Beading Arts

Do you remember a few weeks ago when I showed you the buttons that I received from The Bead & Button Company , UK?  Well, the beautiful beautiful buttons inspired me to make another bracelet, but this time, instead of a cuff with a metal blank in it to make it rigid, I wanted to make it soft, a complete wrap with a button closure. Here it is! There are layers of fabric, soft leather, lace, and pleated silk shibori ribbon, and of course, buttons and beads.  You can find all those lovely buttons and the seed beads at The Bead & Button Company , UK Copyright 2014 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

Not everything I do with beads ends up being wearable!  I wanted to show you two of the four fabric panels that I've been working on recently.  I'm not sure quite yet what they're going to turn into, but it will definitely be some sort of quilt or fabric collage.  When we visited Hawai'i this past February, I ended up a bit obsessed with sea turtles.  Upon our return, I cut out a stylized turtle form and painted some fabrics.  In July, I'll be sharing the whole how-to process on Mixed Media Artist , and I'll make sure to share the link at that time. [Note - as of 07/23/12, the link above will take you directly to the correct post] I used a simple running stitch to accent the outlines of the turtles and spirals on each piece.  Then I stitched on a few buttons and followed up with embroidered fly stitch and beads, beads, beads.    Copyright 2012 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for pro...

On my last trip to visit my cousin in New Jersey, I found this set of celluloid buttons that I fell in love with.  This style is known as French Ivory: you can identify them by the closely set stripes in the plastic on the backs, which you may just be able to make out in my photo. I knew that I wanted to use the buttons as cabochons, but it took awhile to come up with the exact plan.  My first thought was to use some of them as the centers of lace fabric flowers, and to use others as the centerpieces for seed beads and pearls.  You might remember the lace flowers that I made a few years ago: they are very simple and served well for the background of the mixed media flowers I had in mind.    It wasn't until I started fooling around with putting them together that I figured out something was missing: wire!  Having just finished Wire Month at Beading Arts, I still had wire on the brain, and I remembered a wonderful copper wire flower p...

I've ended up not adding the last few stitches in the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge to my quilt, but I have used them for other projects.  Back on track this week, with a stitch that I felt would enhance several areas on my manipulated fabric quilt : the French knot .  So simple, so lovely! TAST week 1 - fly stitch TAST week 2 - blanket stitch TAST week 3 - feather stitch TAST week 4 - cretan stitch  TAST week 5 - herringbone stitch TAST week 6 - chevron stitch TAST week 7 - detached chain stitch TAST week 8 - chain stitch TAST week 9 - couching stitch  TAST week 10 - running stitch  TAST week 11 - whipped wheel stitch  TAST week 16 - French knot Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

If you decide that you want to make a necklace using stones that you collect while on vacation, please make sure that you do not remove specimens from any protected lands like National or State Parks.  There are plenty of places that you can legally collect stones, shells, and other natural materials.  I fell in love with lava during our visit to Volcanoes National Park , but I collected it on private lands after asking if it would be ok.  A few people asked me if I wasn't worried about the "bad luck" that is reported to follow people who remove lava from Hawai'i.  Nope.  I'm not.  Lava is sold on the mainland through catalogs, bead shops, and home depot, and in just about every convenience store on the Hawai'ian islands.  I bought some lava beads while I was there, and asked the bead shop owner about the legend.  She said that she was pretty convinced that it was not as much a traditional tale as it was a story made up by tour guides who we...

Any suggestions for a name? I finished this ammonite bead embroidered necklace a few weeks ago and have been busy since trying to figure out how to best share the process with you.  There are so many details that I felt I could cover, especially since this is seed bead month, but I didn't want to spend four weeks on it and get all bogged down.  So my "brilliant" solution is to show you the basic construction steps now and to tackle some of the details, like the bezeling, later. If you don't already have a copy of my free e-book chapter (scroll down just a bit to find the free one), which covers the basic bead embroidery stitches and walks you through the process of assembling a necklace like this, please go help yourself...I'll wait. Ok, let's get to work! 1. Here are the pieces that I made for the necklace.  I tried to make a few more than I thought I'd actually need, and that worked out well, giving me a couple of options.  Each of the...

I decided to allow myself to get behind when I went on vacation earlier this month, but I promised myself that I would catch up, and I (mostly) have!  It wasn't too difficult since I'm only doing a small sample of each stitch on my manipulated fabric Take a Stitch Tuesday quilt. So I had to catch up with herringbone stitch , which I'd already stitched but didn't have time to post about: Then I added some chevron stitch along with detached chain stitch .  Chevron isn't very different in feel from herringbone, feather, and cretan, with the back and forth swinging motion of your needle.  However, it's much more precise, even when I tried to make it a bit wonky: Next, very near the line of herringbone stitch , I added a broken line of chain stitch peeking in and out of one of the fabric ruffles: Finally, the stitch that was featured this week, couching stitch .  I used a long strand of fuzzy green yarn that was wrapped with white eyelash yarn an...

I love this stitch!  It looks so good when you make it a bit uneven...or free form if you prefer that term.  Of course it looks good when it's done in even rows too, but for my my Take a Stitch Tuesday quilt, with its underwater theme, I thought a couple lines of free form cretan stitch would look great running up the middle. TAST week 1 - fly stitch TAST week 2 - blanket stitch TAST week 3 - feather stitch  TAST week 4 - cretan stitch Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

The edges of my Take a Stitch Tuesday quilt are slowly starting to fill up!  This week featured one of my favorite stitches, feather stitch , so I really enjoyed myself this afternoon, running a couple rows of the stitch along an edge and adding some shell and beads to it. My theme for the quilt is an underwater kelp garden, so I could very easily end up adding more feather stitch before the piece is done.  I just don't want to go overboard right now, not knowing what stitches are coming up in the following weeks.  This has really been fun!  TAST week 1 - fly stitch TAST week 2 - blanket stitch TAST week 3 - feather stitch Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

I finished this piece by first adding the needed hardware (two hammered silver loops) and then stitching on the backing fabric.  I used the edging brick stitch that you'll find in the free first chapter of my e-book, Every Bead Has a Story .  I alternated jet-colored glass beads with picots around the outside.  At first I thought the black beads might be real jet, but alas, they are glass.  Still nice, though, and vintage! Finally, I salvaged the chain from the falling-apart purse that Jean gave me, the same one that the steel seed beads came from.  I added a Bali silver clasp set to either end. Part one Part two Part three FREE e-BOOK CHAPTER Copyright 2010 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact. Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry...