Picture of beaded bead and Granny Weatherwax

Here is a picture of the beaded bead I am working on.

 I thought at first that it looked kind of like a frog's eyes, but later started thinking it looked a bit like a corset, at this point. Um. A friend of mine calls me terminally naive, and she may be right, but I'm getting better. Anyway, the little bumps are going to go all the way round, and then a row of slightly bigger bumps round the middle, and a second row of the small bumps for the last row. Then I add crystals between the bumps, and work some rows to tighten the ends, and I'll be finished. Appearances to the contrary, the yellowish beads are actually ceylon white pearl.

 Here is the little pot of beads I am using to stitch the bead up with. Pretty, no? Ceylon white pearl, Delica 24 kt Rose Gold, iris blue Charlottes, Capri blue 4mm Swarovski bicones, capri blue luster size 11 seed beads and three cut size 12 capri blue AB seed beads.

Here are two pictures of my avocado tree. I started her in August, and in November noticed that she had sent up a shoot, but that something had happened to it. So I brought her out from under the table, where I had placed her so that she could grow undisturbed, and added some water in hopes that she was still alive, She responded by sending up a second shoot, which got to six inches tall, and which one of the cats promptly bit off. I figured the tree had possibly gone to that big forest in the sky, but on the off chance she hadn't I put a glass chimney over her, to protect her from voracious herbivorous felines. Well, about a week later, I noticed leaflets poking out from the chopped off stems, and so she acquired a name, Granny Weatherwax, who had a sign she would hold when she was out borrowing animal minds, "I Aten't Dead Yet", so that no one would bury her by mistake. Well, the avocado tree "Aten't Dead Yet".

THE Magpie

Inna Gadda Da Beada

Some people will get the reference. As soon as I figure out how to fix the spacing problem on a crystal torus I made, I'll put a picture on of it. I tried it with the size beads they called for, and didn't like the way it twisted. So I tried with the next size bead, really hated how it twisted. So I'm going to try again, with different combinations of beads etc, and see if I can get it to fold the way the picture in the magazine is. Arrgh. For those who are curious, it is the toggle loop in a gold and black bracelet in the same issue as the green and cream bracelet I am making.

So while I am thinking about that, I am working on a beaded bead from the book Seed Bead Fusion by Rachel Nelson Smith. Very cool looking things in the book, I am doing the Oothecal Bedes, page 68. I'd put a picture in here, but all I have is a little bit of the right angle weave, and it looks awful. So I took a picture of what I have so far, but I'm not posting it without something that looks a bit more like I know what I am doing. Rachel did the pieces in matte pink, shiny pink, lime and green iris, mine is done in mid blue lustre, blue iris, pearl, gold and capri blue, which sounds like more colors, but the blues are very close in color. The little bowl of beads looks lovely all mixed up together, so I'm pretty sure the bedes will look very nice.

Oh, and next month, I've signed up for a class at one of my EGA Chapters--that is Embroiderer's Guild of America, and if you like to stitch and want to hang out with likeminded people, I highly recommend you check them out. www.egausa.org is the website. Anyway, it is a bracelet, made with firepolished crystals and seedbeads, and we had three colorways to choose from--none of them the bracelet that was there to show what it looked like :-( so I am doing it in AB crystal. The show and tell piece was done in red AB and gold, and looked very warm, hence, probably, the appeal.  Pictures will be posted when I do this.

Inna Gadda Da Vida, famous song by Iron Butterfly. I don't particularly like it anymore, mostly because the radio station I set on my alarm clock kept playing it at 4:30 AM, which was when I needed to get up, and I usually would lie in bed until the song playing on the radio when the alarm came on was over...

THE Magpie

Beading and Embroidering

Here is the picture of the framed Wizard hat.  It was inspired by the description of the Archchancellor of Unseen University's ceremonial hat, written down by Terry Pratchett in his book Sourcery. I stitched in the footnote he had explaining things, and it is where I get my nickname. I am very pleased with the frame, and, for now, the rumpled look works for me.

On to beading. This is a design out of Bead and Button Magazine, the October 2010, Issue 99. It is their cover project, and I liked it because of the textures created by the different beads and the angles they were set in. I had to modify it a bit, as I am using the 4mm cubes, not the 3mm cubes called for, but everything else is the same. I think it looks like a circuit board because of the colors of beads I chose.

Meanwhile, I have purchased Stumpwork and Goldwork Embroidery Inspired by Turkish, Syrian and Persian Tiles by Jane Nicholas (Hardcover - Sep 7, 2010) and the pictures in the book are scrumptious. I mentioned before that I got to take a stumpwork class from her, and she is an awesome teacher, and she had pieces from this book with her, so I got to see the actual  pieces, not just photos. They are even more scrumptious IRL. I am currently waiting on an order from Benton and Johnson of various goldwork supplies, then I am going to order the wires and beads from Jane Nicholas' site, I have embroidery floss (even silks!) and ivory silk dupione, and you know I'll be busy. Speaking of Benton and Johnson, I'd like to post a sincere thank you to one Neil Halford, the ever so nice gentleman who answered a zillion questions for me, promptly and completely. And, I had my answers back the day after I sent the questions. He works for/at Benton and Johnson, and I really appreciated the awesome customer service.

My shoulder is continuing to twinge a bit, but nothing like even a week ago, and the neck seems to be pretty much all better. Hi ho, physical therapy is next.

THE Magpie

Getting back to stitching

After developing a pain in my shoulder that got, in early December, bad enough that it hurt to stitch, not to mention keeping me awake and so was too tired to stitch--and even to think, really, I am getting back to stitching. I also now know what a cortisone shot to the shoulder feels like (actually, not that bad, really, but apparently the orthopedist my husband and I go to puts an anaesthetic together with the cortisone.

Oh, the pain is caused by two things, first, I have a tear in the tendon in my shoulder (could have been a much worse problem, so I am pretty thankful there) and also a pinched nerve in my neck, which is causing way more problems. They took x-rays of my shoulder, and everything looked okay, so I got to get an MRI--weirdly, I tend to fall asleep in them, which considering it is like being inside a jet engine, noisewise, is contradictory to say the least.

Anyway, I am feeling a lot better, and am working on my projects again, or at least one, which was in a beading magazine a few months ago. It is a bracelet done with cubes and seed beads, you daisy chain seed beads around the cubes, and then between the daisies you do an x in a different color of seed beads. I am using cream cubes, green size 11 seed beads, yellow iris metallic size 11 seed beads, and rainbow bronze size 14 seed beads. The yellow iris and rainbow bronze are very similar in color, and the whole thing is a checkerboard of cream, green, and metallic bronze. I'll add a picture once I get one made.

I also have to get a picture of The Hat, framed. I got it back and it is perfect!

THE Magpie

The Angel has Landed--or, I finished my son's angel. Finally!

This is my take on MLI's Angel of Love, which I have seen done in the original colors, and she is quite lovely done in the golds, colonial blues, bronze and brown. But you see, about the time I decided to stitch her, DMC had come out with this glorious set of turquoise blues, for reference, the color numbers are 3844-3846. They were perfect for her cape, and so I decided to change the color, and hey, the golds, bronzes and browns that went into her skirt were still gorgeous with the cape...But the blouse clashed horribly, so I had to change that color, and some of the skirt was done in the blouse colors...I'm sure you can see where this is going. Anyway, I ended up changing pretty much everything, with the exception of her skin, some browns and avocado greens in her cape and vest, and the white of her wings--um, skirt. Because I did her wings in white, but rayon floss rather than cotton, and changed the shadowing to lilac instead of gray. And the darkest shading on the wings I did in a Madeira blending filament that I got at the :-( sadly now out of business yarn and stitching shop called Wild and Wooly.

Here is a picture of the angel as I did her. The current plan is to "wall-hanging" her. I usually make stitched pieces into things other than framed pictures because I am too cheap (err, some say I should say thrifty) to spring for the cost of framing, although I did make an exception for the Arch-Chancellor's Hat due to the vast number of beads and other decorations on it and because it really can't be washed easily. Good news on the angel is that everything is washable, so wall hanging it is. I got some really pretty batik fabric at Seminole Sampler in Catonsville, unfortunately, they only had one fat quarter of the fabric I really liked left. So I am going to get some deep plain blue like the darkest color on her cape, and do a small border of the batik and a second border of deep blue for the hanging.

 This is a closeup of the skirt. I have heard this angel called the "Circuit Board Angel because her skirt looks like a circuit board, but it could also be a crazy quilt. I used sizes 11, 14, and 15 seed beads, mostly from Sundance Beads, with a couple from other sources. The colors of the beads are cobalt AB charlottes in size 15, silver lined light amber AB (Sundance number 634), bronze iris, and green iris in size 14, and in size 11, light blue lined amber AB, silver lined kelly green AB (Sundance number 647), and a matte aqua AB (Sundance number F259B). The rainbow bronze beads were used because they looked so very pretty with the cape blues, and I replaced the original beads used, which were Mill Hill's metallic gold number 557. Oh, and I recently found out that you can get Sundance beads at Bedecked and Bedazzled in Lutherville MD, phone number is 410-296-0405.

 For the halo and aura, I changed the original gold beads and gold metallic thread to Rainbow Gallery's Precious metals Mini Garland (number PM5) and also their Tiara (number T108). The beads in her hair are a bunch of assorted blue and bronze beads, including the rainbow bronze from her skirt, and some very small triangle beads by Miyuki. I also changed the ball she is holding to kind of look like the earth, at which my daughter decided that if everything was to scale, the angel was pretty big.

 The reason this is my son's angel is because when I started her he was around five years old, and after I had finished the face and hair looked at her in awe and said, "Oh, Mommy! That angel is so pretty! Mommy, if you give me that angel, I will hang her at the head of my bead, and every night I'll look at it and think of you." Um. Could I have said no at that point?

This is a piece by Elizabeth Foster, and, for those who keep track, is done in the colors she called for...I guess you could call it a Christmas Miracle. I did notice that the chart and the cover picture are not the same.

For those who work with the public at this time of year, remember that they are suffering from PTSD--Post Thanksgiving Stress Disorder. Not to make fun of those who do have PTSD, myself included, but sometimes if you can laugh at something it makes it easier to bear. And some of the people who go Christmas shopping--Ai! I mean, if it makes you feel that cranky, stay home and don't buy so much. No one needs more stuff as much as they need the gift of a happy person.

Last, but hardly least, I have no affiliation to any of the above named companies or people, aside from attempting to collect as much of their product as I can safely squirrel away in my stash file drawers, dressers, shelves, big and little boxes, etc...

THE Magpie

More on the Arch Chancellor's hat

So, I drive two ladies to a bible study at the church we currently attend, and go to the bible study so that they won't feel like I am inconveniencing myself, as neither of them drive, and so I started driving them. This is the church that I was making the altar frontal for, all those flowers. Remember them? Well, the rector asked how they were coming along at the meeting, and I mumbled something non committal which apparently reassured her that they were coming along fine, when what I really should have said, was, "I'm not working on them. I am angry at you, and as a result, any time I work on them my threads knot and break, my imagination goes on vacation, and what started as a joy has become a chore that I avoid, just as I avoid thinking about you. The altar guild should make a set of hangings however they want, waiting on me is silly." It seems that the altar guild has been putting off getting fabric to make a white set of hangings because they didn't know what kind of fabric I would like to sew the flowers onto, as the jacquard that is usually used for hangings and such is very slippery. Anyway, I'll see what happens.

I have reached the point where I can pity her, for her non freedom concerning a lot of things. For me, that is the first step toward being able to feel forgiveness.

On to more cheerful thoughts. The Arch Chancellor's Hat! I have been working on this for a while, and put it aside to give it some thought in the back reaches of the old brain, and then started working on it again. Also got a lot of beads and threads organized, and found (okay, I'll come clean, the reason I was organizing things was because I was looking for them) a quartet of beads that I wanted to put on the hat. They are pressed glass beads, pink, and they are elephants. I have to put them on, as Discworld is a flat planet that rests on the shoulders of four elephants, who are standing on the shell of a giant turtle. Yes, I am going to add a turtle as well. So I was pretty excited about finally finding the elephant beads, I've been looking for them for over a week.

Here is a picture of the hat just before I started adding the elephant beads. I have added two star shaped beads with some purple bugle beads and silver lined gold seed beads trailing off them. I also added some red sequins around the central stones.

THE Magpie

The Queen of Stumpwork, Jane Nicholas, Thank you for teaching me!

The class with Jane Nicholas was totally awesome. She is very nice and a great teacher. If I get a chance to take another class with her, I will absolutely take the opportunity. And she has a new book out, Stumpwork & Goldwork Embroidery Inspired by Turkish, Syrian & Persian Tiles, and she showed us the actual pieces that were photographed for the book. Yum! They are so, so gorgeous.

So on to the class project. It is a stumpwork piece, with a dragonfly, raspberries, two leaves, a hellebore flower, and some wrapped bead berries with detached-work cups. Here is a picture of three of the petals for the flower. They are done with wire couched around the petal shape, then I did buttonhole over the wire. Next, I did a short row of long and shot buttonhole stitch around the outer half of the flower, slanting down toward the inner point. Then I filled in the petal with long and short stitch, and finally added seed stitch in a dark burgundy to add a bit of color to the flower, I love hellebores, they come in a wild variety of colorways. I liked the photo of this one, partly for the contrast between the petal color and the spots.

Next is where I had gotten to on the background as of Thursday morning. The branch with three twigs is the raspberry branch, and it is formed with wrapped chain stitch in DMC floss. The other branch is plain chain stitch, and forms the ivy. The blue "log" is the body of the dragonfly. It will be getting wings, which is the next picture in the queue. The body is formed of two soft cotton strands, which are couched down and then you do a stem stitch anchored by the couching stitches. It looks very cool. I have also seen this stitch used for twigs on larger pieces.

 Here are the dragonfly wings. They are stitched using a fine gauge wire held down with whipped stitches in light aqua rayon machine embroidery thread. The base fabric is a sandwich of aqua chiffon ribbon, metallic fabric like lame in rainbow iridescence both held together with stitch witchery. After the wire is wrapped, veins are stitched in fly stitch down the center in a metallic cord. 

 This is the fabric I did two of the raspberries on. The circles you see is where I cut them out. They were done with french knots using six strands of floss and one wrap. After the knots were finished, I did a running stitch around them, cut out the circle and pulled the running stitches tight to gather the berry into a ball. This is then stitched to the ground fabric at the ends of the twigs. I haven't yet done the sepals, so on the fabric they look rather lonely.

 This is the cupped berry base, my practice one. It seems pretty easy to do, although also it is very easy to get it wrong. Mostly, I was hoping I was doing the knots in the right holes, but it looks pretty nice, I think. Also, one of the leaves is on here in process. It was very neat, the way she showed us to do them. First, you line the wire up along the central stem and couch it, then you whip it all the way to the tip of the leaf. Next, using the same piece of wire, you bend the wire to follow the leaf from the base to the tip, couching all the while, then down to the base again. Finally, you bend the wire out to form the leaf stem and couch the two corners together. Then you do buttonhole stitch all around the outside edge. I have several options for filling, and have yet to decide which I will do.

Here is the piece as of Thursday afternoon, with the dragonfly finished on it. There are also two raspberries applied on it. After I anchored them onto the base fabric, I added some beads in various coordinating shades of red and pink. It gives them a little shine, just like real berries.

After I draw up the directions, I will also be posting the awesome tip Jane gave for starting buttonhole stitch in stumpwork. I never will have to try to figure out how to get it started again. And it is so simple.

THE Magpie