Guilty Pleasures

Hubby and I returned from our trip back east (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, respectively) and have finally cleaned up the mess that living out of our car/tent for three weeks made of us and our gear. (ok...hubby did all the cleaning. Loves to hubby.)

I've been reviewing all the photos I took. I'm not a big photographer, but I took a lot of photos on this vacation...of flowers. We went to this wonderful garden on two occasions, and I was snapping photos like mad. I'm not a flower person, I don't even have any plants in my apartment. So why all the flower photos?


Colourways. I was looking at all the natural colour harmony for ideas for colour schemes for future beading projects.

I also photographed a few ornaments and cross-stitches I found in Doug and Pam's house...I saw all the neat and pretty patterns and wondered how I could replicate them in beads.


Obsessed just a little?

(I'll keep how many hours I spent with graph paper sketching things out to myself. Let's just say I've got this really cute cholker-necklace idea brewing that's going to need fresh colours - and a trip to the bead store!)

"My" Design?

I'm sure this is a question that every 'hobbyist' or 'amateur' beader asks themselves at one point - what constitutes an original design, and what is simply a small modification of the original? What is original vs. 'inspired by' and is there really a difference? What is a stitch technique, and what is someone's hard-won original work?

Some answers are easier - if you make a piece stitch for stitch, colour for colour from a magazine or book, you're copying! It's certainly not original. Change the colours, but keep everything else? Still copying in my book. Different colours does not an original design make. Change the stitch a little...probably still copying!

So, my discussion piece is above. Stitch - circular flat peyote. No one's got the right to claim that one as exclusive! It's the colour placement - in a recent issue of Beadwork, in my favourite "Seed Bead Style" section, there was this circular flat peyote piece that placed colours in such a way to make them look like they were swirling. Neat! I thought. It's diagonal peyote designs for round things!

In the artist's example, she created a bracelet with her circular flat peyote pieces stitched side by side. I had just completed the main body of "Geometry Experiment #1" (see earlier posts) and was into let's-see-what-happens-if-I-interlink-things stage. The result was above - "Green Gordian" (after the knot). I played with the bead count and made smaller circular peyote pieces to add some dimensional interest. I did a peyote toggle clasp, as in the magazine design.

Is this bracelet "my" design?

Pictures Oops

I am not a photographer, so I'm learning as I'm going. In my busy attempt to photograph all my work, I didn't really think much about resolution. Knowing I was publishing to the web and that I didn't want huge file sizes, I shot in VGA mode...then I got the brilliant idea of printing my pictures so that I could take a gallery of my work with me to any craft shows I did.

Ick. It works for web, but nothing else. I'm now looking at re-shooting the whole deal.

Now Album(s)

As my picture collection grows, I've started copying items to different Albums in order to make things easier to locate. Currently, I have Rings, Necklaces, and Bracelets, in addition to my main Album. Just follow this link to all of my public Albums.

Picasa Web Album

While I'm trying to get my work re-photographed and posted, everything is going is my Picasa Web Album. Feel free to have a look at the photos!

Geometry 3

Same basics as my first (below), but I decided to try and get some sort of design out of it. Pentagons lend themselves very easily to star-type patterns. All seed-beads, not cylinder beads. It gives it different texture, as you don't get the little building-block 'click' of cylinders. I think it gives the fabric a bit more personality.

Geometry Continues

So after my 'Geometry Experiment #1', I ended up going to my kinda-local bead store with a co-worker of mine, whom I had newly hooked on beadweaving as well. (Yes, Anna - I am evil.) Diane Fitzgerald is a beadweaver/designer/artist extraordinaire, and when I saw her latest book, Shaped Beadwork, the debate lasted about 12 minutes, but I picked it up.

I am VERY glad I did. While this particular design isn't in the book, the basic instructions for the pentagon and isosceles triangle shapes were. Creating all of the shapes and stitching them all together took a very long time. I'm very happy with the outcome, however. I already have all sorts of plans for this design...especially about how to miniturize it. It's about 2" x 2" all told. I puffed it up by squeezing the sides, then dipped it in Future Floor Polish. It keeps its shape quite nicely now!