Fairy Chrysalis Tutorial and Bead Soup Sale

I recently updated an old tutorial on free form beaded pendants.  Ten years ago, I wrote instructions to show how to stitch a Fairy Chrysalis, a pendant designed to look organic and constructed from a wide variety of beads. You can read all about the tutorial here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/536288125/tutorial-fairy-chrysalis-beaded-pendant

If you would like a kit to make a Fairy Chrysalis, then you should visit my Etsy shop this Wednesday July 19, 2017at 5 PM Pacific time. I will be having a big sale of kits of bead soup.  I hand selected each lot, and each lot of beads is unique. You can go to Facebook to tons of photos of all of the lots before they go up for sale, with sizes and prices.

Lot #1 has a crazy lace agate with crazy cool banding.  Red and earthy.

 Lot #3 has an amazing piece of orange bumblebee jasper. 

Lot #4 includes a very flashy labradorite.

Which looks really different under different lights.

There are lots more lots. To see the rest of the lots that I will have for sale on Wednesday, see this gallery on the Bead Infinitum fan page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/beadinfinitum/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1516325788427996

Thanks for looking!

Upcycled Freeform Cashmere and Wool Sweaters

I made a few sweaters last Winter and Spring, but somehow I forgot to blog about them, and now it's June. This post is totally seasonally inappropriate, unless you live in Australia. So, as you read this, pretend that you're Australian. I promise, it'll be worth it.

Sweater No. 13 Dusty Rose
This was a custom order for a friend who does a lot of needle crafts.  I wanted to make it especially detailed for her because I knew she would appreciate the effort.  So I covered the front of the hood with folded roses made from cashmere sweaters. 

Here's a close up of the roses before I added the buttons. To make the roses, I used classic "folded ribbon rose" techniques but with strips of sweaters instead of regular ribbon.

Sweater No. 14 Periwinkle
This was my first adventure in free-form sweater sewing. It's is all cashmere, mostly hand dyed.

I like the way the black seams make it look like stained glass. 

Sweater No. 15 Black Berry
This was my second adventure into free-form sweater sewing.

I found that I could use the leftover scraps to make the hood.  I really love the way the lines and colors on this piece worked out.

This Black Berry Sweater is mostly cashmere, mostly hand dyed.

Here's a close up of the bobble at the end of the hood.

Sweater No. 16 Kelp Queen
I made this piece for myself... because... LIME GREEN!!!!

I had to dye almost all of the sweaters to get enough lime green.  Here's a photo of the hood before it was a hood.

When I first showed this photo, my friends said it looks like a landscape painting, like one by Wayne Thiebaud or this:
http://www.annadillon.com/tor.html
 

Sweater No. 17 Hot Pink, etc.
This was a custom piece for a good friend of mine, pure cashmere. She likes hot pink.  A lot. It's more purple than blue, as the photo suggests

Here's what the hood looked like before it was a hood.

Okay, that was way too much of a blacklog of projects.  I need to start blogging more.  Note to self.  Anyway, as always, thanks for looking.

Organic Beaded Felt

This textile cuff bracelet is felted with fluffy cashmere over a core of mohair and wool, and silk fibers felted right in. Cashmere... this is so soft!  The colors are deep forest green and deep aqua. The shape is organized but organic. I added a ten beaded beads, woven around the felt, in green and silver seed beads.

Here is what it looked like before I added the beads.  With a mix of many different fibers, the colors in this are really deep and rich.

This is the only one like it. Deep emerald green cashmere with silk and beads... What's not to love?

Chaos & Order

Chaos & Order is done.

It now lives in Maryland.

The finished piece measures about 7" by 14" (18cm by 36cm).

It weighs 127.2 grams.

It contains over 50 different types of beads.

Chaos & Order Day 12

Remember the large wall piece of beading I started back January?  Well, it's done, but before I show you nice photos of the finished piece, I'm giving you a teaser.  This was Day 12.

Last time, I showed you a close-up, so today I'll give you the big picture. Here is my workspace.  It's a mess. Whenever I work on large projects, it gets messy. It's a waste of time to keep things too tidy.  I have used more than 50 different kinds of beads in this piece, and although I keep thinking I will organize all of those boxes by color, I haven't. I'll organize myself later. I think 2013 will be my year. That gives me almost 11 months to procrastinate.

Stay tuned, because tomorrow I'll show you photos of the finished piece.

Felt Cuff Bracelet No. 33

I'm experimenting with a new way to make felt that gives a nice netting with large holes.  The result reminds me of coral skeletons.  I'm definitely going to try more of this.  Soon.  It's made of wool, silk and mohair, and it's available in my Etsy shop.  Click on the photos to go to the listing.

Chaos & Order Day 11

Day 11. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Day 11.5. Because chaos is always easier when you bring a friend...  See the two little fishes?
Ittty bitty fishes in sterling silver.  I've had them for years, and now they have a nice place to swim.

Chaos & Order Day 10

Yesterday was a good beading day until I got to the end of the bottom right corner. I'm having a hard time gracefully joining the different patterns there. So I decided to put that off until another day.

In case you're wondering what I'm going to do with it, here is my first post.  I want it mounted on pins in a shadow box case where the bead work is removable. I need to hire a professional shadow box maker for that. Anybody know a skilled carpenter/ framer in the Bay Area?

Felt Cuffs in Blues and Greens

Yesterday was cold and rainy, so I made felt cuffs.  I like making felt when it's cold outside because the wet felting process uses lots of hot water, and it warms me up.

I added a few seed beads to the first pair to give them a little more texture.  I am very tempted to keep these for myself because they go with half of my wardrobe, but alas, a girl's gotta pay her bills.  So they're in my Etsy shop.

I also made a lime green and aqua pair that reminds me of the colors of the ocean.  Click on the photos to go to the listings.

Chaos & Order Day 8

I'm still beading along on my commission.  I added some new stars on the bottom right.

Here's the lengthwise view.  It's approximately six inches wide here and maybe a foot long.  I'm about two thirds done.

Here is a link back to Day 7 and forward to Day 9.

Chaos & Order Day 7

I didn't get too much done yesterday, but there's a bit on the bottom right and top.

 Here's a close up of the super right angle weave in three different sizes.

Just in case you just showed up, here is a link to my first post about this commissioned piece for flat beaded angle weaves.

Here is a link back to Day 6 and forward to Day 8.

Chaos & Order Day 6

More super right angle weave...

Here is a link back to Day 5 and forward to Day 7.

Chaos & Order Day 5

I'm intentionally adding some negative space on the left, those two big squares. I also finished the edge on the right. I decided not to have too much of the lacy bits meet the edges. The denser stitches provide a border both visually and physically.

Go back to Day 4. Go forward to Day 6.

Chaos & Order Day 4

Here is my Day 4 progress on a commission for a large, flat, beaded angle weave art piece that I showed you a few days ago. I thought I'd try photographing it with a black background.

If it were a bracelet, which it isn't, but if it were, here is what it would look like.

Here is a link to Days 1, 2, 3, and an explanation of what I'm doing.
Or maybe you want to go on to Day 5.

For the Love of Silk Ribbon and Lace

Last time I was preparing to visit my friend Jennifer to teach at her bead shop, Naturally Jennifer's Gallery and Beads, she asked me if I had any clothing that I wanted to tie dye.  See, Jennifer had something around 30 buckets of dye set up in her garage because she was filling a large order of tie dyed t-shirts for a local music festival.  As luck would have it, I had just won a HUGE lot of silk charmeuse remnants on Ebay.  The fabrics were gorgeous, but some of the colors were a bit boring, like khaki, pale lavender and tan, and this was the perfect opportunity to make them beautiful with some hand dying.  Could Jennifer's dyes work with silk?  Sure they would!

I wanted a mottled look rather than a traditional tie dye, so Jennifer taught me to "artfully wad" my fabrics in large plastic tubs.  With over 30 colors to choose from, I poured maybe six different, related colors of dye into each tub.  Here is a photo of one little corner of the purple piece.   Pretty, isn't it?

These dyed silks have been sitting in my closet since Spring, patiently waiting for me to figure out how to use them.  Last night, I was browsing hand dyed silk ribbons on Etsy, and I saw that a few different vendors were selling ribbon with serged edges.  I realized that I could make ribbon by CUTTING strips of of silk from selvage to selvage, and then SERGE a rolled hem on both edges.  OMG!  I CAN MAKE SILK RIBBON AS WIDE AS I WANT!  See, if you've ever shopped for wide silk ribbon, you know it costs a small fortune, often around half the price you'd pay for 45" wide fabric.  Silk ribbon is a real luxury item, especially the wide, hand-dyed stuff, and as a consequence, I don't own any wide silk ribbon... until last night!

On my first try, I made a gorgeous yard of silk ribbon in purple and burgundy with black serger thread.  At nearly an inch, it's significantly wider than the narrow ribbons I own, and the fabric is a bit thicker as well.   Once the machine was set up and the strip was cut, sewing it was pretty quick and easy.  It's a little under an inch wide, over a yard long and I tapered both ends to a point.  I strung some beaded beads on it, but didn't love the way they hung because they weren't heavy enough to weigh down the ribbon,  So, I ruffled the ribbon by sewing a zig zag like in my Doceri drawing below.

I rolled up my silky ruffle to make flowers, folding and twisting it, this way and that.   I made some wiggly lines with it.  I sat at my cutting mat, rather mesmerized by this little ruffle, all soft and squishy with undulating colors that shimmer in the light like only silk charmeuse can do.  I became inspired:  I dug through my bags of lace, cut some pieces, and arranged them under my ruffle.  I tried some ribbon flowers.  Deciding a cuff would be a good project, I found a scrap of black rayon jersey fabric leftover from the lining of my new mini dresses, and I cut a rectangle about 8 inches wide.  Starting with the bottom layers of lace,  I sewed my appliques to the jersey, layer by layer.  I started with hand sewing, and switched to my machine where I could.  After all of the lace and ribbon was attached, I sewed on a few pressed glass flower beads.  Then, like making up a pillow, I attached a lining made from some purple cotton corduroy.  The corduroy lining makes the back soft, adds a little warmth, and hides all of the stitches and thread ends.   I left open a side seam to add elastic button loops, pinned the loops in place and finished the last bit by machine, which you can see running vertically below in black thread.  I finished it by attaching the buttons, sewing through all of the layers for stability.

As I sewed, I just kept thinking about how super girly girl this cuff is.  It's purple and rosy, with flowers, ruffles, and lace.  It's beyond girly.  It's not my normal style for sure.  I've heard people call it a "romantic" style.  My boyfriend called it "too much," but the girly girl in me really likes this kind of explosive overabundance of ribbon and lace.  A little part of me wants to be dressed head to toe like this, maybe just for a little while.  Yes, this style is a bit out of my normal aesthetic, but I like that it all started with a piece of beautiful purple, hand-dyed wide silk ribbon.  Yeah for Etsy.  Yeah for silk ribbon.  Yeah for inspiration.  

Click on the photos for more photos and information about purchasing this cuff.

How to Make an Easy Tutu without Sewing Part 2

Last time I presented part 1 of making an easy no-sew tutu.  This is the second half.  


Next I added strips of tulle from the 6 inch wide roles.  My strips were about 2 feet long for the blue.  I added them with the same kind of knots I described in part 1.  Then, I added 1.5 foot strips of white tulle.  In each case, I equally distributed the strips around the waist.

Notice how my strips keep getting shorter on each round.  The layering creates a nice rounded skirt shape.  At this point, I decided I didn't like the look of the blunt ends.  So I cut the corners into points like in my Doceri drawing.

This photo shows most, but not all, of the blunts ends cut off.  I definitely prefer the look of the pointy ends.

Next I cut strips of ribbons.  For the ribbons, I cut off corners or I folded the ends to cut notches in the ends of the ribbons. Here is my Doceri drawing showing my method for cutting notches.

I knotted strips of the various ribbons to the grosgrain waistband, just as I'd done with the strips of fabric.  The thinner the ribbons, the longer I cut them.  I pulled the ribbons down into the skirt so that they would hang from the inside.  Here is the finished tutu and headpiece.

Here is the bridal nymph in her natural habitat.  Isn't she beautiful!  This was Day 1 of our bridal shower weekend.

On Day 2, the bridal nymph ditched the silly headpiece I made her in favor of sunglasses, but still wore the tutu on our daylong hike.   

Yes, tutus are suitable for hiking, as long as there's no serious rock climbing.  The netting might catch a few bugs, however.  Fortunately, this is a pretty bug-friendly group of nymphs.