I'm not exactly sure how this all started, but I seem to be in a fringe state of mind lately. I feel like every time I look at a piece, that could potentially be 'finished' .... I think, so could I add a little fringe to this side here?
A few weeks back my friend Christine met me in NYC and we walked The High Line. If you are ever in New York, check it out. It is an oasis in a noisy city. Christine and I were threatening to come back and bring our beads and lounge for the afternoon on their roller chairs! (Below) they are plank lounges that roll on the old rail tracks. Seriously cool!
Spending time with Christine is like two sisters that haven't seen each other in awhile and stay up ridiculously late talking into the wee hours of the night. The High Line was a bonus as we took in all this amazing scenery, and art, and NY views. A glorious day! We stopped into the Chelsea Market to snoop the shops, and wandered into the Anthropologie there. I do love their eclectic, bohemian style. But I don't like their prices!
I always have to take a peek at the jewelry, and I noticed that they were putting out tassel earrings this Fall. I grabbed a few examples (above right) off their website ... the green tassels are $198 -- yikes! The ones I found in the store were a little more reasonable, more along the lines of $50, but still they are tassels? You know the ones you cut off the ends when you buy semi-precious gems.
The ones I looked at in the store had a bit of chain wrapped around them with a glass bead? I showed Christine, and said "we could do so much better than this!" Ok, was that a challenge? Yeah, you all know where this is heading. Now I had to try it. These bead up quickly, and of course there is beaded fringe on my fringe. Because I'm just in that state of mind lately.
Today we're celebrating Therese's Birthday (of Therese's Treasures), and she does it in such a unique way. She sends out gifts to all of us! How nice is that? This year Therese decided to apprentice with a local glass artist. As her first lesson she learned fusing glass, and she created a series of cabs, which is what she has shared with us! She told us that her birthday present was to see what we make with her cabs.
In this first lesson she learned how to cut glass, score and break it, then the fun begins with fusing shapes and 'sandwiching' pieces of glass. You can see Therese (top left) shaping the glass in the picture I grabbed from her blog, along with her collection of cabs she made! You can read more about her process here.
The cab Therese sent me is on the lower right of the picture. It is really a beautiful piece! I am pretty new to working with cabs, in fact this is now my second bead bezel piece, so I kept it simple to let the cab really take center stage. Then I did some simple stringing for the rest of the bracelet, again because I did want to fight with the dominant colors of the cab. I added just a little bit of gold beading to pull out the gold in the glass. The end result kinda reminds me of a modern piece of art ... almost Kandinsky! Happy Birthday Therese, and thanks for hosting a great birthday blog hop! Here are all the other birthday hoppers: Alicia, Amy, Bobbie, Christine, Cynthia (that's me), Kristen, Lola, Marla, Maryanne, Shirley, Therese and Crystie
It is exciting to see something that you created and put a lot of effort into, get published. I feel that way whether it is in a printed magazine, or in the pages of the eMagazine I work on called Bead Chat Magazine.
This month we did a tribute to Bead Trends Magazine. I think a lot of us were quite sad to see the end of it's publication. The magazine was always beautifully done. And I think a lot of felt it was more accessible to the broader bead community than some publications. That is one thing that the team at Bead Chat Magazine has tried to do; to make a publication that is accessible, and one that celebrates all the wonderful artists in our midst.
I was one of the many people who submitted to Bead Trends, had one of my pieces selected only to find out weeks later that it would not be published. And that they were ceasing the magazine. What! Really? It sent ripples through the bead community. Our team decided to asked Tatia Meyer, the publisher, if she'd be willing to do a tribute issue with us. You'll see a letter that she wrote (Pgs 9-10) to thank all those who contributed through the years.
I was so bummed when I heard my piece wasn't going to be published, as this was a piece that I had been dying to share with people. I made it early last Spring, shipped it off to Bead Trends, and then found out it was back logged as one of the many that needed to be returned.
I was excited about our Bead Trends Tribute, because I was going to be able to show you all my necklace, along with pieces from several other artists. Mine uses an irregular netting pattern. The beads are from my Turkish friend who brought them back from a visit. Their odd shapes contribute to the old world feel of the piece. I added wing oyster shells (I brought back from a trip to New Zealand) as the fringe. I wanted to give some substance to the edging, but also have a little sound from the movement of the piece. The shells were just the thing. It sits up on the collar bone and looks fantastic with a scoop neck top. Be sure to check out all the other unpublished pieces, plus an interview with Jess Italia Lincoln from Vintaj, and Erin Siegel who talks about her thoughts on being published. It's another packed issue!
Last time I was up at our camp in the Adirondacks I asked my mother-in-law about a large string of shells hanging on the wall. They had clearly been there a very long time, but no one seemed to know why or where they came from. She said that they had come back with my husband's older brother from one of his many, many adventures. Exactly which location? Hard to say ... Thailand, India, Mexico ... she couldn't remember.
She said that they had no sentimental value and perhaps I could use the shells in my designs. Oh she knows how to sweet talk me! That took about 3 seconds, as I had to climb the stairs to reach the string of shells. They have a beautiful orange and off white pattern to them. Those were in my bag before she could finish the sentence.
And then a few weeks back I met up with my friend Christine and she gave me a shell her brother found in Florida from a beach combing excursion. She had drilled a hole in the top which made it perfect for a focal. She also gifted me this really cool banana fiber, which adds the best rustic boho feel to the piece. Funny how bits and pieces just fall together like they were always meant to be.
Christine is hosting a 'rolling' blog hop. And she means that in more ways than one! The participants are revealing their spool projects one by one through the month of November. I am the sixth blogger to show you my reveal. We've already seen beautiful pieces from Janet, Hope, Tanya, Maryanne and Bobbie (click the links at the end of the post to see their creations).
I started with sanding off the paper labels of my spools, then staining them with furniture stain. If you're interesting in giving this a try just remember that it will dry somewhat tacky to the feel. Just grab a cloth and buff it as a finishing touch.
I've been wanting to try beadwork that literally 'rolled' around an object; much like the kind of work you'd see in tribal Native American ceremonial pieces. The only problem with that is once I really dug in to explore how you stitch something like this I realized that you really need to sew it into a hide or fabric. The stitch is typically called a gourd stitch, sometimes Comanche brick, or even Native American Church (the origin of peyote stitch). The stitch is typically at a slant and beaded around a solid object like a fan handle, drum stick or gourd rattle.
Ok, well I don't give up that easily. I knew I could still give this a go. I decided peyote was going to work. I have been wanting to do a chevron pattern, and I was so excited when my stitches lined up exactly to the pattern count! Wow! That never happens for me. Serendipity indeed.
Now for a little research on the meaning behind the chevron pattern. I was expecting it to be Egyptian (yeah, I've seen Stargate one too many times). I found that the word itself is French, 'huh, who knew?' It means rafter, or the supporting beam running along the ridge of the roof. The visual signifies a roof-peak on a house, and means protection. It does go back to the Middle Ages where knights would put the symbol on their shields to protect them in battle. I'll have to call this piece "The Protector."
For my second spool I just let the beads flow like a continuing story. I wanted to go for a subtle tone, on tone look. I used irregular, off-white seed beads and a new bead I just discovered (thank you Janet!) from Jimenas Treasures. They are fiber beads around copper coils, and are heavier than they look. They were the perfect add to this necklace with every element in a clean, simple coil pattern. I do actually have one more spool to show you, but this post is long enough for today! Stop back by next week and I'll show you my third piece.
Christine is one of the first people I remember meeting on my bloggy journey. The first blog hop I ever joined was for the 7000 Bracelets for Hope that she was co-hosting. I somehow managed to figure out how to pre-schedule my post while away on vacation. Anyone who knows the two of us knows what a ridiculous conversation it was for Christine and I to have any sort of advance technology discussion! However when it comes to beading we seem to be so in sync that I think it surprises even us. While I've only known her for 2 short years, I feel like we've been friends forever. I doubt seriously that I could summarize our friendship in one paragraph, but that is the beauty of it. I know that there is a long story still unwritten ahead of us. Yes, a continuing story that comes together thread, by thread. Thank you my friend for creating such an adventurous blog hop! I totally enjoyed this one!
Our host: Christine (Christine's post), and all the rest of the rolling bloggers: Janet (Janet's post), Cynthia (that's me), Kim (Kim's post), Therese (Therese's post), Tanya (Tanya's post), Bobbie (Bobbie's post), Liz (Liz's post), Maryanne (Maryanne's post), Karin (Karin's post), Lisa (Lisa's post), Hope (Hope's post) and Erin (Erin's post)
ZnetShows asked a few of us to create for an amazing charity called 7000 Bracelets of Hope. It is an initiative from the Global Genes | RARE project, which is an advocacy organization for individuals with rare and genetic diseases. This organization started the 7000 Bracelets of Hope initiative to provide blue-themed bracelets to families fighting rare and genetic diseases. The idea is that these bracelets give support and a little hope to these families. As well, the unifying blue theme may help spread awareness.
ZnetShows asked us to pick some blue colored beads to create with, and I picked these amazing double hole sea glass beads. I absolutely love them and had so much fun playing with the design in this bracelet. The pale blue really pops with the matte black onyx beads. I've been wanting to practice beading around another bead, and so I did a little blue accent around the onyx to pull the blue color through out the design. This one should look great with a pair of jeans!
The other bracelet I'm sending off to RARE is a bracelet I made this summer with beautiful Chinese crystals I got from ZnetShows. It also features a large clear crystal as the main focal, and a blue sea glass hoop as a toggle (both from ZnetShows). You could wear this one either way!
I have really enjoyed working with all the stones, beads and sea glass that ZnetShows has sent us to try out. Really beautiful stuff. Click on the link to check out their beads!
Christine sent me a very interesting piece to play with a few weeks back. She had a great idea to create her own pottery shards. She found pottery where she liked the pattern, and then had a little fun smashing and sanding the edges! What a great idea! She is always full of surprises.
I absolutely love the green in this piece, but interesting how it uses touches of yellow-gold as well. Somehow it reminded me of nature and even just a bit like tapestry. Ok, now there is an idea. I put together a mood board with some medieval images (as you all knew that I would!). I got lost pulling from two of my favorite boards: antiquities / medieval. I love Pinterest for this reason; it's great to get the creative juices flowing! My mood board may not exactly match my piece, but you can see what was running through my head as I created.
This week Sally's prompt has a seasonal twist to it. She asked us to focus on: saints, souls, skulls or scares. And while sugar skulls are most popular this time of year, I've been playing around with another type of skull: Southwestern style. In my opinion, no one does it quite like Georgia O'Keeffe.
Georgia traveled from NY to northern New Mexico in 1929, and she talked about her love of the area saying “When I got to New Mexico that was mine. As soon as I saw it that was my country. I’d never seen anything like it before, but it fitted to me exactly. It’s something that’s in the air, it’s different. The sky is different, the wind is different. I shouldn’t say too much about it because other people may be interested and I don’t want them interested.”
Georgia was a photographer and a painter and you can see the influence of advanced photography (of the time) in her paintings. Her imagery is both crisp and surreal. She painted the subtle nuances of color, shape and light on her subject, in more than 900 paintings during her lifetime.
I'm showing several images of my necklace to explain some of the things I'm learning as I use my new camera. The main reason I wanted the camera was to be able to get better close ups of my jewelry, and I also wanted to play with the focus so I could blur out the background as you see in this picture (left). I hung the necklace in a tree to create the green background. I have been trying all kinds of surfaces to get a completely white background. This is so that you can take the background out of the picture and have only the image of the jewelry. We typically use a white background for Bead Chat Magazine. I tried a blank white canvas, cotton, cheesecloth, even fresh white sand ... and most of these surfaces produce a bluish hue? You see this in the first picture (top left). For some reason the watercolor paper absorbs the light instead of deflecting it and gives the warm hue you see in the second picture (top right).
As for my necklace, Georgia was my inspiration. I wanted to get that stark Southwestern feel in my focal. I used a custom cut wood focal made by Edi Royer of Memories for Life along with some small wood feathers that I've had her make me before. A bit of simple tone on tone beading (the large rounds are howlite) to create the headdress on my skull. You'll see this featured next week in the November issue of Bead Chat Magazine. I'm just giving you a sneak preview and some learnings on photographing. There is a big announcement next week, so be sure to look for it over at Creative Bead Chat!
This is Rita's second annual hop to celebrate Octoberfest! And she's got quite a line up of participants. She's already at 50 people, and had nearly as many last year.
Rita of Toltec Jewels calls this time of year "October Magic" and the colors of Fall "glowing embers in the sky."
I'm inclined to agree with her. I do really love the deep orange-red you can see in these images, and that I can see all over New England during "Leaf Peeping" Season (as they call it around here).
The colors this time of year are an inspiration for design, and so I started with the images straight off of Rita's blog post. I do have a tendency to create Pinterest boards for inspiration, and of course I have one for New England that is full of these colors of Fall. Yeah, I'm a tad obsessed.
Alrighty then, back to my project for this hop. Using Rita's images as my inspiration I created a series of earrings.
The colors remind me of carnelian stones, copper and brass. And so, that is exactly what I used in my Fall-inspired earring series. The beautiful copper in these are from Melinda of Orrtec. She makes her own components and they really are gorgeous!
I also belong to Blogging Business Artisans who have a challenge out for this month to get ready for the holidays. And while I'm not one to do Christmas inspired jewelry, I am certainly one to use the colors of Fall in my designs! I do really love this time of year, and can't wait to see what all the other artists created for Rita's Octoberfest-inspired hop!
We are coming up on week 43 of Sally's weekly photo hop. I can't believe how this group has banded together and kept the momentum! I will miss the weekly hopping around from blog to blog come January! It has really been so much fun getting to know everyone better through photography and learning more about each of your lives.
Ok enough teary stuff. For this week we were focusing on shadows. We were to capture where we see shadows, and the patterns that they make. Well at this time of year they get long. And for me, it can be a challenge since I was trying to take pictures during daylight hours, during the work week. Because the buildings are so tall where I am, it is hard to catch shadows! So instead I focused my camera (ehem iphone) upward and watched them dance across the Helmsley Building. It sits straddling Park Avenue at about 46th street. A nice way to take a break from a long day at work, and the weather is just perfect at the moment!
I am coming up on 2 years of blogging, which seems to have gone by so quickly! I can not believe how many amazing people I have meet through this experience, and I am so glad that I decided to start a blog. I decided to ask a few fellow bead weaving friends of mine to join a challenge using a focal as a theme. I saw this piece and just had to ask for a custom order!
Luckily for me, five lovely ladies agreed to help me celebrate using this amazing focal created just for us by Jana of Happy Fish. If you have not yet heard of Jana, then do click over and check out her beads. She is one very talented artist! I now have quite a stash collection of her work! So there will certainly be more coming from me using her beads ... just as soon as I can part with them.
Today I will be showing you what I did with my focal from Jana. I call him Sleeping Giant because he looks like the mountain range here in Connecticut with the same name. But as I continued to look for background on the local park, I realized that there are quite a lot of places with the same name. There is one in Ontario Canada, Colorado, Hawaii ... just to name a few.
The local legend (from the Quinnipiac Native American Tribe) goes something like this. The giant stone spirit Hobbomock (a nasty character in many old stories) became angry about his people being mistreated, and stomped his foot so heavily that he changed the course of the Connecticut River that runs from the top of the state to the bottom. To prevent him from creating such havoc again in the future, the spirit Keitan (the 'good guy') cast a spell on Hobbomock to sleep ... forever. Thus lying down and creating the mountain that looks like a Sleeping Giant.
And one more quick little indulgence that I found while searching was this icicle discovered in the Seattle area that revealed the same profile of our focal. Did they carve that? or did it melt that way? Got me, but that is cool!
Ok, so on to the focal. I did fight just a little with him at first. I originally had him upright (like the picture at the beginning of the post). But he just kept wanting to lay down in all designs. So I ripped the first piece apart (after being roughly 75% done with it!). But I like him so much better laying down, and now he does look like the sleeping giant.
I decided to use a graduated grey, to twilight, to deep blue colorway to represent the night sky. A few sparkles here and there for the stars coming into view. The grey below is a night reflection on water. So you'll have to use a little imagination to see my guy laying down for his long sleep!
Now that I've shown what I've done with my focal from Jana, I'm off to see what everyone else did with their designs. I simply can not wait to see what each of them have created! Here is everyone's link so you can check out their reveals.
Janet Bocciardi Honey from the Bee, Christine Altmiller One Kiss Creations, Bobby Rafferty Beadsong, Therese Frank Therese's Treasures, Alicia Marinache All the Pretty Things, Cynthia Machata Antiquity Travelers (that's me)
This week Sally asked us to think about all the various things that happen in the course of a day. I decided to give you a little photo tour through my day; through my usual routine to and from my 'day job'
I've been playing around with silk a lot lately trying to find new techniques that fit my repertoire. This piece features a beautiful deep turquoise blue 'reclaimed' sari silk from Darn Good Yarn.
Darn Good Yarn employs women in India and Nepal. And when asked, why women? They will tell you "globally, women experience poverty more than men do. The money they will make with us helps promote their family's education, healthcare and provide basic necessities like food. It also lessens the effects of gender and caste discrimination by providing them with a hand-up rather than a hand-out." That is a cause I can support!
I wanted to create a piece that was soft, and relaxed with that touch of boho to it. The silk is the perfect fit for this look. I also wanted to play with turquoise giving the ends of the silk fringe a little extra something. The focal is a piece that Christine had in her stash for some time it seems. So she asked if I wanted to have a go with it. Um, yes please. After I made this one, I wrapped it up and gave it back to Christine. I hope she finds some good use for this boho-inspired piece. I sure had fun making it.
Many months ago my friend Christine showed me a pattern that she created called "Gallery." I had asked her if she'd show me some basic bead weaving stitches, of which one of them was square stitch. Not a difficult stitch, but does take time to work your way through a bracelet.
However, it really shouldn't take 6 months! I started it, and then got side tracked with all the other projects on my beading table. Only to find it several weeks ago and to pick it up and finish it.... one evening just hanging out with the family.
I've been wearing the bracelet ever since. It fits so comfortably on, and actually feels like I'm not wearing it at all. Which in my opinion is a great thing since I type at the computer most days. And can't stand to have a bracelet clunking into my desk and key board all day long! I've had lots of compliments on this one, but this one isn't for sale. I know I've told you all before that I don't wear much of the jewelry I make, but this one will get a lot of rotation in the ones that I do actually wear. It's my new favorite.
This post is crazy long over due. Back in July my friend Janice over at Bikbik & Roro sent me the sweetest package. It included this cute little guppy pin that I absolutely adore! And she included some fun stuff for my girls (stickers - which my youngest still loves to collect) and a ghostlet postcard.
She makes each pin by hand with recycled heavyweight paper and fabric, and a lot goes in to each one. She mounts them on thick illustration board and painstakingly hand cuts, paints, sands and varnishes each one to make these cuties. But then all her wonderful items in her shop are such wonderful handmade items like her soft toys and tabby cat totes. Check out her shop!
It was back in July when I sent two of my beaded fish to two big sisters over in Singapore that were expecting a baby brother. Yes, Janice has a beautiful new baby in her family. And even in her last weeks of pregnancy, she was so organized to exchange fish with me! And I absolutely love mine.
I need to play catch up again. So apologies for the few extra pictures I'm showing this week. Let's start with Sally's prompt from this week. She asked us to think about connections, and I thought I'd show a whole lotta connection in one place! It really was fun to meet so many of you in person this August at Bead Fest. Yes, I know I'm cheating just a little since I took this picture a few weeks ago. But still, you have to admit it works for this week's prompt!
I actually have been taking pictures for each of Sally's prompts from the previous weeks, I just didn't get a chance to get the post put together. Sometimes life just gets in the way of everything else going on. And that darn day job .... tends to get busy as we head into the holidays. So I tend to get a little behind this time of year.
Anyway, so for last week's prompt Sally asked us to show you a smile. Now this isn't my daughter Anne's usual ear-to-ear grin, which she is known for, but her subtle "I-see-you-taking-my-picture-mom" smile.
This next picture may not be the most amazing one I've ever taken, but here's the thing. I've been wanting to upgrade my camera so I could play with focus. Focus in on the subject - blur out the background. I wanted to be able to take better macro photography of my jewelry. I finally got my camera in July and have been playing ever since. I've taken lots of late season flower pictures like this one where I can zero in on the flower and the bee resting just on top. I'm so excited I can do photography like this now!
And just one more. When Sally asked us to focus on a quiet moment, well nothing says quiet to me like tea, in my favorite chair reading over all of your blog posts! This happens to be a cup of homemade Chai. I don't buy Chai in the store, as I'm not exactly sure what that is supposed to be? But it doesn't taste like true Indian Chai. So I buy tea and spices to make my own. I also have a hand whip to froth my milk. Most of the people I saw making Chai on the streets of India would froth the tea by pouring back and forth between containers. I'm just not that skilled - it would be a kitchen disaster for sure. And would completely ruin my quiet moment!
I'm not exactly sure how this all started, but I seem to be in a fringe state of mind lately. I feel like every time I look at a piece, that could potentially be 'finished' .... I think, so could I add a little fringe to this side here? 
I always have to take a peek at the jewelry, and I noticed that they were putting out tassel earrings this Fall. I grabbed a few examples (above right) off their website ... the green tassels are $198 -- yikes! The ones I found in the store were a little more reasonable, more along the lines of $50, but still they are tassels? You know the ones you cut off the ends when you buy semi-precious gems. 
