Happy days

It has been one of those happy, happy days today...

I was delighted to receive the news that my 'Symphonie de Tulipes' won the popular vote in the Dutch Spiral challenge on the Beading Forum.

*chuffed*

This doesn't mean it is the best creation (how can there be a 'best' when each piece is beautiful and unique in it's own right?), nor the most technically challenging or well-crafted, nor the best suited to the theme. It just means that my peers like my work. One of those feel-good moments, to be sure.

Also, I passed my Boat Licence test this morning. So you can now address me as 'Skipper'. Heh ;-)

A typical sunset over the bay near home

Now, if only there were a way to combine beading and boating...

Symphonie de Tulipes

My Dutch Spiral Challenge piece is finally complete. Six weeks of learning, experimenting, hair-pulling, frustration, elation...phew!

I had never 'engineered' a piece as complex as this before, so it was a challenge on many levels but I thoroughly enjoyed (almost) every stitch. During the construction of this necklace, it became apparent how little I really knew about beadweaving. The learning curve has been steep, but satisfying. And the end result is a piece I can be proud of:

Symphonie de Tulipes

(Symphony of Tulips)

My 'Symphony' contains no less than six different beadweaving techniques...four of which I had never tried, and had to learn for this challenge:

*Brick stitch
*Odd-count peyote
*Tubular peyote
*Two-drop herringbone
*Tubular herringbone
*Dutch spiral

The necklace can be worn a number of different ways, thanks to a tubular peyote loop which slides up and down the tubular herringbone 'stems'. As above, or like this:

Or like this:

The entire piece laid out:

I spent many hours working on the design of my tulips. The jury is still out on whether they actually resemble tulips, but I'm fairly pleased with the end result as it was my first attempt creating dimensional flowers. I had fun experimenting with colour graduation, each tulip contains three different shades of seed beads. No two tulips are the same...each petal is different!

A close-up of the tubular peyote loop:

And the herringbone 'bell':

I was planning on making a beadwoven clasp, but simply ran out of time. Instead, I tapered off the dutch spiral ends using peyote stitch, and used a simple silver clasp. Voila!

If you managed to make it through all of those photos, you deserve a gold medal! Thanks for looking :)

The Karma Award

I have finally managed to snatch enough time to post about The Karma Award, bestowed upon me by my gorgeous friend Sharon of Mana Moon Studios. Sharon is a beautiful person in every sense of the word, she has a warm and giving personality and has a knack for making everyone around her feel great! She is a talented artisan to boot who creates beautiful wirework and fiber jewellery. Thank you for the kudos dear friend, I just love the sentiment behind this award:

Karma Award

These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

This award epitomises everything that I love about blogging. When I first started Bead Fetish, I had in mind that it would be nothing more than a convenient place to store and share photos of my work. I never imagined that I would *meet* so many wonderful, generous, talented, amazing people from all over the world. These new and dear friends have enriched my life and opened doors previously unimagined. We may never meet in person, but we share an understanding and respect for one another that transcends borders, languages, and cyberspace!

I would like to pass this award on to the following bloggers. I understand that many of you will not want to pass it on, nor post about it on your blog, but it's just my little way of thanking you for your friendship, connections, support and inspiration! :)

Bianca of Bianca Velder Creations

Karyn of Releases by Rudydoof

Steph of Atelier Aqualuna

Vicki of Dragonfly Creation Jewellery

Julie of Meanderings by Julz

Anna of Il Mondo di Redanny

Rachele of Rachele's Originals

Neglectful

Sometimes I'm convinced that my life exists in a time warp. How else can two weeks vanish in the blink of an eye? Time has never really been on my side, and that seems to be becoming ever more apparent as I grow older.

So what have I been up to in the last few weeks (aside from neglecting my blog)?

A little bit of boating...

Our 17 month old daughter, India, playing Skipper

And a little bit of beading...

An as yet unfinished and unnamed botanical experiment created with RAW (right angle weave)...perhaps "Belindaflora Bigbellyus" would be appropriate?

I finally got my lazy pregnant butt into gear and also started working on my piece for the Dutch Spiral challenge on the Beading Forum. In a moment of beading madness, I decided that it would be a good idea to bead a 3-dimensional tulip.

Have I ever made a 3-dimensional flower before? No.

Have I ever beaded a tulip before? No.

I know the point of a challenge IS to challenge oneself, but sheesh, why do I always set the bar so high?

A tulip is one of those deceptively simple shapes. I thought it was going to be a breeze, but I was kidding myself. Did you ever have to draw a dolphin at school? You think, "A dolphin is a simple shape, how hard can it be to draw?" The answer is HARD! Unless you get the lines and the proportions just so, you end up with a creature which looks more like a hotdog with fins than a dolphin.

I was having the same problem with my beaded tulip. I estimate that I spent more hours unpicking stitches than I did actually stitching them. After a number of prototypes, I think I'm finally on track. My 3D tulip is looking more like a tulip and less like a deflated umbrella having a crisis of identity.

I attempted my first sample of dutch spiral last night and, much to my surprise, I really like it. If it weren't for the challenge, it would no doubt be yet another stitch on my 'must try that one day' list.

In other news, my darling friend Sharon of Mana Moon Studios has bestowed a lovely new award upon me and I haven't had a chance to blog about it yet. I'm sorry Sharon, I haven't forgotten! There is a really nice sentiment behind this award so I will dedicate a whole post to it :)

A Fabulous Award

It is always humbling to think that a talented artist believes my blog is worthy of an award *blush*

This fabulous award was bestowed upon me by the lovely Anna of Il Mondo Di Redanny all the way from beautiful Italy! Anna is a multi-talented artist, who creates in many different mediums including polymer clay, paint, and fabric. Her polymer clay fairies and pixies are unbelievably life-like...I'm certain they come alive in the middle of the night, while the rest of the world is sleeping :-)

I now have the honour of passing on this award to five of my most deserving blog friends.

*drumroll please*

And the nominees are:

Sharon of Mana Moon Studios

Karyn of Releases by Rudydoof

Nicole of Beadwright

Julie of Meanderings by Julz; and

Julie of The Jewellery Goddess

Back to Beadweaving

Ever feel like you need a change? Or feel the need to get back to basics?

It seems that the bead embroidery bug bit me in a big way last year, and it's all I've been doing since. So I figured it was time to stash away my felt for a while and get back to where it all began...beadweaving.

Bead embroidery has always felt a bit like cheating to me...when you're finished stitching, you sew through to the back of the foundation, tie a knot, and you're done. No-one sees the mess because it's hidden away, conveniently covered up at the back. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE that about bead embroidery! It has limitless applications, and I think I have barely only scratched the surface of what is possible.

Beadweaving, on the other hand, requires a little more thought and skill...knots must be ever so carefully hidden away inbetween beads. And then there's the challenge of weaving the beads together so precisely that no thread shows whatsoever. Ahhh, nothing like the sweet smell of perfection. My work station usually reeks (and sounds) of frustration, but one must have something to strive for, no? ;-)

So this week I've been playing, and dabbling, and learning. Oh, the fun of it all!

I decided to teach myself flat circular peyote stitch. My samples in pretty pastel hues are posted above. I haven't decided what to do with them yet. Perhaps they will end up strung between cascades of brass chain...or woven together en masse for an ever-so-girly piece.

I have also been dabbling in RAW (right angle weave), a stitch which I haven't used a great deal before. So far, I am very happy with the results of said dabbling :-) I can see this becoming a monstrously large and laborious creation. Funny how that seems to happen with everything I make. I think 'easy' and 'simple' were erased from my vocabulary as a child.

What I should be doing right now, is planning and starting on a piece for one of two current challenges on the Beading Forum...a 'Dutch-inspired' piece using dutch spiral, and a piece inspired by the movie 'Tron'. Whether I find the time (or the inspiration) to make a piece for either of these challenges is anyone's guess. I've never tried dutch spiral before (but what a great excuse to learn) and, not being a Sci-Fi fan in the slightest, I've never seen the movie 'Tron'. I've been told to think 'computers', 'futuristic', 'circuit boards', and 'Jeff Bridges in fluoroescent lycra'. Hmmmm...scary.

Right now, I'm just having too much fun playing :o) And I'm amazed by how much one learns just from playing. Ok, well that's my excuse for procrastinating, and I'm sticking to it.

Wind Dancer

When I was researching the humble hummingbird for this piece, I came across many stories of love and romance associated with these 'flying jewels'. One story I found particularly touching was an Apache myth about a young warrior named Wind Dancer. He could not hear, but he sang enchanting, wordless songs which brought fine weather and good health to those who heard him.

One day, he came across a young woman called Bright Rain who was being attacked by wolves. He rescued her and they fell in love. Shortly afterwards, Wind Dancer was attempting to rescue someone else and was tragically killed :(

His death heralded a terrible, bitter Winter which threatened the lives of many. The bitterly cold weather only ceased when Bright Rain started taking long solitary walks. Tribal elders discovered that her beloved Wind Dancer had been reborn in the form of a hummingbird, and appeared to her in fields of spring flowers. He would whisper magical secrets in her ear, and this brought her peace and joy.

After reading this touching story, Wind Dancer seemed an appropriate name for this piece. I'm always a sucker for a good lurve story :)

Hummingbird detail:

Fabric backing:

Clasp detail:

As you can see, after all my umming and arring, I went with a very simple clasp. Anything more would have been too OTT (over the top), me thinks.

So, one UFO (UnFinished Object) bites the dust...now onto the next one. Stay tuned!