Slow Beaders

Welcome to the weekly Slow Sunday Stitching party! If you enjoy creative hand stitching, you are one of us!

Jackie's Bead Collection

On Friday I taught a class called "Intuitive Beading on Quilts". It was a wonderful day spent in the company of avid hand stitchers and creative quilters. It's so rewarding for a teacher when the students are excited about the topic, listen intensely, fearlessly attempt the techniques, and ask great questions. It was such a great day, and I felt so energized by their enthusiasm, that I could hardly settle down when I got home!


I took these photos of hand stitching so I could share them with you today. 
Auditioning the beads for the project is almost as fun as actually stitching them to the quilt. We practiced various types of stitches, and then learned about using your intuition and creativity to guide the design process (and all the decisions in your life). 

Killarney

Beading is a very relaxing hand stitching hobby and a great way to add texture and bling to a quilted, cross stitched or knitted project. Have you tried beading?
What are you stitching by hand today?
Link up your blog post below and share your progress with us.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Painting and Beading

I just finished teaching a biweekly beading class for the Canadian Embroiders' Guild and was totally inspired by these creative stitchers.
The first class we painted on fabric using Setacolor paints. In Canada these paints are available from G & S Dye.
I had forgotten how much I love to paint fabric...we had so much fun!
These are some of the paintings made by the students.

Can you see the white kosher salt? It is sprinkled on a painting to give some special effects.

Just look at how the salt is affecting this piece as it dries! The salt is not moving across the fabric, but the salt absorbs the moisture and makes it look like it is drawing the colour across the fabric.

Beaded Bindings

In the following weeks the students learned how to prepare the fabric for beading, practiced a variety of beading stitches, and discussed the process of intuitive bead designing. The last class was on beaded bindings and finishing the projects. 




These are two of the pieces made in the class. I was inpsired by these creative students, and I hope they had as much fun as I did! 

Slow Sunday Stitching - Hand Beading

This is a long post today with lots of photos so be forewarned! I took a beading class this week with Anne Marie Desaulniers. I used to do a lot of beading on fabric in the past and I have made many beaded quilts. But recently I have been enamoured with hand embroidery and hand quilting, and had gotten away from my beading. This class reminded me how much I love it and hope to incorporate more beading into my hand work. 
Here is my finished bead encrusted piece which I am calling "Killarney". It measures 2.5" square and contains hundreds of beads (mostly sizes 8, 11 and my favorite size 15) some watch gears, a cabochon made by Anne Marie, some stones, and other treasures I found in the bead box.
Here are the steps we went through following Anne Marie's instruction...

Step #1 Select a base size for the project and a foundation fabric. This is a piece of my brother's shirt.

Step #2 Select a cabochon and some coordinating beads. Attach cabochon with peyote bezel.

Step #3 Audition colours, found items, and beads, and cluster them around cabochon.

Step #4 Start to sew down the parts you know you like. Listen for the story that is developing.

Step #5 Fix things that you don't like. I added a piece of a brown shirt behind the watch cog.

Step #6 You don't have to know the whole design, just stitch down what you know you like.

Step #7 Create movement with lines of beads.

Step #8 Audition beads in open areas.

Step #9 Have fun and try some specialty beading stitches.

Step #10 Continue to add design around cluster.

Step #11 Do the grunt work and fill in all the edges with size 15 beads.

And voila... you have magically created an intuitively beaded story! These steps make it sound easy, and I have to admit that it really is not. You mostly have to "get out of your own way" and learn to listen to your own inner creative voice. You can take a class with Anne Marie and make one for yourself if you live near Toronto, Canada - click here for more information about her classes.
What are your hands creating this week? Link up your blog post below and share your project with other hand stitchers around the world. We love to see what you're stitching!

Relaxing Saturday

It's a beautiful sunny, hot summer day here and I am relaxing, staying cool, doing some beading and watching some of the PGA golf tournament. I am also drinking some Cosmopolitans...lots of fruit juice, and a few frozen blueberries to keep my drinks cool.

I had to add some commercial fabric to my painted piece to make it large enough to cover the pillow form that I found in my cupboard.

I sewed a crystal bead in the centre of each sun-printed flower and then stitched some tiny gold beads around each crystal. Now I'm wondering if I want to add some gold tassels of some sort on the corners. I'll think about it while I get myself another drink!

Beading and Beaded Gifts

I think I am getting the message to get back to more beading! This week I received a gift in the mail all the way from Grace in Indiana...check out her blog here to see her beautiful bead work. I was one of the lucky winners of her brooch giveaway! My photo is not great, so you should hop over to Grace's blog to see how it really looks...her photography skills are way better than mine. And her fine bead work is even more amazing up close!

Then at guild meeting tonight, the project was a beaded snowflake, which I loved making. I have not done this type of beading before and was fascinated. Again, you need to check out Grace's December BJP project where she made some similar snowflakes that I was admiring. And what are the chances that I show up to guild meeting and find that I get to learn how to make one!?! Here is a photo of the first snowflake I made. ..and a photo of me working with my beads, and not able to see past the end of my nose without my glasses on!I really enjoyed making this project and I'm thinking of making more for my December BJP. I had to force myself to remember my social skills, because it was, after all, the last guild meeting of the year, and I really should visit with other guild members! Sometimes I get into the "beading zone" and can't think of anything else. And here is the last photo of the night...9:15 pm and everyone else has gone home...something about bad weather? I couldn't get the second snowflake to work...must have made a mistake and I'll have to try again tomorrow morning when the eyesight is better.

Now all I want to do is beading...and I have so much stuff to do for Christmas. Hey...maybe I'll make beaded snowflakes for everyone!

Quilt Festival

I attended the opening ceremonies of the Waterloo County International Quilt Festival and arrived too late to get in on any of the appetizers and treats! The doors opened at 6:45 pm and by the time I arrived at 7:15 pm, only honeydew melon remained! But I was there in plenty of time for the handing out of the awards for the Ontario Juried Show. I wish more recipients would have been there to receive their awards, but now that the competition is open to entries from across Canada, I'm guessing there will be less award winning quilters able to attend. After the ceremony, we viewed the quilts which is always fun for me. I like to see how my opinions gel with the judges (or not!). I appreciate that this show uses different judges every year and you never know who they are until the opening ceremonies.
If you get a chance to see these quilts at RIM, see if you can tell which OJS quilt was my favorite. Here is a big clue....it is a bed size quilt made of 1" squares...yes...the whole thing was 1" squares! And the machine quilting was exquisitely done and perfect for the theme of the quilt. It was a lovely quilt from far away, but up close it takes my breath away! When the award winning quilt photos are posted on line, I'll post the link to my favorite. You can see the winning quilts from other years here....scroll to the bottom of the page for each years winners. Click here to see the winning quilts from 2004 which was the year that I was a juror and judge for this show. It was a very exciting, rewarding and exhausting experience.
Similar to opening night this year!
I was initially very excited to be in my first invitational quilt show called "Glitz Embellished Pieces" but on opening night, I must say that it was intimidating for me. Again most of the artists were not in attendance at the opening ceremonies since they are not from this area (or the province). Here is a photo of me beside my miniature embellished quilts. They do seem a bit lost in that huge arena full of bed size masterpieces, however I do take some pride in the fact that my quilts were the smallest ones in all of RIM park!

Goddess of the Last Minute - Quilt #3

As I wrote in previous posts, I had to pick 3 quilts to be in a quilt show in May. I already wrote about quilt#1 and quilt#2. And here is quilt #3, called "Infinity". It started with a piece of hand painted fabric (I use Setacolor paints) and a box of beads. My son and I like to watch the olympics together on TV but I get bored after about 10 minutes if I don't have handwork to do. So this is what I like to do to keep my creative mind busy while I watch TV.

This quilt is 10 1/2" x 6 1/2".

I have been taking a break from doing this kind of hand work until my thumb nail heals up. Thanks to those of you who emailed me with suggestions on promoting faster healing. I think we all agree that doing the dishes (and any other houshold chore requiring hands in water) is not a good thing, so I am taking a break from that!

I have been working on my samples for the Quilt University class I am taking on "Points and Curves". These are the practice pieces I have made so far. Although these techniques were not new to me, I have been challenging myself to draft the patterns on EQ (Electric Quilt program) and that has not been as much fun as I had hoped! For the next lesson I am going back to the regular old-fashioned method of "paper and pencil" pattern drafting.

Goddess of the Last Minute - Quilt #2

On Thursday I wrote about having to pick three of my quilts to be in a quilt show in May, and I showed you the first choice. This is the beginning of the second chosen quilt...gathering the pattern and the supplies. Members of my guild will recognize the fabrics, as this quilt was made for a guild challenge in which we were given a fat quarter of the green and the blue fabrics on the top of these fabric piles. The theme was "celebration". The photo on the left shows some of the beads and threads I bought for this project, and the 2 1/2" EQ5 (Electric Quilt) paper pieced pattern I used. On the right is the finished piece called "Celebrating Beauty and the Beads". I had a different design layout in mind for this quilt, but it exceeded the measurements of the miniature quilt category so I had to come up with something else. It took me a while to decide to include this piece because I had to contact it's new owner and ask to borrow it back for the show! On the left is a close-up photo of one of the blocks which shows some of the beading. The size of this piece is 7 1/2" across by 11" from top to bottom.
Only one more quilt to choose!

Goddess of the Last Minute!

I know that Robbi Joy Eklow claims to be "Goddess of the Last Minute", but I could give her a run for her money! I was invited many months ago to submit three pieces for the Quilt Festival's "Glitz, Glitz, Glitz Embellished Exhibit" in May. Only three pieces...that's right...3! So I have been fussing around since then about which 3 to pick...older pieces? Newer pieces? Which ones? Quilts from my cupboard? Or should I recall quilts I have given away? Of course my most favorite quilt is usually my most recent one, but it's not finished yet and has decided to not be finished by the deadline, so that one is out.
So, now the coordinator has emailed me to remind me about the deadline for the paperwork. No problem, I say...when is it?? Tomorrow!! Yikes...how did that get here so fast?!?! It's a lot of paperwork...four pages per piece plus the artist's bio...that's 13 pages to write up before tomorrow. Why did I leave this to the last minute?!?!
I asked my sick daughter, who is a captive audience, for a consultation and she easily picked her favorites. We decided this one is in for sure since we both love it! It is called "New Growth: Branching Out" and was made as one of my assignments in Myrna Geisbrecht's Self Expression class at Quilt University. It started with a hand painted fabric that I liked, and I was inspired by the drying lines in the paint to quilt a tree...the funky little "Dr. Suess" flowers evolved, and the tree trunk and branches were darkened with Caran d'Ache water soluble crayons. The quilting is in the style inspired by my friend Judy Taylor, who is a pro at this kind of machine quilting. I tried to bead each flower in a different way. The beading inside the binding is from Mary Stori's Beading Basics book. (Wow...that is alot of links that I just wrote up, but I like to give credit where credit is due! Just click on the coloured words and your computer will take you to their websites.) The size of this piece is 8 1/2" square.
So, that leaves two more quilts to pick. And a pile of paperwork to fill in. Tune in tomorrow night to see the other two quilts that get to go to the Glitz show. If I was more organized, I'd make my decision like "American Idol" does and get my blog readers to vote! Maybe next time!

Beading my fingers to the bone!

To keep from losing my mind while the children are sick, I have been doing some beading. I am sewing beads onto my hand painted fabric (Setacolor paints) in whatever design the paint seems to indicate. Here is a small section on the right.
It is very soothing and relaxing. I have also sewn a bit of embroidery floss in some places and found that I really enjoy that too! I work on it in between emptying throw up bowls, disinfecting everything in the house, and bringing fluids to my patients! It is starting to get a little painful now because with all the hand washing and disinfecting, my skin is getting quite irritated. But because I want to bead, I don't put on hand lotion...my fingers get too slimy to grab the needle! The children better recover soon, or my skin will be worn right through!