Pirate's Map for Textiles class

So, my last post left us here in the process of making my 3d Pirate's Map for my final project for my Textiles class this semester. I had picked up a gourd, scrubbed the waxy coating off, and iced dyed it for a subtle coloration. So far so good. Next up, I needed to felt around the gourd. Last time I tried this, I carved the gourd open first and then felted around it. But, the gourd got really waterlogged that way, and that makes for a fragile gourd. This time, I decided to do the felting first, to take advantage of the natural water resistant rind. The risk, of course, was that I would crack the gourd in the cleaning process, and waste all my work. But, that is why I bought a spare gourd!

So, I went through my stash of wool roving, and pulled out my blues and greens. I want the felt to represent water, with the top of the gourd sticking up like an island. Ready? Go!

I found a little pail, and turned the gourd upside down. Then I spread out a length of roving and laid it over the gourd. It kind of looks like hair here. I resisted the urge to draw googly eyes on it.

Instead, I kept on adding thin layers of wool roving at right angles to each other, until I had 4 layers built up. Then it was time to add wisps of the colored roving to make it look watery.

I needed to hold the wool down to the gourd so I could get the felting started. So, I cut the legs off of a pair of panty hose, and tied the remaining stubs in a knot. That left me the body part of the hose, which was just the right size to come down and around the woolly gourd. Time to soak it with hot soapy water, and get to rubbing! The fibers will velcro themselves together.

Once the fibers were holding together, I could take off the pantyhose and just work it with my hands. At this point, I cut slits in the wool. With luck, these will pull apart as the wool shrinks down into felt, creating the look of little islands around the main island.

So far so good! The gourd stood up to the hot soapy water. The slits pulled apart into openings. And the wool shrunk and velcroed itself into a nice firm felt, that is holding to the gourd without the need for glue or stitching. Time to let this dry thoroughly before I cut the top off, and clean out the insides. Crossing my fingers that I don't crack the gourd in the process.

Yay! No cracks. I cut the top off, cleaned out the insides, and sanded down the rim. Then, I drilled holes and strung the opening with a web of artificial sinew, so I could needle weave my 'X marks the spot' and compass rose.

I also took a bit of time, and hand spun some wool yarn for the coiling at the rim. I used some of the same turquoise and green roving that I used in the felt, to tie the colors together. But I also added some browns, so the coiling could represent foliage.

My needle weaving is done, and I've started coiling. Round and round I go.

I like it! The red X marks the treasure spot in the cavern, and the blue arm with the white arrow points north. I had a pendant hanging around that makes a great sample treasure coin.

Now, to add some sea foam to mark the shore of my main island. I'm making a branched fringe with glass beads, crystal tear drops, and freshwater pearls. And a cloissone fish, just because.

Done!! I added some seashells to the sea foam shoreline. And then, it was time to make my pathway that makes this actually a pirate's map. You start at the coin with the key, and follow the freshwater pearl pathway from little island to little island, collecting keys. Avoid the little islands with the skull and crossbones. Trust me on that one. When you get to shore, follow the woodburnt dotted line up the beach to the foliage, and then the garnet path will lead you up and around into the cavern. The treasure is almost yours!!

This was a fun project. The assignment was pretty open ended. Just, make a map using some of the techniques that we learned over the course of the semester. I'll turn this in tomorrow, and see what the teacher thinks!

Obsession (A poem about beading)

Several years back I wrote a poem about beading. I submitted it to the 'Beadfairies' site online, and it was published there. I kind of forgot about it after awhile. But yesterday I was doing an idle Google search on my name, and found that the poem had been quoted on two web sites that I'd never heard of. Which makes me go 'hmmmmm...' on the one hand, with copyright and all that. On the other, I'm kind of tickled that folks liked my writing enough to pass it on. I really enjoy writing poetry, but I do it more for my own pleasure. It bemuses me (in a good way) when folks connect to my words enough to take something out of them for their own.

Anyway, I figured I'd reclaim my poem, and share it here again.

******************

Obsession

Cramped back cracks as I crinkle
into bed. Needle pricked
fingers gather soothing sheets,
and aching neck nestles deep
into 3 AM pillow. Light switch click,
itchy eyes finally close...
...and phantom bugles flash
cobalt behind twilight eyes.
Freshwater pearls shimmer,
swimming through my veins
as Delicas dance my spine.
Cool garnets slide memory
smooth through fingertips
twitching for pointed precision
as the beads stalk me deep
through the night...


By Melissa McCollum

*********************


And with that, I ought to get myself off to bed. I was weaving today instead of beading. Do you think I'll dream of cloud-soft fibers and interlacing patterns...?

Still spinning for the Estrella project

I'm still spinning away for my weaving project. I did the calculations, and assuming about a 1/3 shrinkage/take-up rate, I'll need to put 11 yards of 28" wide warp on the loom to make enough wool fabric for a 1200's style over tunic. At about 12 epi, that makes 3696 yards of warp needed. I just finished up another skein of white, which brings my current total to 3453 yards. One more skein of white should do it for the warp. Then I'll start on spinning some more blue for the weft yarn.

In and among spinning, I tried one of the free projects from Beading Daily. http://www.beadingdaily.com/media/p/98161.aspx



Isn't it cute? It is a 3D cube, peyote stitched together from Delica seed beads. I put a jingle bell inside of it. The project suggests making several of these cubes, and hanging them off of a chain for a Gift Box necklace. But I think if I make some more, I'm going to do something different with them. I think I might write down the joys in my life on little slips of paper, and put the papers inside of the cubes. Then I'll display the collection of cubes in a bowl, and when I'm down I'll look at it and have a visual, tangible reminder of just how lucky I am.

Either that, or I'll make dice! I wonder what it would take to make up a full set of D&D dice out of beads...

Bead Tapestry up on the Mirrix web site

Ok, I've got to brag just a little bit, because I'm so tickled about this.

If you want a small, sturdy tapestry or bead loom, one of the top of the line looms is made by Mirrix. http://www.mirrixlooms.com/

If you go to their website there, and click on 'Galleries' and 'Your Work', a piece I did several years ago is picture #23. The piece is 'Bamboo Dragonfly'.

This is actually a continuation of an exercise I did in color theory class. We had to make an image, and paint it in a couple of different color combinations. One was analogous colors--colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. I used yellow, green, and green-blue.



And one used one of the same colors, but paired it with colors across from it on the color wheel. I used yellow and purple. I liked that one so much, that when I got my Mirrix loom and wanted to try my hand at bead tapestry, I pulled that image out again. I put it behind the warp threads on the loom, to be a pattern/cartoon. Then I matched beads to the picture as I went along. This is how it turned out, and is the image up on the Mirrix page:




Yes, each pixel in the picture is a separate Delica seed bead. The wings are made of the Delica beads that are coated with actual gold, so they shimmer in the light.

Now that I'm reminded of this piece, maybe it is time to pull out the Mirrix again. Hmmmm....what subject should I use this time around?

Tutorial: Peyote stitched slide bead

I finished up this copper Viking wire woven necklace today. A friend asked me if I had a tutorial for the peyote stitched slide beads that I make to go with the wire weaving, and I didn't. But I took pictures as I was working today, so hopefully this will help. I found it was hard to take good pictures of such tiny beads!

First, I gathered my materials. I used 2 colors of Miyuke glass Delica beads. These are cylindrical in shape, and very regular. I put them in a watercolor dish while I was working. Scissors, a beading needle, and some Nymo thread rounded out the materials.



I put an even number of beads on my needle. I wanted just enough to go snugly around the wire chain of the necklace. In this case, that was 12 beads.






I ran my thread back through the beads again...











...and continued on through one more bead around.











When I pulled the resulting loop tight, it made a nice circle around the wire weaving. I left a 4-6 inch tail of thread, to weave in at the end of the project. Oh, I probably had a yard of thread that I was working with, so I didn't have to start a new thread part way through the project. The trade off in working with a long length of thread was that I had to deal with the working thread tangling. Running the thread over a chunk of bees wax helped.


Ok. I put one bead on my needle. I skipped one bead in the circle, and ran my needle through the next bead.










With a little convincing, the bead that I just added hopped on top of a bead in the previous row. I continued around the circle of beads in this way. Skip a bead, go through a bead. Skip a bead, go through a bead.









When I got back around to the beginning of the row, I had to 'step up'. I went through the last bead in the row below me, and then also through the first bead of the row I just finished. This is probably the hardest row in the whole project to complete.








The next row around cinches everything into place. Again, skip a bead, and go through a bead. When you get back to the beginning...










...your work should look something like this.










Now, I wanted to start the spiral pattern. Every other bead that I added in this next row was white instead of bronze.









In the next row, again every other bead was white.











After a few rows, I had a nice spiral developing.












I continued on with this spiral pattern until I had the slide bead just about as long as I wanted it, and switched back to all one color of beads. A couple of rows of solid color finished off the project.










I wove the remaining tail of thread back down and around into the beadwork, making tiny half hitches around the working threads. I tugged the knots into the beads to hide them. Then I went back and did the same to the tail end of thread that I had left at the other end.









And there I had it! A beaded bead.



I have used this same technique to make an entire necklace of beadwork, without the wire core. It makes a colorful, light weight, and flexible necklace.

Tutorial: Hair Sticks

I was making a batch of hair sticks today, and it occurred to me that I should take some pictures and show you all what I was doing.

Materials:
hard wood dowel rod
small screw eyes
head pins
beads
split rings

Tools:
saw
pencil sharpener
sand paper
awl
round nose pliers
flat nose pliers
split ring pliers
wire cutters




Here's a shot of the different pliers, in case you're unfamiliar with them. From the top, and going clockwise: round nose pliers, split ring pliers, awl, flat nose pliers, wire cutters.





Start with hard wood dowel rods from the hardware store.



Cut the rod to 5" pieces, and run the ends through the pencil sharpener.








Sand the sticks down smooth, and round out the point.












Like this. If you want to, you can stain and varnish the sticks at this point, but I kind of like the bare wood.












Use your awl to poke a starter hole in the center of the flat end of the stick.







Screw your screw eye into the hole.










It will look like this. You can put a drop of glue in if you choose.












Now, the fun part. Assemble your dangles. Have fun playing with different textures and color combinations.







Snip the end off of a head pin. Using your round nose pliers, make a loop in the end of the head pin.







Add your bottom dangle to that loop, and wrap the tail of wire around.







Add a bead, then make a loop in the top. Add your split ring to that loop, and wrap the tail around again. My finished dangles look like this, though you can experiment with other configurations.










Using your split ring pliers, open the split ring and put it on to the screw eye at the top of your hair stick.







Here's my finished batch of hair sticks! They work great. I have a pair I made awhile ago, and used them to hold my hair up in a bun and out of my face for my entire camping trip this past weekend. I'd put my hair up in the morning, take it down at night, and never worry about it in the meanwhile.


(EDIT: I put this batch of hair jewelry up in my Etsy shop, at http://www.etsy.com/shop/tangibledaydreams . So if you don't want to make your own, you can have one of these instead.)

More Viking wire weaving: internal beads

Ok, so this is kind of cool. I've been exploring the various things you can do with Viking wire weaving recently, and my wire mentor Letitia told me how to integrate beads into the weave. Basically, you string a bead when you're about to make a stitch. When you put the rough weave through the draw plate, those beads are smushed to the inside, and end up encased in the finished weave. This I had to try!

So, for this practice piece I picked up some cheap 'beading wire' from Walmart this afternoon. I did discover that the gold tone is only a coating, and that the coating will scratch off if you handle the wire too roughly with the pliers. So I'm not going to use this wire in a higher quality piece, but it was good enough to practice on. First I did a sample with seed beads. They were visually lost in the finished product. Then I tried a sample with green glass 'E' beads, which are basically larger seed beads coming in at a size 6/0. That worked better, but the green didn't have enough contrast to really stand out from the surrounding wire. So I grabbed some black E beads, and made a choker length necklace.



This I'm pleased with. The beads give an elegant but subtle variation on plain chain. I can foresee experimenting with different sized beads, different gauge wire, various number of loops in the weave (this was a 5 loop weave), and a variety of color combinations.