Tiny steps

Here's a bit of beauty to start off the day. The amaryllis our wonderful neighbors gave us is blooming. Here it has two blossoms, but now it has six. It is in the living room by my spinning area. I love sitting here in the afternoon (on my lunch break on days when I work at home) in the sun, spinning and listening to the news on NPR. Right now, I'm spinning more for a second attempt on the scarf for Kelly. The good news is that the first attempt can become an-already-ready Christmas scarf for someone petite. Whoo hoo!

Beading is happening. Slowly, but surely. Hannah and I can play and spin, play and weave, play and cook, play and fold laundry, play and wash dishes, play and wrap presents, but playing and beading doesn't seem to work. She just wants to take little pinches of beads and spread them around the house--and she's not satisfied with just one little pinch--no. She wants to take pinches of beads for the duration of the time that I have my beads out. It just isn't working very well. I know it is just a phase. So for now, beading must occur while Hannah is asleep. I have had some long meetings at work where I was able to get in a couple consecutive hours of beading--so that has helped. But, I don't think I'm going to meet my March 1st deadline (sorry Mary!).


Debbie at work received this beautiful(!) Australian Merino handdyed fiber (100 g) about 10 years ago from an appreciative customer and finally decided that she wasn't going to learn how to spin it. So she let me spin it for her--oh--it was fun. Mmmm. Like butter. I spun a thick and thin yarn for texture.
Now I have to take it to work and give it to her. I've been delaying. ...

Drawing your own heart

Bernadina wrote me and asked me to give her some direction about drawing hearts to bead--I thought photos would work best--though maybe a video would be even better.

I'll work on that.

In the meantime, here are some photos of how I draw my hearts (for beaded pins). This process can be applied (of course) to anything you want to draw--doesn't have to be hearts. I just have a thing for hearts--I imagine it has something to do with my mom's birthday being on Valentine's day.
Paper: I draw on my thesis bond paper left over from my grad school days at CSU. It has a nice weight, a good tooth, and is archival. It also stands up to beading really well--I've sampled other archival papers and while they have the other qualities, they tend to crack along folds. You can still use them to bead or even just typing paper (it may not last for your great-great- grandchildren to enjoy is all).

Pencils: I like to use quality colored pencils--these are Prismacolor. They are available at most art supply stores and craft stores. They make a nice mark even when you don't apply a lot of pressure. I keep a pencil sharpener handy for a nice point.















The first heart--lop-sided for a little bit of asymmetrical visual interest--drawn with a darker value pencil. It's not perfect--but it will do--I know that it will evolve as I draw.















Then I go over the outline and refine and enhance it.














Change colors and begin the zig-zag line around the heart. I love making this kind of hatching line. I could fill pages just doing this. I love going to restaurants where they provide crayons and a paper-covered table.















I always have a little trouble keeping my lines even when I'm going around the left side of the heart. Oh well--that's just the way it is.















Now I just start layering colors.































See how undulating hearts are created by the layers of colors--just scribbles around the heart shape.














I keep darker values on the outside edges and lighter values on the inside to create a glow.















Every once in a while I emphasize the outline of the heart.
















Notice that I'm starting to really overlap colors--that will really make the beading fun as the colors blend together creating new colors.
















Here I added the complement to red, green for a little bit of visual interest.


I worked on the outline a bit--fixing the left side of the heart and emphasizing the outline. Now that I'm happy with my heart, I'll cut it out and stitch it to cloth--and it is ready to bead. The colored pencils will transfer to the thread as you're beading, but it doesn't show through the beads. If you don't like that, you can seal the drawing with a fixative or scan it in and print it on your printer. Just know that inkjet inks will run when they get wet--so don't cry too much over your inkjet-printed hearts.

Done!

Friday September 7, 2007

I took Friday off of work and beaded all morning (except for the time between 9:15-10:30 when I got Hannah ready and took her to my parent's house for her day with Grandma Pat).

1:08 pm














2:47 pm















4:08 pm















4:38 pm--it's time to go pick up Hannah.














10:34 pm--Hannah and I had dinner with my mom and then Hannah fell asleep on the way home, around 7 pm--about an hour and half earlier than she usually does--though sad to miss our bedtime rituals--it was good to have more time to bead.














Saturday, September 8, 2007
7:50 am














8:29 am














11:13 am














12:51 pm--I took Hannah to the park and beaded for a while as she played in the sand. She took her nap when we got home and I was able to finish beading and frame the piece.














3:51 pm--beading is done!














Now it is time to frame

Stretching the silk noil on the interior frame using a staple gun.














Folding the fabric under at the corners and stapling.

















Stitching the beaded piece to the silk noil stretched on the frame.




















Very carefully cutting a hole in the fabric that is stretched on the interior frame, but not cutting the fabric of the piece stitched to the top of it.


















Stuffing the piece with 100% New Zealand Merino wool to give it a 3-d effect.

















All done--framed, now ready to pack for shipping.

Sunday Hannah and I went to Golden to walk along the river and play at the great playground by the river. Kelly's brother Kevin made it to the 4th round in Super Gas (out of 7 rounds of elimination) in the race in Earlville and moved up in their points for their ranking in the division.

Staying home to bead

Well, here it is Thursday and I still have quite a bit of beading to do on Atropos. I've reached one corner--which is good--but will probably spend tonight finishing the second corner (a good 3-4 hours of beading) and then tomorrow I've taken off of work (originally to go to Iowa, now to finish beading the piece) and I'll finish up the last two corners, frame the piece, photograph it, and ship it with the other pieces to the exhibit.
Kelly, my wonderful and talented husband, made the inside frame for the piece last night (see the picture below). I'll stretch silk noil on the inside frame (as you would a canvas to paint, using staples and stretching the fabric tightly around the wood frame) and then trim the silk noil on the beaded piece, turn the edges under, center it on the stretched fabric and stitch it to the frame. Then I'll cut a hole in the stretched fabric on the back (taking care not to cut the fabric on the beaded piece) and stuff the back of the beading with Merino wool from New Zealand (only the best for these pieces). Then I'll staple the ready-made black frame that I purchased from Pictureframes.com and finish it with a paper backing, tape my business card to the back, attach a hanging device and it'll be ready to go. Yep, I'm going to be lucky if I get all this done on Friday. Yikes! I think Hannah and I'll do something fun on Saturday--maybe go to the Children's Museum or the pool to celebrate getting all this work done. Or maybe on Sunday, depending on how things go.

Estes Park Wool Market and a 1/2 FO

I had a chance to go to a fiber festival as just a shopper instead of being a worker-bee in a booth since we didn't have a booth at Estes this year. Well, it didn't quite live up to my fantasy--but I still had fun. I went with Hannah and Kelly's mom and aunt--they are fiber folks, too, so we do a lot of fibery excursions together. It was a gorgeous drive up highway 93 to Boulder and then through Lyons and up into the mountains on 36. Everything is so green, green, green (for Colorado--let me qualify). We arrived around 10:30 am and the market was very busy--throngs of people. Hannah did a good job of being patient for the sheepies while we poked around booths and made some purchases. Here she is in front of the Yaks--she was fascinated by them. It was so sunny she couldn't open her eyes--but see the sweet smile! I've been going to this show nearly every year since I was a student at Colorado State University in the Fibers department (yep--that's 15 years). Of course, when I was a student I didn't have two cents to rub together--so it was an exercise in frustration. I remember visiting the Interweave Press booth before I was an employee and browsing through the books trying to decide which one to save my money for. Little did I know what fate had in store for me! And even though I've always had strong maternal longings, I didn't ever imagine what it would be like going to the festival with a 2-year-old. We were all exhausted before long--the crowds, the sun, the two-year-old who wanted to rattle the bars of each alpaca enclosure. Actually, I think in normal circumstances, I would have had a lot more stamina, but I'm on the healing end of a resistant bacterial infection (mastitis--yep, a swift kick in the boobie from a 2-year-old who is throwing a fit on her changing table and threatening to fall off can cause internal bleeding and lead to an infection even if you're no longer nursing--who knew!). 5 trips to the doctor, 1 extremely painful ultrasound, 3 antibiotics, and 6 weeks later, I'm finally getting better, but I'm really fatigued. So that's why my fantasy of being just a shopper and the reality of going to the market didn't quite match up. I did find some knitting needles that I needed and bought some Bonkers fiber. I toyed with the idea of getting a fleece, but decided I better work with the ones I have before I buy more.

I finished the sock! Yay. This is the 1/2 FO since I still need to make the second sock. It is a bit big. Also, I've misplaced my notes and will probably have to reverse engineer the second sock. I'll probably find the notes after I've finished the second sock and can then discover all the differences between the two socks. That is, if I ever get to making the second sock. I'm nearly done spinning the yarn for the second sock. I've been working on it in meetings.


Also, I've been working on a beading challenge issued at work by the Beading Daily editor, Michelle Mach. We were each given a little box full of the same beads and asked to make something with it. I'm making a beaded frame for this picture of my maternal grandparents. The deadline is June 29th and I could finish it real soon if I leave it like it is, or I could get a little out of control and cover every square inch with beads--which is what I'm inclined to do, but probably isn't doable.

Last night my dad brought spaghetti sauce and salad dressing for dinner and asked me to examine the label. It took me a while, but I finally saw that my mom's artwork was the feature art on the label! How exciting! Spinelli's is the neighborhood grocery and they are coming out with a line of natural products that will be at Whole Foods soon. The sauces and salad dressing are very yummy! And of course the artwork is beautiful--a watercolor painting my mom did of their store front in 1996.
Here are the bottles (already consummed) sitting on the potting table that Kelly made for me by recycling one of the old kitchen cabinets and putting a new top on it. I love it so much!

I have a lot of iris to plant! They were saved from the dump--a neighbor tore out their weed infested flower beds and replaced them with new landscaping and all these iris were headed to the trash. One of my neighbors let me know about it and then I got permission from the neighbors who were redoing their landscape to harvest the iris.
Now I just need to find time to plant them! (Here's a better view of my potting table--complete with carrot door pulls!)

Spring has sprung

After all the snow we got in December, I wasn't sure we'd see spring until June or July--but now the sun is out and tulips are bravely pushing through to greet the sun. I'm enjoying it as much as I can--since I know that (and all Coloradoans know this) we're totally going to get dumped on again--and most likely after all the buds and leaves are out. Springs tend to be in like a lamb and out like lion here. I'm resisting the urge to work in the garden because I know that those little shoots will need that compost protection for a little longer--or maybe until June. Seriously, we've had snow in June before.
Are you wondering what this next photo is? I'm making Anne's spindle pin into a pin. I couldn't resist adding a little colorful fiber from the mittens I've been making into it secretly (I guess it isn't so secret now that I've blogged about it! Oh well! It was feeling pretty secret last night). I usually add wool to my bead pieces to poof them out a little--I have a lot of wool on hand. Imagine that. The next photo is the piece nearly done--I need to add a piece of fabric to the back to cover up my messy stitches and then a pin back and I can ship it off to Anne who had the winning bid on an undesigned piece of her choice at SOAR 2006.

I'm doing some teaching this spring--maybe you're interested. I'm teaching "Make a Heart Pin" next week (Friday March 23rd) in Fort Collins, Colorado for the Fort Collins Chapter of the Embroiderer's Guild of America--contact me for details--they have a couple openings. Also, I'm teaching at Bead Expo in Oakland, California--and there are a couple spots left in the Spiral Heart Pin class--it is the same class as the one I'm teaching in Fort Collins.

Something happened to my photos in this post--so I reloaded them. And while I was doing that I added in this photo of blissed-out Lulu the cat enjoying the spring weather. You wouldn't know that she's about 14 years old by the way she runs around. Hannah says, "Lulu loud!" And it is so true. Lulu loves to talk, loudly--especially when the baby is sleeping.