whole new sequence of step photos. Plus, I added lots of tips so that your pendant will turn out pretty, and increased the gallery with new photos of beadwork.

y section. Anyway, here's a link to the new, and much improved version of the tutorial.

Updating Old Beading Tutorials with New Lower Prices

For the last couple of weeks, I have been updating old tutorials and moving them off of the Bead Infinitum website and into my Etsy shop. With the transition, most of the patterns are getting larger gallery sections, and significantly, the prices will drop. Because these tutorials are my earlier work, the designs don't use any of the fancy new bead shapes. Pretty much everything can be made with regular seed beads and round beads, with the occasional finding (jump rings, clasp) or rivoli. No two-hole beads! So you can work from your stash.

First is the Wisdom Mandala Pendant, one of my all-time favorites to make because you can use so many different colors, and it's super detailed. Plus it has two different sides so if you mess up one, you can call it the back.  https://www.etsy.com/listing/596085014/

Starburst Galaxy: Make yourself a constellation of stars! Necklaces, earrings and bracelets!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/596195590/

Ionic Polyhedra Beaded Beads
Detailed instructions for 3 polyhedra, plus photos and information on many more!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/596108446/ 

Borromean Link
includes three different link shapes.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/596079388/

Lotus Drops Necklace and Earrings
https://www.etsy.com/listing/596090984/

Rivoli Urchin Necklaces and Pendant
https://www.etsy.com/listing/598377582/

In the process of updating and moving old tutorials into my Etsy, I'm combining some of them together into collections based on a theme.

This collection is on flat angle weaves with stars. It contains two complete tutorials, plus the step illustrations for a third star weave, and two pages of extra bonus material including random photos and illustrations I found buried deep inside the folders of my computer.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/598454638/

Cluster Bead Tutorial Collection:
Cube Cluster, Octahedral Cluster, Star Cluster, and Sea Star
https://www.etsy.com/listing/598630846/

Infinity Beaded Bead Collection:
91 colorful pages including 4 complete patterns and extra bonus material never before released. Make them all with just seed beads!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/612440095/

There's still more to come.  Thanks for looking! 

Flu Virus DNA Beaded Earrings

I got a request for some more DNA beaded earrings. So I whipped up a few new pairs for the occasion.  The gent requested something from a Flu virus, so I had a look around the web and found a data base at National Center for Biotechnology Information which has a data base on the Influenza virus. There you can download genetic code sequences. (It's truly amazing what genetic scientists have accomplished in my lifetime!)

Green gold Earrings: The coloring of the base pairs uses the first ten base pairs in the sequence from the H1N2 Influenza A virus from Berkeley in 1968. The specific base pair sequence shown in each earrings is
GCTTG GAGAA
CGAAC CTCTT

Pink Gray Earrings (for sale): The coloring of the base pairs uses the first ten base pairs in the sequence from the H1N1 Influenza A virus from NY in 2001. The base pair sequence shown in each earrings is, specifically,
AGCGC GAAAG
TCGCG CTTTC

Blue Earrings (for sale): This pair doesn't have the flu. Instead, it's one of my old favorites. The coloring of the base pairs uses the sequence recognized by the enzyme SbfI, which is found in the microorganism Streptomyces sp. BF-61. Streptomyces is the largest antibiotic producing genus of bacteria, producing antibacterial, antifungal, anti-parasitic drugs. The specific base pair sequence shown in each earrings is a palindrome, specifically,
CCTGCAGG
GGACGTCC

 

I have written a lot about beaded DNA on my blog if you would like to learn more.
Thanks for looking.

Solstice Earrings Beaded with Prismatic Right Angle Weave PRAW

I made some new earrings.

You can learn more about each pair by clicking on the photos. You can also learn to make your own with my tutorial for Solstice Earrings.

Thanks for looking.

Penrose Tile Beading with Garden Weave

I released a new tutorial this month on Garden Weave.

Garden Weave is a flat beaded angle weave like right angle weave (RAW). This tutorial explains the basics technique of beading and designing with Garden Weave and gives detailed instructions for this pair of easy earrings and a pendant.

Here they are in orange. Super fun! Garden weave is a fun way to explore color combinations with nothing more than seed beads and thread.

The tutorial includes many, many different samples of beadwork and charts that explain their structure. Charts for two different repeating patterns are included so you can let your imagination run wild to make bracelets and design other elaborate pieces with Garden Weave, including the chart for this pendant.

For an extra challenge, the tutorial includes charts and a beaded pendant using Penrose tiles, including this one.

After completing the tutorial, I beaded this large patch of a Penrose tiling with Garden Weave using the techniques I explain in the tutorial.

 Here you can see how big it is.

I'm not sure yet what I'll do with it, but here's a detail.

 

And another!

 Thanks for looking!