Artwork: beading, textiles, quilts, works in progress, patterns, what's in store
When I first joined a quilting Guild, back in 1997, I thought “these people are CURAYZE to spend thousands of hours making lines of tiny stitches. Just to hold some little bits of fabric together? OUT OF THEIR MINDS.”
Me and my sewing machine are perfectly capable of stitching fabric together. After all, I made my own clothes by machine for years while I lived in the West Indies, why stop now? So my first experimental quilts were machine quilted. Very simple straight lines.
This book in the Lark Jewelry Beadweaving Master Class series is the one which sucked me into the art of beadweaving.
After browsing through the book I kept seeing images in my mind of fantastic earrings, pendant’s with eyes, reproductions of flowers, incredible clasps. I realised beadweaving isn’t just bracelets and necklaces. It was a whole area of artistic exploration and will keep me busy for uncountable hours in the future.
We are re-photographing many of our threads for the online store. While I was learning all about how to use Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop (oh my!) I realised how lovely this fine thread is for hand applique. Originally it was introduced as a bobbin thread but quilters found it worked perfectly for the tiny stitches needed to applique their pieces down to a background.
A new book from Jean Power – Geometric Beadwork. Filled with fabulous patterns, good clear instructions with both text and diagrams, and piles of photos. Including my Rabbit Hole bangle and fractal quilt. They are under the Colour and Design section.