New Ethnic Style Necklace

This is the last necklace I finished - combining beadweaving and embroidery work. I enjoyed every minute of the work because I love ethnic style (and beading, of course :) and feel comfortable designing in it, and I really like how it turned out.

Almost Finished

I am almost done working on this embroidered cuff. Of course I have to attach it to a backing material – Ultrasuede or genuine leather – I haven't decided yet. I am also not sure yet what kind of closure to use. But those are the easy part, arn't they? :)
I will post the finished cuff when it's ready, and after my photographer is back from his vacation (this not-so-good photo was taken by me with my son's camera ;).



Right after I will finish this embroidered piece, I am going to start working on embroidered squares for Jeanette Shanigan's beaded quilts project “Bead-It-Forward” Breast Cancer Donation Project. The theme this year is "Heart". Check out Jeanette's site and see the finished quilts she makes using beaded squares. You might want to take part in this project.
I am happy to participate in this project for this important, good cause and I already have an idea of what I want to make. I just hope that this embroidered work will be finished before the dead-line…

My Second-First Embroidery Work

OK, it is my second attempt at embroidery work, but it's the first I actually managed to finish so far. The first-first work is still in progress – turtle pace progress … I had to unpick almost half of what I did (see two posts below) and start again. I already know that the first (first) will not be a perfect work, but I decided to finish it anyway, one little section every few days, not only because I like the pattern but also because I think of it as a good training, especially of my patient... I succeeded to avoid using my scissors every time I felt frustrated and wanted to cut it into half, so that I'll have half that is almost finished – sort of fooling my self...;)
This second work is quite simple and was finished rather quickly, with no "disasters" (except from when I had to cut the extra material before finishing and almost cut the embroidered section… what a relief it was to see it was not damaged! :0)
I really enjoyed making it and am quite pleased with the result, although it's not perfect (it has "hills and valleys" where it had to be flat).
I still don't know what I am going to do with it. I just enjoy looking at it and feel proud of myself… :)

First Attempt at Embroidery

Well, here is a photo of my first WIP of embroidery, or more correctly, no progress…

I started with stitching small groups of black Czech 11/0 seed beads to make the curved lines. I decided to use small s/b, because I thought it would be easier to create curved lines. It wasn't easy, but I think I have done pretty well in keeping the lines curved.

Not the case when it came to filling in the areas between the black beads - you can see that the line of red beads is "broken". Not only this, but there are too wide spaces between the lines, where you can see the backing material. I don't know what I did wrong…I just worked the same way as with the black lines…

So, it looks like… shall I say a big mistake?... I had the image of the finished piece in my head (I wanted to use it as a patch to be sewed on a jeans bag), and what I have actually made is not even getting close to it…
I think I will leave this work and start another one, but this time more simple – something like a small brooch or a pendant, and leave the curves and waves of the image in my head for a later time, when I'm more comfortable and experienced with this technique.

My New Journey is About to Begin

A very dear and talented friend, Patrizia Tager of Triz designs, has been a source of inspiration to me. Her beautifully designed and created embroidered art, as well as her posts about her work-in-progress, inspired me and made me want to try and learn this technique. Thank you Triz, your work is great!

I have never done any embroidered work. The only work I have done using a similar technique was this freeform cuff, but it's not real embroidery. I am now very curiouse about real embroidery.
I have recently bought Sherry Serafini & Heidi Kummli's book "The Art of Bead Embroidery" and I really enjoyed it. I also have bought some backing materials from Nicole Campanella of Beadwright (Nicole is also the author of a book about "Flatwork" that she has recently published).
So, everything is ready for my new journey to this fascinating world of embroidery, and I am planning to start my first work right after I will finish the last few rows of a new bracelet that I am now working on (I try to focus on one work at a time).


Funny, how sometimes things change during our lives… when I was younger, I used to make many kinds of arts and crafts like sketching, sculpting, scrape booking, knitting and craving, but the only thing I didn't like to do was needle work… and now, not only it has become my favorite technique of beading, but I am so excited to try the embroidery work!...

Speaking of scrape booking, one of the pages in my son's Bar Mitzva album that I really enjoyed making was a page with a photo of bead artist Louise Hill's mural "Jerusalem" that she painted many years ago. Louise sent me the photo of her beautiful painting when I was in the beginning of making this album and I liked it so much! (She told me that she painted it just from the images she saw in her head…Isn't it amazing?!) The minute I saw this wonderful painting of Jerusalem, I thought that it might fit in so well in my son's album. Louise kindly allowed me to use it as the background of a page, and here is the result. I only added the famous traditional quote from the bible, talking about the commandment not to ever forget Jerusalem, and a photo of my son, looking out from the window….
Dear Louise, my son likes it so much and so do I. Thank you very much, you are so kind and so full of talents!

In case you don't know it yet, Louise also has a wonderful designs blog, on which she is featuring beautiful and inspiring works of art from all over the world.