Inspiration – The Indecisive Beader

More fungi……

I made some more variations on my Fungi beadweaving tutorial, so though I ought to share!

This trio are based on the Ink Cap mushroom, and there are charts and instructions for using the tutorial methods to make these on p47. They’re mounted on a lovely wet felted pebble.

This little one is actually not that little, as it was made with size 8 seeds instead of the usual size 11. The top is a cone (4 repeat) version of the small flat top (notes on p45), with a fattened stalk made by adding increases from around row 5 of the stalk, then decreasing when it was nearly long enough to give a lovely fat belly. The shaping changes ever so slightly with 8s – they’re proportionally slightly wider than 11s, it’s really marginal but enough to make the 5 repeat flat tops too wavy and structurally unsound, so the having the 4 repeat cone option is great here.

As you can see from the collection on display here with a couple of my Orbits, I’ve now made quite a lot of these, and the range is still growing. In the foreground here you can see my ombre yellow ‘cone’ samples from the tutorial – Sulphur Tufts. I’m now making a couple more of these and am working on introducing bends into the stalks to allow them to be mounted on a vertical surface, as if growing from a cut log in the wild. More on that soon.

Fungi Tutorial

Last Autumn I visited the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace, and spent some time talking to the lovely Bev Caleno, a textile artist. I came away with a kit for a rock pool, which I’ve since made, but some of Bev’s other works with fabric fungi also intrigued me. When I made my Recycling box some years back I’d tried to add some beadwoven mushrooms to the top, but the scale was wrong and to some extent the box was too abstract for such literal forms. I put them away and promptly forgot about them. But Bev’s pieces reminded me of that attempt, and some time later I decided to have another go. This time I would go bigger, working pretty much life size, and the results after some trial and error were a series of unique sculptures. I was super pleased with them but every stitch, every row had been created individually – no two neighbouring stitches were the same, and there was no way that they were ever going to be suitable for tutorials. So that was that – I had some fantastic art pieces which I was really pleased with, and I was happy that they were unique.

Fast forward to our summer holiday this year, and whilst packing for our epic Interrailing trip (Brussels, Cologne, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Berlin & Amsterdam) I decided to take just size 11 seeds with me in a small range of colours. I’d loved the purity of only working with one size of beads on the sculptures, and wanted to repeat that with some new forms – but what to make? Well the answer surprised me – my creative brain decided that some smaller, simpler mushrooms were worth a try – could they in fact be simplified so that each row was normal repeated patterns of beads that I would actually be able to write up (and that a beader would be able to follow without loosing their marbles)? And thankfully the answer was at least partially ‘yes’ – the top parts absolutely could be simplified. The stalks however could not – as soon as I made them regular they looked completely unnatural – so they remain a pig to write up, but as they are smaller I’ve managed it.

So, some many hours of train travel later I had a set of 3 – a classic flat top toadstool shape, a striking pointy ‘cap’ shape, and a smaller opened up baby, plus a few more using those as a starting point. When we got home I set to writing them up, and some months and an awful lot more samples and test runs later, here we are.

Buy on Etsy

Buy on Payhip

The tutorial has fully stepped out instructions for three specific mushrooms – the flat top A, the pointy B and then slightly briefer instructions for a smaller flat C.

In the Variations section there are charts to convert A, B & C to fabulous shaggy Inkcaps with tips for expanding that set further, and colouring in pages with blank charts for your own patterns. There are also tips for altering key elements of the size or shape for the flat or pointy, and for changing the length or shape of the stems – these are not fully stepped out, instead they are guidelines so you can understand how to create your own unique, naturalistic forms, aided by the Gallery section which shows all of my versions plus some larger and more complex related pieces.

I’ve really loved making these and already have several new sets on the go. The Fungi world is huge and diverse, and it’s great to never be short of inspiration – no creative thinking required, just go to nature and copy!

Knit & Stitch at Ally Pally 2024

I had a lovely sunny day for a trip up to Ally Pally yesterday for the Knitting & Stitching Show. It was mainly an inspiration trip, so I was pretty well behaved on the shopping front – getting there early allowed me to walk around all of the stands freely and make a list of the items I wanted to go back to purchase, which I then whittled down a bit – otherwise I find I get carried away at the beginning and then find something later I might have preferred. Being early also meant I got to talk to the exhibitors which is always lovely and I met some really interesting artists and suppliers. I was constrained to under 3.5 hours at the show (it’s a 3 hour round trip and I had to squeeze it into the youngest’s school day), but actually that was about right and I was pretty tired when I left at 1.30pm.

I’ve not been able to get to the show for quite a few years, and really enjoyed the current layout – inspiration out front, textile galleries next, then artists and smaller sellers, with mainly bigger sellers, the sewing machine areas and the show ring/knitting area etc in the big hall. That gave the middle area with small sellers and artists a really lovely feel – you could wander, chat, and really look at their work and wares, whilst making the larger stands next door easy to shop. I particularly loved Holly Searle‘s subversive tea towels and am very much regretting not purchasing a sweary duster kit!

So, onto the shopping bit. I should say now that I promised myself I wouldn’t buy any yarn or fabric as I’m mainly beading and embroidering rather than knitting or dressmaking at the moment, so that did help the budget a lot because wow, there were some amazing fabric and yarn suppliers there! I may have bought two very small lots of fabric, but nothing big enough to end up in my overlarge dressmaking stash (and under £20 worth so that’s OK anyway).

So, a tiny bead haul from Spellbound Beads (let’s be honest, I already have enough beads). I seem to be obsessed with using lilac and lavender as highlight colours at the moment and as I’ve never really used them before I need to build up a bit of a stash there. And obviously I like to support bead shops. Those are my excuses.

A lovely pick & mix set of hand painted threads from Kates Kloths – definitely a useful future supplier.

Lovely seeing all the goldwork on the Golden Hinde stand – I’m well off for goldwork wires obviously, but I got a very useful bag of pastel leather scraps and a new beeswax block.

New to me Studio Flax has some amazing Swedish designs, plus super flax threads – I got a small selection from their own range to try and I think they’ll be really interesting to work with because of their texture and stiffness – should be great for more structural stitches and the colours were amazing. They also have wonderful collections of vintage threads which may tempt me next time.

I nearly succumbed to some Liberty needlecord from SewBox, but resisted and just grabbed a couple of teeny Tana Lawn packs – look at those DINOSAURS!!!

Wimperis Embroidery had some lovely kits, but as I was trying to be budget conscious whilst still wanting to support a fellow artist I compromised with a pre-printed embroidery cloth (I do have the thread and hoops aplenty already after all) and some teeny hoops.

Rosenberg & Son have long been show legends, and they’re now known as Stitch Fabric – these three pieces are a bamboo mix (they said rayon/bamboo but I think there is some polyester in there too – the finish is what my grandmother would have called an ‘art silk’ or artificial silk. Whilst it’s a bit shiny to wear, it’s very eye-catching, particularly the Frieda Kahlo and plan to chop it up and embellish each portrait.

Finally two sets of real treasures. I had a lovely chat with @suziesharpvintage on her amazing stand, and was sorely tempted to spend a lot – I resisted and came away with some vintage metal stampings and a Jablonex sample card but she does sell online so my resistance may not last. Some of you know I visited Jablonec in the Czech Republic last year, almost bought a vintage sample book on our visit to a vintage seller in the former Jablonex HQ pictured below. I didn’t buy it and then regretted that decision almost instantly – now at least I have a card (which is probably more sensible than a whole book), and it’s even an official Jablonex export card so maybe from the Palace anyway!?

I also went back to see Bev Caleno’s work about half a dozen times – just incredible artistry and using common themes to much of my work so it really spoke to me. Bev works with machine embroidery and mixed media, with a lot of hand painting, texture, heat manipulation and other fascinating techniques, and the results are gorgeous. Her mushroom pieces are incredible but I finally chose one of her new rock pool kits – this is going to keep me busy for a while and teach me lots of new techniques, plus new takes on techniques and materials I’ve used before, so will be very inspiring. It was lovely to have a chat with Bev and I’ll be following her work for sure.

All in all a lovely trip – on until tomorrow so if you fancy a lovely day out why not pop up there? Might not be as sunny as it was yesterday though – just look at that view!!

New Crystals – some subtle, some sparkly!

Never one to be decisive or minimal, when I was restocking a few Flower Chatons recently I also grabbed some packs from a couple of new ranges to try out (both for myself and for my Etsy Shop).

The first are already almost sold out, I think probably because they are very unusual – they’re a matted, unfoiled glass, in soft blue and green colours and they literally look like sea glass. I have them in a 14mm rivoli and 27mm chaton (like a crown stone) which are two really useful, standard beading sizes, so they’ll be great for lots of projects. I’m thinking something soft, subtle and summery – sometimes even beaders need day wear without the bling after all!

The second set are on first glance more conventional – in all the standard brightest crystal finishes (like Astral Pink or my favourite Vitrail Rose), and reasonably sensible shapes. Foiled backs, and I’ve gone for the larger sizes rather than any teeny ones as those tend to work better for beadweavers. But they have these really odd little reverse faceted dents in the back, almost like darts in dressmaking, and these seem to really up the sparkle, and importantly for me, they also introduce new surface directions so more colours show at once in the crystal, which plays really well to these extravagant coatings.

Shapes are (click on the links to go to my Etsy shop):

Round chaton in 18mm or 12mm (sorry, no 14mm in the range as yet which is a shame).

18mm square , and 18mm octagon/square thingy.

18x13mm pear, oval and octagon/rectangle type thing.

Both ranges are just a trial – if they sell I’ll try to get some more, but they’re all on the slightly pricier side so I may need to keep an eye out for sales at my supplier so I can keep them at a sensible price for you (and me).

In addition I’ve also introduced some more crystals in settings – these have always been popular with bead embroiderers, and we’re now seeing them more and more in beadweaving too, thanks to beaders like Pikapolina and Erika Sandor. This particular size (18x13mm) and shape (pear) was requested by a customer, and as usual I couldn’t pick a range so there are two – both pastels, both summery. Both have a pastel coloured backing rather than being foiled, one with an opaque backing and a shimmer coating, and the other with an opaque but slightly shimmery, glittery backing and no coating. That makes the latter more subtle, and the former more blingy, so once again I have both camps covered!

International Beading Week

International Beading Week starts tomorrow (24th July) and runs until August 1st, and as a Guest Ambassador, member of the Beadworker’s Guild Social Media Team and all around IBW fan I’ve been busy getting ready.

As you know I’ve donated a chart which you can find on the IBW site or in my Free Charts section, and from 25th July until 1st August I will be offering 20% off all tutorials in my Etsy shop (no code needed, tutorials only, please note that this doesn’t start until tomorrow – 24th July).

I should say now that we’ll be taking a much needed holiday though for bulk of the week, so I’ll be closing my shops for everything other than those digital download tutorials (which run happily without me needing to post stuff), but fret not, the beads, cabochons, crystals and goldwork wires will be back on August 9th. During that time I will still be beading, as it’s time for Jean Power’s Secret Beadalong, so watch my social media to see how I’m getting on.

Whilst you’re there, why not join the IBW Facebook group, or have a look at the IBW Facebook Page and the lovely Beadworker’s Guild Instagram account and see what we’ve been working so hard on behind the scenes. This year we have a theme for International Beading Week (IBW) to celebrate the positive mental health impacts that beading has with the tagline: ‘HANGING IN THERE’. We will have daily prompts to help you get involved on social media and throughout the week we will be sharing tips, ideas, free patterns and beaders’ stories on our channels – and we would love to read your stories too!

Please help us spread the word about beading by tagging the Beadworkers Guild in all of your social media posts and use the hashtag #beadingweek.

Un-Started Objects

Early last year I wrote a post about my beady UFOs. None of the pieces in that post have really progressed (I have put a couple more humps on the Ootheca cuff, but that’s it). Then I wrote a piece about the tutorials I was planning to publish – one (my Space Needle Case) is now out in the world, but the others haven’t really moved. I’ve managed to recreate the CRAW ring, but I’m still not quite happy with how to write up the corner joins…. All in all my beady planning is looking like the opposite of Mastermind – no ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish’ here. On the other hand, I did get some work finished last year, published a new tutorial, and won a competition, so I won’t berate myself too much.

This year, rather than a series of pictures of lonely, unloved UFOs, a glance through my PDFs on my iPad has prompted a different kind of list – rather than UFOs I thought I’d share some USOs (Un-started objects). As well as a huge stash of beads I’m afraid I have a large collection of tutorials lurking – I buy them because there is a discount offer, because I simply cannot fathom how something’s been done and I need to know now, because I want to support the artist, or just because I really want to make them. Because I’m trying hard to focus on original work at the moment the unused ones are starting to accumulate, so I thought it might be interesting to give you a flavour of what has caught my eye (since it may be a while before they appear here as finished or even started beadwork).

So first (and I’ve had these for a while) a set of three from Barbara Briggs bought while I was very into Contemporary Geometric Beadwork. How I ever thought I would have the time for such substantial pieces made almost entirely of delicas I can’t say, but they are quite amazing:

Fantasy Flora Cuff

Mermaid Cuff

Fire Dragon Wrap

I’ve been a huge fan of Sabine Lippert for many years, and have completed lots of her pieces, which gives me an excuse for accumulating so many patterns (plus two books) – although I have to say until I wrote this list I didn’t realise quite how many. Sabine has a sale on at the moment for some of these patterns, and even with the ridiculously low pound they are super value:

Tchacka Boom Bangles – a free pattern using her spiky button beads.

Wanna be a Butterfly – another freebie, this time using her Rizos.

Tweed – I’ve already beaded the related Baroque Dimensional which has a similar basis – I just need to get organised and pick fire-polished colours for this as I’ll need to do a bulk order as it needs 460 4mms!

Turbulence – looks like a lovely, smallish project.

Boomerang Bling – another one which needs some planning/shopping, and a fair amount of work, but looks like it will be amazing when finished.

Squaricals & Penticals – I tried to start this on holiday last year but was a few beads short. I should do this soon – it looks lovely to bead.

Go Dimensional – a classic Sabine blingy beaded bead – my Rivoli stash is much more substantial now so I should be able to do this without shopping!

From Cindy Holsclaw at Bead Origami (my sister is a big fan, and I love the way Cindy works) courtesy of a small special offer:

Teardrop Bubble Beaded Bead – I love beaded beads and I love Czech teardrops, easy choice.

Supercoiled Beaded Rope – how completely cool is this – I need to know how it is done, and hopefully a bit of a stash buster.

None of you will be surprised to discover some of the fabulous Jean Power’s work lurking in my collection. As well as lots of tutorials and book projects from her which I’ve already beaded and some inevitable UFOs, I have two still to do:

Star Flowers – this is quite new so I don’t feel too guilty about this one. I have some of the giant acrylic stones already, so this should happen soon!

Interlocking Crystals – this is a Jean classic which I’ve had for years. I tried it with some cheap rivolis a while back, and it didn’t work because they were a different shape to Swarovski ones, which is fair enough. I’ll need to take a deep breath before starting this one as the necklace takes over 40 rivolis.

Actually, apart from the huge glut of Sabine’s patterns, and the fact that I also have a pile of beading books and magazines, this list doesn’t look quite as bad as I had expected. Hopefully I’ll get onto some of them soon – I have all my new cabochons to work with first though, so don’t hold your breath!

Playing with forms

For years now I’ve been eyeing up my children’s tiny plastic toy animals – surely I could bead around one and make something really funky? But I’ve been put off by two things- firstly they are really small and it would be fiddly (I know this is ironic coming from a beadweaver) and the ‘spare’ ones here are all creepy crawlies and I really don’t like them. We do have a giant octopus just crying out to be beaded but he is much too big.

So when I was in the local art shop (gorgeous Cass Arts) the other day and saw some small Decopatch creatures I thought ‘aha – they look fun’. So I now own a lovely Brontosaurus – she’s small enough to be achievable, but big enough to allow me to work out some techniques in sensibly sized beads. She’ll be an ornament rather than something to wear, but if she works I can try a smaller form next time – I’m seeing a range of necklaces made of tiny beaded T-Rex’s already…………….

My 2016 beady to do list

After my obligatory blogger’s 2015 review, here’s my equally obligatory 2016 look ahead! Thank you to my sister Susie for the apposite mug – it is sadly true as I spend a worrying amount of time thinking about what I want to bead. This is probably because I have so little time to actually bead, so this year I want to make a plan and sort of stick to it, so I can always have something on hand ready to work on (rather than sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike because I’ve forgotten that really good idea I had three months ago).

So to begin, the projects I started in 2014 and didn’t touch in 2015 – the dreaded ‘unfinished but not quite a UFO yet’ box.

Planned for me to wear at my friend Jane’s wedding in the smartest venue imaginable. Abandoned when I decided the dress was too short for said venue. This was going to be a series of arches to mirror the digital print of the Ted Baker dress, and I think I’ll continue trying to work it out as it’s a lovely dress. That said, when I pulled the bits so far to take a snap I wasn’t very impressed…….so for now this is back in the ‘maybe’ pile.

Planned for me to wear at same wedding with smarter outfit, just as a simple short necklace. Abandoned when I realised said outfit now too small. I have plans to turn this into a shoulder covering cape of bezelled stones, connected by a cobweb of antique gold 3mm fire polished beads, but it could take a while to bezel enough stones for that! The stones are a mix of vintage and new Swarovski, and were a very good exercise in working up similar bezels in lots of shapes and sizes. I’m a lot more confident in this one though, so it’s high up the list to actually do. It would be a good holiday project as I’d only need the gold beads and chatons (not my normal case full of random pulls).

These are a variant on Jean Power’s Geometric Secret vessels – only with triangles instead of hexagons. They’re lovely shaped things, but the one in 15 delicas (at the front) is rather more succesful than the one in 11s as it holds it’s shape, but I’ve never quite known what to do with it as a triangle is not a very wearable shape – it sticks out rather. It could make a nice pendant hanging below a suitable bosom I suppose? Not sure what to do with the other one? Back on the ‘maybe’ pile.

This one may not make it – I was playing with twin beads to make a flat weave, but I’ve run out of the twins and can’t remember where I got them. Luckily I do in theory log all my purchases (so I can cost up work/kits), so I should be able to work it out. If I finish this it will have a long or box clasp and sit as a snug cuff, and I’d like to as it is my colour. I’d say there is no more than an hour’s beading left to do once I’ve sourced the beads, so stays on the ‘to do’ pile.

Maybe I should have included a section on ‘pieces where I’ve run out of beads’ – this one qualifies as well……..it will be a necklace once I’ve worked out how to elegantly extend it to a normal length (or tracked down some more beads). This would make a nice beginners tutorial as it is super easy, but I think there are already quite a few similar ones around. On the ‘to do’ pile.

This is a barely started Jean Power Affinity Bangle – using very cool rubber coated rondelles from my now defunct local bead shop. I think I have enough to get me through it (I kept buying more in their drawn out closing sale), and I’ve made one before which was a joy, so I want to get going on this soon as the colours are more winter than summer and I think it will be lush!

So, that’s the really old stuff out of the way – just tutorials, last year’s unfinished pile, my long list of unstarted patterns and of course a ‘to try’ inspiration list to go. This could be the longest set of New Year’s resolutions I’ve written (hopefully I’ll be better at sticking to them than I normally am). Tune out if you get bored………….

Secret Bead Along

The utterly fabulous Jean Power is holding a Secret Bead Along for National Beading Week. It’s £5 to participate, or if you either subscribe to her newsletter (recommended – always interesting, you hear first about new designs and usually get a discount code for patterns) or are a member of the Beadworker’s Guild its’ FREE. I have my instructions for the pre-work, and am currently faffing about what colours to use (normal for me I know, but worsened by not knowing what I’m actually working towards)! Hopefully my sister Susie Hoad will also be participating – we are off on holiday together towards the end of that week and it would be great fun to finish off together. I don’t get to bead with other beaders in person very often, so I love the idea that so many of us will all be beading together around the country (or perhaps the world), and even if we’re not in the same room it will be supercool to see what everyone produces.

Above is a picture of one of Jean’s designs (beaded my me) so you can see just how exciting her work is!

Busy bee

Apologies if things have been a bit quiet here – the usual endless winter cold cycles have come to a head recently with some pretty nasty temperatures for both the boys, so energy and time for beading has been severely limited. Plus as usual I have been inspired by the Great Britsh Sewing Bee to sew instead. As well as a very quick and simple transformation of a pirate costume into a Cat Pirate for World Book Day I’ve now also made a completely amazing Triceratops head and tail for the bigger boy (although I do rather wish it was for me). They came from a Simplicity pattern (1765), with some adaptations – the tail is mounted on a belt rather than sewn to their suit as I definitely don’t have time for entire outfit, and I used poplin rather than fleece which may have made things trickier, but the end result will be wearable year round.

Greater love has no mother than to give up part of her precious Kaffe Fassett fabric stash to make a small dinosaur……..