LOST AND FOUND

Way back in 2016, Melissa Averinos came to Chattanooga to teach a group of us how to make faces with fabric.  It was great fun and she taught us lots about creating portraits.  My first face didn't please me very much, and thankfully I had time to create another.  I liked it a bit more and even completed it shortly after the class.  Determined to try more faces, I cut and glued and made several more.  Then, as usual, I was distracted by something else and I stuck those portraits in a drawer and forgot about them.  

Somewhere along the way, in the infamous year of 2020, I completely lost my desire to create with fabric and just sat around making beaded jewelry. After making dozens of earrings, bracelets, and necklaces and lamenting my loss of mojo for fabrics, a friend sent a photo of her beautiful floral collage made with fabrics.  That little nudge clicked and I started searching for those old 2016 collaged faces.  It was a long search because I had no idea where I had stashed them.  I finally found them in a drawer stuffed full of paper patterns from old art quilts from years past.  I had even forgotten that I had saved so many of them, since I never, ever make the same thing twice.  I also uncovered a couple of portraits I had created of my granddaughter and found that I liked them better now, after they have "aged" a bit.  

In just a few days, I have them quilted and bound! Ideas have been swirling around like dervishes.  Hopefully my mojo will keep me inspired to play with fabric once again.  And I hope that some of you might like to purchase one of them before they are stashed into a drawer to be forgotten for another 5 years.  

Some people say this is a self portrait.  I don't really look that, do I?  

"Pouty Paulina" is 16" x 22" and come pout on your wall for $50 + shipping

"Sophisticated Sally" is 16" x 20" and could grace your wall for $50 + shipping

 

"Just Pat" 18" x 23" is available for $50 + shipping

Then there are these 2 characters.  I'll let you name them, but I think they are a couple from the 1960's Haight Ashbury.  

17 1/2" x 21 1/2" 

$100 for the pair

Back with more beads!

After making the decision that I must do something with all these beaded earrings, bracelets and necklaces,  my problem is taking the time to photography, edit, then take the time to sit down and bang out a blog post.  Then I must pull out my smartphone to post this latest offering on a couple more apps. I must admit that using a smartphone to accomplish this is a challenge to me.  I am always battling with that sweet little old teacher somewhere out in cyberspace, who wants to correct my spelling and grammar.  Then I have to mess with the photos to be sure they fit correctly within the parameters of the appropriated space allowed.  It inevitably happens that some of my photos get cropped inappropriately.  By that time, I give up and move on.   Anyways, I decided to open up the old blogger and work for here.  Here I do have a little more control.  

In selling a product there needs to be descriptions, dimensions, pricing and if you're lucky enough to sell something, packaging, invoicing, mailing and so it goes.  The older I get, the longer it takes me to accomplish anything.  Plus the fact that I am a bit lazy and not at all driven to be a successful business woman.  After all,  I am retired and I just wanna do what I wanna do whenever I wanna do it.  Whew!  I'm tired just thinking about it all.  

By now you are probably tired of reading.  If you have gotten this far.  So without further ado, I'll wrangle some photos onto this post. I have also posted these on Instagram and Facebook.  I hope you will enjoy seeing them here!

These are a collection of earrings that I made following a pattern written by a very talented Gwen Fisher   You may also find her on Instagram @gwenbeads.  I would love to sell you a pair of these cuties for $55.00 which includes shipping within the continental USA.  Let me know if a pair might appeal to you or if I could create a pair in a colorway that you might like.  Or if you would like to have a closeup of a specific color.  I will be happy to oblige.  

The next pair are a 1 off original design.  This means that I won't make another pair like this.  So if you are sporting one of these pair out and about (now that we are able to get out and about much more these days), you will not see someone else with earrings like yours.  Ever!  

 

 

You might notice the design is slightly different on each piece but the colors tie them together: teal, soft white. light rose, grape, blush on a copper background.  They are 1 1/4 " x 1" not including the earwires.  

 

$55.00 + $5.00 shipping and handling

More to come............

BACK AGAIN

After an on again off again relationship with blogging, I am going to try to start up once again.  Realizing that once everyone became addicted to "other" apps which show lots of photos and are less wordy, I abandoned my blog to jump into the fast paced, instant gratification, and constant dinging of notifications that someone has just posted something.  Can you ignore that urge to drop what you are doing to see what 5 dozen folks have just posted?  No?  Neither could I.  So I turned off the notifications. When the change in algorithms and I had to search for all the thousand plus folks that I followed, that added to the frustration.  Of course, I will still post on the other apps, but spending hours of my day down that proverbial rabbit hole must stop. Or at least I will try to limit myself to far fewer hours in front of the screen.    

For those who don't know, I wandered off into another world of fabricating. I have always had a fascination with beads.  Those sparkly, teensy pieces of glass originally made from sand quartz, soda ash, and limestone over 3500 years ago in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Many early civilizations treasure these small beauties.  Remember the story of Manhattan Island being bought from the Indians for $24.00 worth of beads?  

Today, most beads are made in Japan, the Czech Republic and Murano, Italy.  Always choosing the most difficult path, I chose to begin teaching myself how to make earrings, necklaces, and bracelets by buying books and watching YouTube videos.  (How did we ever live without YouTube how to videos!?). I followed directions and patterns created by others in the craft until I felt comfortable drifting off on my own.  And I chose to use some of the smallest beads available from Japan. Known as delica beads, an 11/0 cylindrical bead is 1.6 mm x 1.5mm with a center hole of .8mm. It takes 19 of that size beads to make 1 inch. Of course, that is not the smallest bead available, so naturally I make use of the smaller sizes as well as larger sizes.  Not to be too boring about bead sizes, I'll leave it at that.  The beads are woven on good old microfused braided fishing line using a variety of stitches.  It is a fiddly craft and takes a lot of time to complete a pair of small earrings.  A necklace or bracelet can take weeks. Beaded jewelry can take some very light abuse, but should be handled with care. They need to be kept dry and stored away from constant sunlight and dust.  If cared for gently they will last for centuries, just as the delicate beaded jewelry made years ago and now are considered museum worthy.  

As a improvisational quilter, one day I thought why not try improvisational beading. And that was just as much fun as the improv quilting.  The ideas and color combinations are endless.  And, as you might guess after off and on beading for a couple of years I now have an great supply of beaded jewelry.  And just like all the quilts that I have stacked up in boxes, they need to go to new homes. Here are few examples that I quickly and not too professionally photographed.  

I'll be working on that skill as well as adding sizes and prices in the coming days.  I hope you will enjoy reading and seeing them and maybe even make a purchase.