Beaded Quilt in Process

This is my little (16 months younger than I) big (6'4") brother, Thom, with his wife, Jennifer, and me in my studio in 2006. In front of us is one of his beaded quilts, Blue Miranda, and you can see more of it on Thom's website, here. He was also in the first year of the Bead Journal Project and you can see his 12 beaded mini-quilts here.

Thom is making a name for himself in the quilting world, bringing both his art/painting training and his passion for embellishing with beads to his quilts. Thom and I are beading buddies, frequently spending hours on the phone talking about our latest projects, bead sources, techniques, etc. It's a blessing for both of us and has deepened our friendship with each passing year.

We also totally enjoy getting together when we can (he lives in central California, whereas I live in northern Washington state). We just had a great week together, beading and sharing in my studio (same place as picture above). What was really FUN for me was to see his process as he went to work on the very beginning stages of a new quilt!!!

Finding himself inspired by two things (1. a strand of stone, disc-shaped beads, dyed to look like turquoise and 2. a funny technique with organza), Thom's mind went to an under water look, with anemones made with the discs and some sort of puff creature made with the organza.


Here's how the discs look, made up as sea anemones. See how he circled the discs with dagger and claw-shaped, glass beads.


Here are the puff creatures.

The puff technique uses polyester organza (Thom uses two layers of different colors stitched together with a contrasting thread color) wrapped around small stones or pebbles and fastened with rubber bands. After fastening a bunch of them, throw the whole thing in a pot of boiling watter and let it boil for 10 minutes. After cooling and removing the pebbles, the polyester is permanently bubbled in the shape of the pebbles. You can crush it (like those cute tops you can buy at shows), but it always comes back to shape when released.

But I'm getting ahead of myself with the pictures... Knowing he would use the puffs and the disc beads, Thom gathered some fabrics from his stash (a blue-brown, blended stripe, which he could use for wooden posts, a blue-aqua batik for water, a brown batik suitable for rocks, a purple batik that might work for the sea bottom , a navy-blue tulle netting to layer over fabrics and some angelina for sparkle). He's been doing a series of quilts 18" x 52" and wanted this one to be in the series. Spreading things out on the table, he began cutting and laying out the pieces.

Soon it took shape! Two posts and some cross bars, angelina used to add a sense of movement to the water, purple sea floor and brown rocks. He used permanent marking pens to create the illusion of depth and texture on the rocks and wood. Then he added 1 to 4 layers of tulle netting to hold everything in place and to give the appearance of depth. Next came a whole lot of stitching, hand-quilting everything in place! By the time he returned home, the quilt looked like this (except for the seaweed).


Remember my previous post about silk ribbons and Nancy's Sewing basket???? Well, Thom and I had a glorious time shopping at Nancy's just prior to his flying out of Seattle. In the ribbon room, Thom immediately spied a large basket filled with hand-dyed China-silk, bias-cut "Hanah Silk ribbons." Gorgeous! Drop-dead gorgeous (and reasonably priced from $.75-5.00/yard, depending on width - up to 4 inches) these could be used in many ways, including quilt bindings. Thom instantly saw them as seaweed for his quilt. Since it's cut on the bias and therefore doesn't fray much, he could re-cut strips of it in seaweed shapes and apply them to the quilt with tulle. Here's how the seaweed looks pinned down.


And here's how it looks hand-stitched in place.


Here's how the quilt looks now after he's worked on it at home during the week since he was visiting me. (Be sure to click to enlarge and see details.)


Are you curious about the fish and the sign? Have aquarium, have some old wood and marking pens, have camera, have photo-editing program, have printer, have ink-jet-printable fabric... and yipppeee... soon you have fish and a sign ready to sew on a quilt. Neat, huh!


Oh, yes, I forgot to mention above... somewhere along the line, it came to Thom that this piece seems to say something about global warming and rising sea levels. Although it's not even half way finished yet, he's named it Global Warming.

I'll post a picture of it when it's finished. Hope you are having fun seeing the process.

Ribbon Question + MOP buttons!

Click on the picture to really see the lush colors of these silk ribbons. Aren't they just the yummiest?!

45 yards in all... 25 different colors!!!!! I bought them at Nancy's Sewing Basket on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle (WA) a couple of weeks ago. Nancy's is a fabric store that's been in business for about 30 years selling fancy fabrics. If you are in the area and love silk, it's a must... They may not have as many different bolts as some shops, but oh my, every one of them is simply luscious.

The other two main attractions at Nancy's are their their button wall (I go NUTS looking at so many beautiful buttons) and ribbon room (a whole, large room devoted entirely to ribbons of all kinds, including I'd estimate about 80-100 colors of silk ribbons... Akkkkk, be still my beating heart... I go NUTS in there too)!

Below are some mother of pearl buttons I bought at the same time as the ribbons. Again, click to see details. You'll be noticing them on my beading soon, that's for sure.


These ribbons and buttons make me happy! They are paint on my palette!

My only question is this... Does anybody have a good method for storing the ribbons???? They're all relatively short pieces of 1-3 yards. I thought of winding them on floss bobbin-cards, but I don't want creases in them.

My next post will be about my brother, Thom's recent visit and the beaded piece he's currently making. He found some hand-dyed silk ribbons at Nancy's that make perfect seaweed. I'll show you in my next post soon!

Bead Journal Project ~ May ~ Open the Door

Ahhh, back to improvisational bead embroidery for me!!!! Here is my finished May BJP page...


Here is the poem I wrote from the piece after it was finished.

Open the Door

I am old and rusty.
Yet still I am a key.
Yet still I hold power
to open the door.

I am old and rusty.
Yet still fierce tiger waits.
Yet still I find courage
to open my heart.

I am old and rusty and empty.
Yet still red blood courses.
Yet still I have strength
to open the door.

I am old and rusty and afraid.
Yet still I want to know.
Yet still the river flows
and tiger takes me there.

Are you wondering about the tiger? It's machine sewn. Fabulous, isn't it?! Karen L. Cohen, BJP participant, gifted it to me after I asked her how she stitched the elephant for her April BJP (here). My old sewing machine doesn't do this type of thing, but apparently one can buy programs for newer machines that create images for you. Here is the program Karen used to stitch both her elephant and my tiger.

Karen offered me a choice of animals and colors. Since Tiger is one of my totem animals, I was immediately drawn to it. Saturated colors were calling me, strong and true... red, yellow, blue! Karen picked the background fabric and determined which of my suggested colors to use for the different parts. I'm so pleased with red as the main color!!! Red, the color of blood and love and energy and protection! Thank you, Karen!

The beading fell together easily on this piece. But the meaning of it wasn't clear until the last 15 minutes of working on it. I seemed to be inside looking at Tiger through a window or a door. I felt a strong urge to get through the door, to open it. At the last minute, I realized I needed a key.

Odd thing... I've been suggesting to several BJPers and to my brother, Thom, (who was just here for a week) that they/he add a key to their work. HA! Duh... It was I who needed a key all along!
Right after finishing this piece, I began my June BJP. Below you can see the fabrics I selected. Do you think maybe this could be the river??? Did Tiger take me to the river? We shall see.

A Few Thoughts about Visual Journaling

My head is spinning with thoughts inspired by Susan's post:


Susan E. of Plays with Needles posted about how tea is the Elixir of Life and about how the ritual of drinking tea figured into her mother's death. Tea is the subject of her Bead Journal Project for April, a detail of which is pictured above.

My head is spinning with thoughts inspired by Pam's post:


Pam T. of Beads and Other Things posted about Anger and Fear, about her process with cancer and her Bead Journal Project for June, part of which is shown above.

My head is spinning with thoughts inspired by Celticat's post:


Mary (Celticat) of Contemporary Bead Art posted about Spanish Madonna and about how her beading takes on its own life, different from her sketches. Above is her Bead Journal Project piece for April.

And my head is spinning with thoughts inspired by these books:


Pat B. Allen is an artist who writes about the artistic process, how we can know and express our authentic self and how we can find a spiritual path. Reading her book is changing my world. While this isn't a "book review" post, I am more than smitten with all that she says!

Here are my top 5 inspirational books (not in order, because it always depends on what I need at any given time). These are the books I always grab when I need a creativity boost or tools for banishing the internal critic:

• Art is a Way of Knowing by Pat B. Allen
• Wild Geese (a poem) by Mary Oliver
• Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson
  The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
• Dibs in Search of Self by Virginia Axline

OK, so what I want to write about today is visual journaling...

Let's begin with the root of this phrase... What is journaling? In my youth, it meant keeping a secret diary. Although the idea of writing my thoughts and secrets in a locked book was very appealing to me, I rarely wrote more than a few pages in any of my diaries.

In my middle years, several of my friends became enthralled with keeping journals, recording their thoughts, on paper. When I would complain of some life event or be struggling with a decision, they'd say, "Try journaling about it." I tried sometimes, yet it never seemed to work for me. Why? Maybe because...

• I was embarrassed by my thoughts.
• It seemed like too much work.
• It seemed self-indulgent.
• I thought I had to write stuff that was "worthwhile" or "important."
• Writing from my brain (analytically, as I did then) simply repeated my thoughts (boring) and didn't get to the heart and soul of anything.

Who knows... it just didn't appeal to me. Not until Julia Cameron gave us The Artist's Way and permission to write and scribble and draw and cross out and never again read our words... Never, ever again read our crazy thoughts, our fears, our angers, our hopes, our prayers, our forgiveness... And gave us permission to let our hearts speak out, page after page, day after day. Then! That's when journaling seeped into my life and changed it forever, healing festering wounds and opening me to my own creative way.

No, I don't journal every day. I did for a while, when the Artist's Way was new to me... But still, I know when I need to journal. It's when I need to say something from within... something, maybe, that my intellect can not grasp or is not aware of... when I need to hear and acknowledge my own inner voice. That's when I write!

That's also when I bead! Much of my bead embroidery is visual journaling. It happens most easily and deeply when I work improvisationally... without a plan or with only the barest of thoughts tucked in the back of my mind.

So now, with the Bead Journal Project in its second year and 20 journal pieces behind me, I'm thinking today about what visual journaling is and about how we do it.

I believe there are many equally valid ways to use art and beads to journal visually.

For example, in Pam's June BJP, she boldly puts everything on the table... UGLY, FEAR, ANGER... it's all there, obvious and visual. She shakes it out of her pores and her guts and slaps it in our faces, acknowledging and honoring the part of her that normally would remain hidden. Is this not a gift to herself? To show the demon is to tame it!

Less in your face is the way Susan deals with the flow of her life, especially in and around her Mother's death. We don't know about that when we look at her piece. We know only of the peace she finds as she sails along in her cup of tea and plays with her needles. But Susan knows about the death and the missing and the sadness. She allows her heart to be touched by it as she beads about the contentment she finds in the rituals of drinking tea.

Even less revealing is the way Celticat beads and sketches. Her first act of visual journaling is her sketch, using pencils, crayons &/or water colors to record an immediate, impressionistic, gut-level sense of a place, person or idea. Not a photographic rendering of her subjects, Celticat instead allows her emotional slant and her feelings to blossom all over her sketches. This process continues in her beaded versions of the sketches. We don't get an obvious message from her work, as we do from Pam's. But we do have a sense that if we knew her visual language, we'd be reading an inner book when we look at her work.

What about you? Here are some questions for thought....

• Did you keep a diary when you were young? How often did you write in it? What was it like? Is it important in any way to your artistic process now?
• Do you keep a written journal? How often do you write in it? What is it like?
• Do you journal visually? What is your process? What materials do you use?
• Just curious... Have you read Art Is a Way of Knowing? Did you fill the margins and underline many passages like me?

If you write a post on this subject, please let me know... I'd love to see a dialog about visual journaling!

Wildflowers Make Me Happy ~ Inspirations for Fairy Dolls!

We're nearly at the end of our wildflower season, especially since we haven't had rain for a month. To my great pleasure on our walk yesterday, we discovered that the wee little Twinflowers (Linnaea) are back!!!

A woodland ground-cover, their slender, upright stalks bear two bell-shaped flowers each... white, tinged with pink and delicately fragrant. You can see how tiny they are below... (my fingers are NOT bulbous)!


Here are two more pictures...



I guess it's possible to grow Twinflowers, especially in a shaded rock garden. I may have to order some seeds and try to grow them on our property, because it's like being in the presence of fairies to see them.

In the last picture I see inspiration for a doll... The body would be in the shape of the flower. It would definitely be like a fairy doll and very sweet!

Bead Journal Project ~ April Finished!

April, the month of new beginnings, is my favorite month of the year. More than the new year in January, it offers a place where I can turn around, take baby steps or giant leaps in a new direction, full of elation and hope! Nothing symbolizes this more than the force of a waterfall and the vitality of skunk cabbage, the first blooming plant of spring! So here you have it, my April BJP (click on picture to enlarge and see details)...


And here's the poem I wrote to go with it.

April

A small creek,
dry in summer and fall,
becomes a miracle
of burbling water
tumbling down
over moss-covered rocks
in April,
the month
foretelling birth,
fresh season
of budding vitality.
Here skunk cabbage
hoists its unfolding,
primordial leaves
and gaudy yellow spathes
through chilly,
muddy waters
of a temporary pond
made wide
by the rushing flow
of snow melt
and abundant rain.
Each day
on our daily walk,
we pause here,
grateful to receive
a nurturing breath
of new beginnings.

Solidly beaded (mostly with size 15s) and textural, this piece took quite a few hours. (Please don't ask... I don't keep track.) The proof is that I'm only just starting to work on May, when I should be stitching June's piece. Oh well, it happens and I shall do my best to catch up before the end of June.

You might want to take a look at April's piece in progress and the photo of the actual waterfall and skunk cabbages that inspired it here (starts about a third of the way down).

I don't know that I'll ever work from a photo again. While I like my piece, especially what it represents, I actually prefer the similar-theme April BJP piece done by Lise Pederson (below)...


I love the spontenaity and joy evident in Lise's work, which is not as strong in mine.... It's OK, I learned something doing my April piece from a photo... been there, done that, don't have to do it again!

If you have an interest in reading more about skunk cabbage, I found a wonderful essay (and drawings) about the Eastern Skunk Cabbage here ... it's quite similar to our western variety!

Attitude of Gratitude and Crazy Quilt

I've been nominated for the Attitude of Gratitude award by Allie (Allison Aller)!


I really love what Allie wrote about the importance of gratitude in her life... If you didn't already read it, check it out here. Ever since then I've been thinking about the concept ~ Attitude of Gratitude. If you google it, you'll find many thought-provoking and inspirational writings.

This one gives you five tools for cultivating appreciation or gratitude. The suggestions make sense and seem worth the few minutes they would take to do each day. You can read a whole book on this subject here or buy it on Amazon here. Previous to searching google, I had no idea this was a popular concept... It's even discussed in Wikipedia here!

My earliest experiences with Attitude of Gratitude go back about 15 years when I first worked with The Artist's Way, A Spiritual Path to Creativity by Julia Cameron. Writing daily morning pages, I fell into the practice of writing a list of 10 Things for which I'm Grateful. I still do it, not on a daily basis any more, but when I'm feeling down or angry, I find it really helps regain a sense of balance, optimism and warmth.

To mark this day and this post, I decided to write a 10 Things list right now ~ I am grateful for:

1. Allie, and artists/kind souls like her, who share their love, inspiration and talents so generously. The pictures you will see further down in this post are details from a crazy quilt piece I started in Allie's class.
2. Robert's sense of humor, eternal optimism and love
3. That my Mom is still alive and recognizing us
4. My family and our closeness
5. Blogging and all the wonderful, creative bloggers I meet
6. All birds and all flowers
7. Walking every day with my neighbor
8. Being able to hear the birds sing with my new hearing aids
9. Spending time stitching with my dear quilting friends Christy, Lunnette and Trish
10. Spending time stitching (starting June 20!) with my brother, Thom

Once I get started on a list, it's hard to stop at 10... but I'll spare you any more of my thoughts about gratitude except to pass along this award to two people for whom I am VERY grateful in my life. It's not so much their blogs, although their attitude of gratitude is evident in their blogs, but more just who they are that makes me so grateful to know them.

The first award goes to my sister-in-law, Julie Cook... my middle brother, Jon's wife and the primary caregiver for my Mom. Julie is a two-year member of the Bead Journal Project and one who is relatively new to blogging. Her blog, Jules Beads, is always uplifting to read. Even more, she's great about leaving positive comments on all the blogs she reads. Julie, you deserve this award! Thank you!

The second award goes to BJP member (2 years) and angel (helper), Pam Troug, who has shown me that even in the worst of times an attitude of gratitude and a spunky sense of humor can prevail. Pam's blog, Of Beads and Other Things, is an amazing inspiration to me and one of the best examples I've seen of art as a way of healing. Pam, you deserve this award! Thank you!

Now... my crazy quilt! Here it is... completed (click to enlarge)!


The title is Fossies. From my earliest memories to the present, I love flowers... almost all flowers and especially wild flowers. Family stories include several about me and my beloved fossies, as I called them. If ever I slipped away, out of sight, they had only to look for the nearest flowers to find me. Once I picked every geranium blossom by the side of our house, filling all my pockets with them first and then taking the remainder as a bouquet to my grandmother.


Making this was SOOOOOOOOOOOO much FUN!!! It's my first, but probably not my last crazy quilt. I started it in Allison Aller's workshop for the Needle Arts Guild in Baltimore. Yup, I went all the way to the east coast to take the class... That's because I had taught for this group previously and wanted to see them all again. Allie is a wonderful teacher... If you're a member of a needle arts guild or quilting guild, I recommend her totally! She first taught a 1/2-day class in curved piecing (notice the seams are curved, not straight as they are more typically in crazy quilting). Then she taught a 2-day class in making the flowers in the center of the quilt. OMG, that was so much fun!


We used angelina, silk flowers, silk ribbon, rick-rack, felted velvet and various flosses/fibers/fabrics to make the flowers, leaves and stems. The seam embellishments were not covered as part of the class. Fortunately I had a wonderful book, Elegant Stitches by Judith Montano as a guide. They were great fun to learn and practice.


While the main idea was to work with fibers, thread embroidery and quilting techniques, I still managed to work a few beads into the piece. The hand quilting around the inside edge of the border is a tiny running stitch with a size 15 seed bead on each stitch. I also used beads for some of the flower centers.


With gratitude for stitching and for my hands that are still able to stitch for hours, I wish you all a lovely good evening! Robin

PS Have to include this too:

Rules of Accepting and Sharing the Attitude of Gratitude Award

1. Put the logo on your blog or post
2. Nominate a few bloggers that show an attitude of gratitude
3. Link to your nominees within your post
4. Comment on their blogs to let them know they've received this award
5. Share the love and link to this post and the person who nominated you for the award
6. Tell us how you've come to have an attitude of gratitude

Christy's BJP (first year) + Finishing Tutorial

February ~ Expanding My Constricted Heart


March ~ For Little Christy (orange & yellow, colors of childhood)


April ~ Serenity


May ~ Blooming

Christy H is a dear friend here on the island where I live. We share passions for beading and quilting. She's been beading ever since she took my class a couple of years ago and is a current member of the Bead Journal Project (BJP). She also participated in the first BJP.

You may recall seeing her first eight BJP pieces. They're posted on the BJP website here... Finally I've gotten around to photgraphing Christy's remaining four pieces (above).

We thought you might also like to see what she did with her 12 finished pieces, which so vibrantly chronicle her life from June, 2007 to May, 2008. She wanted to display them, framed together. Since I have some experience with framing bead embroidery pieces, she asked me to help her.

We decided to mount them on a piece of fabric that would look good as a background for all of the pieces. Being a quilter, she has quite a fabric stash. After auditioning several fabrics, we chose a dark, muted red, striped fabric. We then bought a large piece of archival, 3/16" foam core board (get it here or at your local frame shop). Laying the fabric over the board, we arranged the pieces on top until the spacing looked pleasing. Then we measured the size we'd need and cut the board.


This is how her pieces look framed! Below is a tutorial to follow for sucessful, no-glue mounting...

A. In a similar manner to stretching a canvas for painting, stretch the fabric around the board and pin it in place:

1. Cut 3/16" acid-free foam core board to size, being sure to include an adequate margin for overlap of the frame.
2. Cut the fabric 3 inches larger than the board on all four sides.
3. Turn under a 1/4 inch hem on the fabric and machine stitch using zig-zag stitch.
4. Center the foam core board on the wrong side of the fabric.
5. Starting in the center of the longer side, stretch the fabric around the board and pin in place.
6. Work your way to the corners on one end, stretching and pinning.
7. Start again at the center point and work your way to the other end of the board.
8. Follow steps 5-6 to stretch the fabric around the shorter side of the board.
9. Now the fabric should be stretched and pinned all around the board.

B. Lace the fabric onto the board:

1. Use a strong, nylon thread, such as Nymo D. Pre-stretch your thread.
2. Starting at the center of the longer side, sew from side to side, zig-zagging your way to the corner. (See drawing below.)
3. Start again at the center of the longer side, and lace in the opposite direction to the other end of the board.
4. Lace the shorter side in the same way.
5. Be sure to pull the thread really tight with each stitch. Adjust the pins if necessary. The laced thread should be quite taught, so that you can hear it "snap" when you lift it slightly and let it go.

C. Sew your pieces to the board:

1. For this mounting method, each piece must have a finished edge. Christy turned under the fabric and finished the edges with a picot edge stitch. (See picture in this post showing back side of finished piece.)
2. Arrange the pieces on the fabric-covered board.
3. Pin the pieces in place using a pin in each corner.
4. Attach the centermost pieces first and work your way to the edges, adjusting placement if necessary.
5. Select the centermost piece and push the corner pins all the way through the foam core board so that you can see them on the back side.
6. Mark these four points on the back side of the board. Also mark the approximate center of these four points.
7. Use a strong, nylon or synthetic thread, such as Nymo D, in a color that blends with the piece you are attaching. Make a large knot at the end of the doubled thread.
8. Sew through the board from the back side at the marked center point to the surface of the piece, adjusting as necessary so that your needle pierces a place between two beads.
9. Stitch betwen beads for a short distance and back down through the board to the back side. This is called tacking your piece to the board.
10. Remove one of the corner pins and tack it in place in the same way as steps 8 & 9 above.
11. Tack the other three corners of the piece.
12. Is this enough tacking to hold your piece? How large is it? How heavy? Maybe you need to tack it in more places. Christy's pieces are about 4 inches square. She tacked each of them in about 10 places.
13. Continue to tack each of the pieces in place the same way.

D. Framing:

1. Take your piece to a professional framer and select an appropriate frame.
2. Use risers in the frame to insure that the glass does not touch textural elements on your beadwork.
3. Hint: Be sure to cut your foam core board large enough to allow for the frame to overlap the board. The amount will depend on the frame you choose. Most frames will overlap the board by at least 1/2 inch.

This is an excellent way to frame a single piece as well. Because you don't use any glue, you will always have the option to take it apart and do something else with your bead embroidery!

Blogiversary Giveaway Winners!

Time is whizzing by all too quickly... exactly three weeks ago today, I announced a giveaway in celebration of my 3-year Blogiversary! Ta-dah, drum-roll.... and the winners are...

Carol of Beads and Birds (#13)
Bobbi of Hooray for Needlework (#36)
Vicki of Vicki's Blog (#106)

In case you're curious... I used this random number picker to select the winners from the 119 comments on the giveaway post. Let it be known, that the number of comments blew me away and so did the many kind and supportive messages. It's almost more than I can take, as it feels like such a responsibility to keep it going and improving...

Maybe that's why I've been "hiding out" for the past three weeks. Or maybe, I just needed time to stitch without the distraction of blogging and emailing. Either way, oh joy, a lot of stitching got done!

In the next few days I'll be posting about it.... and, in the meantime, the two pictures in this post will give you some idea of what's around the corner...


Thanks, everyone, for helping me to celebrate three years of blogging with such a delightful abundance of support!

Blogiversary Giveaway!!!

Comment to Win!

Lusting for beads must certainly have its origins in the garden with Adam and Eve. But, for me it began in 1985 and has grown more acute with each passing year. When I wrote my first post, three years ago today, there was nary a moment of hesitation about naming my baby blog ~ Beadlust!


Today, in celebration of Beadlust's 3-year blogiversary, I'm having a giveaway! Three weeks from now, I'll find a magic way to select three readers who have written a comment on today's post! (Please be sure I have a way to reach you.) Each winner will receive a gift package containing an archival giclee print (signed & numbered) of Rosie, The Uncaged Hen and a little goodie bag of vintage beads from my stash. Whooo-hoo!

This is just a small way for me to tell you all how much your support and readership means to me. I'm not so clever and entertaining as many blog authors and don't post nearly as often as I'd like... Yet, you check back and make wonderful comments and enrich my life more than I know how to say. Thank you!

BJP Presentation ~ Seattle ~ May 21st


For those of you in the Seattle area, I'll be doing a PowerPoint presentation for the Northwest Bead Society featuring BJP work from our first year! Guests are totally welcome!

Visual Journaling with Beads, Fibers, Threads and Fabric

View over 200 beaded journal pieces by 42 artists participating in the 2007-08 Bead Journal Project! Compelling and inspirational, this unique beadwork tells stories, reveals emotions and follows important events in the lives of the artists who create a visual journal each month during the year-long project. In this presentation, you will see the best of the best!

Date: Thursday, May 21st

Time: 7 pm
Location: Greenwood Masonic Lodge
7910 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle (driving directions here)

If you are in the area and participated in the BJP last year or are participating this year, PLEASE COME and bring your BJP pieces for show and tell!!!!

Allison Aller and Baltimore!

Above is one of Allie's samplers for the classes. She offered a choice of kits for curved piecing of the block ~ black, white or green. I chose black because I thought it showed off the flowers beautifully! My block is nearly finished... I'll post a picture of it soon. If you think Allie's sample block is pretty, you'll enjoy regular visits to her blog, Allie's in Stitches, which is tops for gorgeous pictures, tips, tutorials and inspirations!

Susan Elliott (Plays with Needles), with her fabulous photography and way with words, has captured the fun of Allie's visit to Baltimore and our experiences taking her classes much better than I could. So, please check the links! There are even a couple of pictures of me...

Allie is a breath of fresh air on a peaceful spring day, with much more to offer her students than techniques! Here are two important things I learned from her...

"Keep lots of white space on your calendar!" If we want to do our art in any significant way, we must learn to keep our calendars white. Duh! Yes, of course. The difficult thing is doing it. One way that Allie does this is to set aside the hours between 8 am and noon EVERY DAY for herself and her art. Prolific writers and painters are known to keep a schedule like this too. Me? Well, I've never really tried it... Guess it seemed too much like a job. Allie just MAY have converted me to the idea!

Allie calls her work "surface sculpture." I LOVE this term. It applies to our beadwork too.

One reason I went all the way across the country to take Allie's class in Baltimore, is because I taught there last fall and totally love my students, who in turn, totally got it about bead embroidery! They are embroiders, a chapter group of EGA, and very skilled at stitching with threads. Many of them enjoyed my methods of improvisational bead embroidery so much that they've continued making more pieces since the class. It was such a joy to see them again and to see their bead embroidery! Below is a dear-to-my-heart piece by Bobbi Pohl!

Wildflower Season!!!

I returned home from Baltimore last week to find our wildflower season in its peak! I adore wildflowers - all of them, from the tiniest little blue ground cover to the rarest of the rare Fairy Slipper Orchid (Calypso bulbosa) shown below! Be still my heart... I'm in heaven!


The calypso (fairy slipper) orchid is native to Canada and the Pacific Northwest U.S. However, it is extinct over much of its range and is now quite rare. It does not survive contact with man and readily dies in cultivation. The beautiful flower head is about the size of a quarter. I counted 8 of them on our walk yesterday!!!!



These are Shooting Stars (Dodecatheon meadia). Along with companion butter cups, they grow in abundance on our property. I took the picture below right out our kitchen door! Could we be more blessed?!

Bead Journal Project ~ April Challenges

Lots on my mind today... guess I'm avoiding the teach-in-Denver-checklist. But since I won't be an active blogger for the next two weeks, you get four subjects today. I'll begin with the two short ones:

Two Thimbles & Exciting Gallery Show


Two thumbs way up for this chuck-a-block, full-of-great-fabrics-and-more shop! Two Thimbles Quilt Shop is located in Bellingham, WA on Cornwall Ave. If you're into batiks (like me!) or Civil War reproduction fabrics, you will be in heaven there. OMG, what a selection! I only had a half hour to shop, but would have been happy browsing for 2 or 3 hours. Above is a picture of a few things I bought there. These may have to be part of my May BJP. I also bought some interesting batiks that I hadn't seen anywhere else. The shop motto - Fabrics to inspire & delight! - is right on target!

And while you're in Bellingham, don't miss seeing a collaborative show of beads, fiber & photography by Carol Berry (my bead mentor!) and Paul Brower at the One of One Gallery (1418 N. State Street). Carol and Paul are there Friday - Sunday with works in progress to show how they do their magical pieces. The show runs through May 9th. Their work is fascinating, original and unique. I've never seen anything like it and I love it!

Bead Journal Presentation in Denver April 23

If you're in the Denver area, you might want to attend the meeting of the Rocky Mountain Bead Society Thursday evening, April 23rd. I will be giving a Powerpoint presentation about the Bead Journal Project!

Visual Journaling with Beads, Fibers, Threads and Fabric

View over 200 beaded journal pieces by 42 artists participating in the 2007-08 Bead Journal Project! Compelling and inspirational, this unique beadwork tells stories, reveals emotions and follows important events in the lives of the artists who create a visual journal each month during the year-long project. In this presentation, you will see how the first year of the BJP developed into quite an amazing body of art!

April BJP ~ Progress Report & New Challenges

In all my 20 years of bead embroidery, I have never attempted (or been interested in) making a realistic picture of anything. I admire work by artists who do, but it just hasn't been my thing.

Well, here are a couple of pictures of why I'm going to give realistic a try for my April BJP:



Nearly every day, my neighbor and I take a 2.2 mile walk - up and back down an unpaved, back road starting from her house. It winds through an old-growth forest, undisturbed for many decades. The road criss-crosses a small creek along the way, a creek that runs strong in the spring and nearly dries up, leaving only a few sultry puddles, by the end of summer. Right now it's running strong. At night the sound of millions of frogs is a symphony of volume! And by day, one can spot the sunlit, bright-yellow skunk cabbage blooms from far away. I love this creek! And most of all I love the little waterfall near its headwaters. Every day, in both directions of our walk, we stop for several minutes to pay tribute to this small and wonderous gift of nature.

How could I not proclaim my gratitude by featuring it for my April BJP??? And how could I do it any other way than realistically?

Well for me, that's a challenge for sure!

I began by taking the above photos. Then I studied the light and dark pattern in the photo and cut my fabrics to repeat this pattern. After beading two skunk cabbages, the base of the waterfall and the tree, I began to be bored with realistic and bored looking at my work. For several days, I didn't want to bead on it at all. What to do?


Texture! Flat just doesn't do it for me. I needed texture! So here are two pictures to compare.



The first shows my original flat skunk cabbage. The second shows how it looks after I removed one of the leaves and made it three-dimensional. Better, eh? I also made the tree more dimensional and added texture to the moss-covered rocks in the stream. I'm definitely liking it better now and am re-motivated to keep beading it. Next I will start beading the water in the pond, but will save the waterfall for last as it will probably be fringed (a definite tangle-maker if I did it now).

Bead Embroidery ~ Tips

I've been receiving a number of emails lately asking about how to do bead embroidery. (If you're just getting started, I recommend getting my two books, One Bead at a Time and Heart to Hands Bead Embroidery.) Two of the most frequent questions involve what to use as a stabilizer and how to get a design on the surface...

There are many good answers to both of these questions, many different methods that all work very well. What works best in most cases for ME is to use an acid-free paper backing to stabilize my work and keep the stitches from puckering. I use either interleaving paper or Japanese Sumi painting paper. The photo below shows how I get the design on the surface.


A. I draw the shape of my piece on the paper and pin it to my fabric. Then I baste along my drawn lines in a color of thread that will show on the surface. The basted line becomes my guide, and I stay within it when beading. After I finish my piece, I tear away the paper outside the basted line, fold the fabric edges to the inside and back the piece with Ultrasuede or other backing, which hides the fabric edges and my stitches.

B. To sew two layers of fabric together, as in my April piece, I pin the top layer on the underlayer and, leaving the edges raw, I whip stitch them together. Here on the back side you can see my whip stitches. Look for them on the click-to-enlarge view of the right side above.

C. To transfer design elements, important lines and/or shapes to the fabric side, I first draw the shapes on the paper. (Sometimes I draw them on a different paper until I get what I want, then hold the paper to a window and trace the lines with a soft pencil on the wrong side. I put that side down on my paper stabilizer and re-draw the lines, which transfers the traced pencil marks to the stabilizer paper.) Then, I baste along these lines using a color of thread that I'll be able to see on the right side. Look for the basted lines of a second skunk cabbage to the left of the first in the click-to-enlarge view of the right side above.

Happy spring, everybody!!!


The first of our native wildflowers is heavily budded now! In a day or two, there will be a riot of purple and yellow shooting stars to delight our senses!!!! Above is one of my husband's pictures of these beautiful harolds of spring...

See you in a couple of weeks..... or maybe in Denver???!!!

Bead Journal Project ~ March ~ Zero Circle

My piece for March was definitely influenced by an incredible fiber book made by Marty S (who is also a member of the BJP). Her arched pages (see here and here) sang a beautiful song to me... a little like a window, a little like a doorway, a little like a house, the stability and the reaching of the basic triangle shape... You get the idea.

I began by folding the top (dark green) batik fabric in half and cutting out the arch shape. Then I layered it over a lighter fabric and started fingering through my stash in search of whatever wanted to be in the window. Right away, an unglazed, ceramic face said, "Me, me!" There was no hesitation about the other things or the colors of beads. It all fell into place very quickly and effortlessly. Nice when that happens!


While stitching, I didn't really give a lot of thought to what it means, except when I was sewing the beaded bezel for the stone at the top of the face. This stone came from the headwaters of the Ganges River in India. My friend, Liz, did a treck there and brought it back for me. When I hold it in my hands, I have a sense of timelessness, the source of life and spiritual contentment... a warm pulse seems to eminate from it. Had to include it.


Working on this piece was one of the most peaceful and meditative experiences I've ever had stitching beads on fabric. After finishing it, I was trying to think what to name it and turned to some of my poetry books for inspiration. As soon as I read Zero Circle by Rumi (written in the 13th Century; translated by Coleman Barks), I knew the name of my piece is Zero Circle. Here's a few lines from the poem:

Zero Circle by Rumi

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
...

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

I think this piece is about me reaching and seeking to surrender and become open to a saving grace. It frightens me a little to write this, to say it publically. Yet, on the other hand, it is my truth at this moment.

* * * *
4 April ~ Update

If you are interested in reading the whole of Rumi's poem, you will find it here. I have it in a wonderful book that was gifted to me several years ago: ten poems to change your life, by Roger Housden.

About the winged rabbit... It was a pin, a gift from a friend a long time ago. But I rarely wear pins and the wings caught on my purse strap so I didn't wear it. One day I put it in with my treasure stash and there it was when I needed it for this piece. It wouldn't have worked to pin it to my piece as it would flop forward and stick up too high. So I clipped the pin part off and sewed it to my piece. Originally it had a purple rhine stone glued to the bunny's belly. Didn't like the purple with my piece, so I easily removed that to expose the top of the rivet which held the whole thing together. Didn't like that either, so I drilled a hole through the rivet top and sewed a flat-bottomed, rose-colored crystal through the rivet.

Bead Memories ~ New Bag!

Time line:

• 1985 ~ started making beaded necklaces and buying a few beads
• 1987 ~ joined the Pacific NW Bead Society, a small group of researchers and collectors
• 1988 ~ quit my job and started making my living with beads
• 1990 ~ attended my first international bead conference and discovered my clan

Not in my make up to be much of a joiner or identify myself with any groups. All that changed on October 5th, 1990 when I walked into the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC to register for the Second International Bead Conference. As I looked around at the milling group of beaded-necklace-wearing registrants, a warm sense of belonging flooded through me and I remember thinking, THIS is MY CLAN! For the first time, I knew, without a doubt, that I was not alone in my beadlust.

Mostly these folks were collectors and researchers... They wore and craved the really ancient beads, wanted to understand trade routes, wanted to know how and where beads were made. A few like me were also interested in more modern beads, the types now considered vintage, in designing jewelry with beads and in seed beads. Yet, we were there together and strongly felt our clanship.


With our registration materials, we received this conference bag, which I immediately adopted as my every-day purse. Being more of an LL Bean type than a Nordstrom girl (not much into fashion trends), I carried this bag around every day since 1990... for 18 years! I added an inside pocket (now frayed) and leather on the bottom (which after a few years had developed significant holes in the corners). But despite my patching efforts, it finally got too shabby-looking even for me to use as a purse. So, with respect for my clan, I am retiring it to grocery tote duties in the future.

In 18 years of using it, I am dependent on its size, strap length and sturdy leather bottom. Nothing I've tried could take its place... Only one solution: make a new, similar bag!


I twisted my sister-in-law, Julie's arm to give me this hand-dyed fabric some time ago. It's not quite upholstery weight and not stiff; it's somewhat textured and feels like cotton. I wanted the inside of my new bag to be a lighter color. So I took Julie's fabric and some batik and machine stitched them into one fabric.


Here's my new bag!



To avoid wear/fray problem at the top of the bag and inside pocket, I bound both with leather (yes, it's real). I also sewed leather to the bottom of the bag to protect the corners and avoid wear.

Funny how difficult it is to let go of the old and worn, even when I have nice and new to replace it. Maybe grocery shopping will be more fun these days....

How to Make Your Photos "Click-to-enlarge"

Many times I am asked how to upload photos on a blog so that they will be click-to-enlarge. Today, I will answer that question for all Blogger (blogspot) blogs!

We are talking about digital photos, either taken with a digital camera or scanned and saved as a digital file. I’m going to keep it fairly simple, yet hint at the technical reasons behind my method.

Simple basics

Are you going to print your photos? Or, are you going to upload them to your blog? These are two very different things. Decide before you shoot your pictures!

Have you ever printed an image from the web and it was all pixilated? You could see the little squares (pixels) of color on the print? That’s because to print photos requires higher resolution than the web.

Many of today’s digital cameras offer the possibility of very high resolution. You can get an idea of the resolution possibilities of your camera by looking at the designation on the front. Is it 3 megapixels, 8 megapixels, 11 megapixels? The higher the number, the higher the possible resolution.


High resolution (or high number of megapixels) is good for printing your photos, yes! But not good for the web. Ever open an email with an attached photo that's so bloated you can’t get any idea of the whole thing, even by scrolling up and down, back and forth? Yes? Me too. That photo might print well, but it has too many pixels for the web.

My suggestion, if you are taking photos just for the web? Pass up those expensive, high megapixel cameras, and get one that offers around 3, which is perfectly adequate for web pictures!

What size images do you need for Blogger to engage the click-to-enlarge feature?

This is the rule:

To upload a photo that will
click-to-enlarge in Blogger,
your image size must be
more than 100 KB.

If it is way over 100 KB or if it is some amount of MB, it will click-to-enlarge, but it will also be gigantic, take a long time to open and begin to fill up your total photo space allowed by Blogger.

If it is under 100 KB, it will not click-to-enlarge.

Note: this is the current Blogger rule... be aware that they change the rules from time to time!

How can you tell the size of your image?

In my documents, find the folder with your image in it. On the top toolbar, click on view and then click on details. You should now see the image name, followed by a number, which is the size of your image. It maybe expressed in KB (kilobytes) or if it’s extremely large in MB (megabytes). Far to the right you will see the dimensions, which are expressed in pixels.

Other important image size considerations.

The size of an image is expressed in both total kilobytes (or megabytes, if it’s huge) AND in pixel dimensions. A third variable is the resolution. It’s nice to understand the relationship of these three variables, but not necessary.

Most digital cameras have a way to adjust these variables. Look for mode or settings. If you are taking pictures for the web and not to print, set your mode as closely as possible to the following:

Resolution: 72 ppi (exressed as automatic in most small cameras)
Size: 640 x 480
Format: jpeg (may be expressed as normal; do not select tiff)

These settings will give you images that are perfectly sized to be click-to-enlarge on Blogger as long as you don’t crop them.

Cropping

If you crop your images, it will reduce the size. Cropping may reduce the overall size to less than 100 KB, in which case they will not be click-to-enlarge.

After cropping, save your image and check the file size as described above. There are photo editing programs you can use to increase the size of your cropped image to over 100 KB. If you don’t have such software, there is another option.

If you know you will want to crop a group of images to show detail and you still want them to be click-to-enlarge, do this. For these images only, reset the mode on your camera to higher file size. Shoot your pictures, crop and check size. Should be OK. Don’t forget to reset the mode on your camera.

What if you are taking pictures for both the web AND to print?

In that case, you will need a simple photo editing program that will allow you to resize your images. Set your camera mode to a higher resolution and size, suitable for printing. My camera mode is set to the following:

Resolution: 72 ppi
Size: 2560 x 1920
Format: jpeg

This gives photos that are about 2,000 KB each, large enough to print, even in books or magazines. However, they are about 20 times too big for the web! Remember we want them to be just over 100 KB each. I use a photo editing program to resize them.

How to print these directions?

Click on the title of this post. That should open a window which has only this post in it and not the other posts on my blog. Then go to file and click print.

Or, highlight the entire text of the post, go to edit on the upper tool bar and click copy. Open a blank word document, go to edit on the upper tool bar of the new document and click paste. Then save and/or print from the word document.

Hope this helps!
Robin A.

Short Subjects

Feb BJP ~ French knots & Colonial knots

My beading/quilting friends Christy and Lunnette introduced me to Colonial knots, assuring me that they're more secure than French knots. Christy says they're also easier than French knots. Maybe... after you've made quite a few. I agree however that for a consistent look and secure feel, Colonial knots take the cake. So all the knots on my Feb BJP are of the Colonial variety.


The difference? Here is how you make a French knot. The thread is wound around the needle. The more winds, the bigger the knot. Here is how you make a Colonial knot. The thread is passed in a figure-8 around the needle. The size is not variable.

Knots vs. seed beads... I guess one could argue that I could have achieved the same affect sewing a single bead in the same location as each knot. That would work too, although the look might be a bit less soft. I enjoyed the meditative time spent making all the background knots on my BJP piece.

Teaching

As many of you know, I'm not teaching much right now. The reason I always give is that my mother, who is 92 and lives in Minnesota (a day's flight from me), is not in the best of health. I don't want to promise someone I'll teach at their conference and risk the possibility of having to cancel at the last moment because Mom's health takes a turn for the worse.

Also there's a certain quality-of-life right now that I call being on hold. It's based on the certainty that before long I will not be a daughter any more and will not have any parents... I feel a little in limbo, uncertain and adrift, as though I've stopped living while waiting for the change, even though it isn't really imminent and surely I'll adjust once it happens.

So this year, the second in a row for scaling back on teaching, I have only one definite gig. And that is just around the corner.

I will be teaching at the Bead Bazaar sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Bead Society in Denver, Colorado. Advance registration is open now. I'll be teaching:

• Woven Treasure Bracelet or Tassel on April 25
• Techniques of Bead Embroidery on April 26

I'll also be giving a Powerpoint presentation at their meeting located here in Denver on April 23. If you're in the vicinity you may want to come! Here is my topic:

• Visual Journaling with Beads, Fibers, Threads and Fabric
• View over 200 beaded journal pieces by 42 artists participating in the 2007-08 Bead Journal Project!
• Compelling and inspirational, this unique beadwork tells stories, reveals emotions and follows important events in the lives of the artists who create a visual journal each month during the year-long project.
• In this presentation, you will see some of the best!

Colorado beaders are wonderful! I've taught there previously and been very impressed with the level of skill and artistry. Several BJP members live in Colorado, including:

• Vicki S (07-08)
• Mary T (both years)
• Marva P (08-09)
• Donna S (o8-09)

There's also a possibility that I'll be teaching during the first week of October in Arizona. Stay tuned on that one!

Clues ~ Mystery Beadwork

Here is a post showing beautiful fragments of historical bead embroidery, weaving and smocking that I bought 15 or so years ago. The origins of this 100+ year old beading were unknown by the seller, except that he bought it from a peddler in Mexico City. In the post I asked for help in identifying the origins.

Help arrived! I'll post the complete findings in a later post. But, in summary, the work appears to be from Mexico, probably from the Nahua natives of the central Puebla area. My information comes from two main source books: La Chaquira en Mexico and Costumes of Mexico both of which are well illustrated, fascinating books. (By the way, la chaquira = beads!)

Just as a teaser, here is one of the pieces in my collection.


Here is a diagram from La Chaquira en Mexico showing the techinque for bead embellished pleating, as done by the Nahua natives.


And here is a picture from the same source showing a blouse made with this technique. Incidentally, I think this blouse is more recently made and with a slightly different technique than the fragments I have. Yet there certainly are similarities.


Choices

Are you familiar with Robert Glenn, the painter who writes a free newsletter about the artistic process, painting and issues affecting artists? I love reading his thought-provoking articles that come to my email once a week and thought I'd share a few words from his latest ~ about choices we make as artists. He writes:

Today I spoke on the phone to several colleagues. We were talking about planning versus improvisation. While many fine artists plan everything in detail and then simply execute, others admit they don't know what they're doing from the get-go, but they start anyway and spend a lot of time fixing up. Both systems work... The nice thing about choices is that they can be changed... The wayside choices we make, however minor or major, determine our signature, our style and our level of personal satisfaction.

So, the ol' improv vs. plan question comes up in all aspects of art, I guess. What do you think of his point about our choices determining our style and level of personal satisfaction?