A sketch for Bead Journal Project 2013

I've made up my mind on a leaf shape so now it's time to put it on paper. It is the leaf shape I always start drawing if I'm doodling. A brown paper envelope from the morning post and a pencil and I'm away. One bigger, one smaller and perhaps one just the right size. I decide to cut out twelve and lay them on paper to see if they will have enough room. A bit of trial and error with drawing a stem shape and I have my sketch. A space in the middle is just crying out for a heart. I have always been creative in one way or another but have never been part of a group like this and I am just loving it so it seems so appropriate to have a heart.

Thanks Robin for pointing me in the direction of http://lisabinkley.typepad.com. Wow. I can't imagine how my first finished leaf will look like yet.  I think the colours will be inspired by the bright yellow of the winter jasmine in the garden. January is my birthday month and often as well as a time of reflection it is a time when I look forward with optimism to the things I might do in the year ahead so bright yellow seems a good idea at the moment. We shall see. The slight hitch to this plan is I have no yellow beads. So you know what I will be doing next.

Brick Stitch Rosettes

After beading a bead with peyote stitch the next stitch I had a go at was brick stitch. Dorothy Wood's book ' The Beader's Bible' has instructions how to make brick stitch rosettes. I started using a felt ball as the centre and used the rosettes to decorate some of my felt fairy cakes / cupcakes. This is the latest one with a Happy Birthday flag for a friend.

Over the years I have made several felt fairy cakes. Some just as decoration, some as pincushions and some with message flags for friends. The cakes with the felt 'cherry' and beads are one of my favourites.

The very first fairy cakes although slightly wonky fill a cake stand in the dining room.

The later mini cupcakes are on a mini stand on the welsh dresser in the kitchen.

They make me smile.

Beading a Bead



Once I had made one it was very tempting to make another one because you're sure the next one will be better. Soon I had a growing line of beaded beads and I realised I needed to think of what to do with them. 



So far I've used them to hang from twigs and as and a 'cherry' on top of  fairy cake pin cushions. No doubt some will find their way to the Christmas tree next month.

If you want a go and you're not sure what to do this is where I got started with the 'Bead a Bead Tutorial' http://youtube.com/beadsfriends

~

The second felt bag

This is the first felt bag. No beads needed for this. Just a pattern from Lisa Lam's  first book 'The Bag Making Bible'. I used 'The Reversible Bucket Bag' pattern with a few modifications. It is a slightly different size because you never quite know with wet felting how big it will end up and it is not reversible but has a lovely shocking pink lining instead. It hangs on a dining room chair with the current knitting or crochet project ready for me to grap to take out.

Whilst I was finishing this bag I knew what I wanted to make next. A felt flap for Lisa's 'The Oversized Fashionista Bag' and I wanted to add beads to decorate the flower centre on the front. I just needed to decide how.

So various ideas were tried.

And here is the finished bag. I made the main flower centre by covering a button with felt and then sewed concentric circles of beads around and then added a picot edge of beads to finish off. The smaller flowers are a flat circular bead with one ring of beads.

And yes there is a third bag on the way. This time a beaded dragonfly.

The difference a year makes

A year ago I was using beads to  decorate a felt pouch I'd made and I was quite happy with a random arrangement of beads for the centre of a the flower . But after Christmas I found Beadlust the blogspot of Robin Atkins and that inspired me to try and do more with beads.  I loved the idea of 'The Bead Journal Project' and thought next year I'll join. Over the past year I have visited Beadlust and looked to see how participants projects have been going and out of the corner of my eye I would see Robin's mantra of -just do it. So today is the day I register for the 2013 BJP and I have started to set up my first blog to record how things go with the beading and any other things I might make as I'm fiddle faddling away with fleece, fibre and fabric. So what have I been doing with beads in 2012? Perhaps that will be for the next posts.