New Bead Embroidered Cuff

Three posts in three days!  I finished this cuff in two days!  Thinner cuffs are, of course, easier and faster to finish.  I'm wearing this to work today!  It's my pre-Halloween costume :)

 

Red Victorian Lady Update

I finally got some time to work on the Red Victorian Lady tapestry.  I've  made some progress and I'm going to concentrate on it.  I have 251 rows left to go (there were 298 rows in all) and if I do one a day, which isn't very realistic, it will take me almost a year to finish it.  I want it done before I retire in late 2015, so I'd better get going!

I love that the beads make the folds in the dress look realistic. She's going to be quite the project, but probably the artistic work of my life!
 

Halloween Cuff Bracelet

I just finished a bead embroidered cuff bracelet for Halloween.  I made all the elements except for the seed beads.  The cat figure, colored to look like Merlie, is paper clay sealed with acrylic.  The cabochons are glass fused in my kiln. 

 

I've made lots of cuffs this year, but this has to be my favorite!

Experiments

I have watched a couple of Craftsy class on new techniques for art quilting and making artsy fabric to make totes, eye glass cases, stuff like that.  I really like Craftsy classes because they are video classes and you get to watch them whenever.  And Craftsy managed to get quite a collection of good teachers who do online classes very well.

The first class is called Stitch and Slash it involves layer four pieces of fabric, stitching designs in the layers and cutting through to different layers.  Here are my two projects I've finished so far:

 I call this Hawaiian Skies.  I embellished and beaded it, of course.

This one is done on a foundation of "fabric" which consists of little pieces of leftovers I ironed on a piece of interfacing.  I cut through all the layers of fabric to show the different parts of the composite at the bottom.
I call this Flea Market Find :  It's also beaded and embellished.

Finally, I took the Craftsy class Stupendous Stitching . 
That class is all about embellishing fabric to create really neat art fabric you can display as art or make things out of.
Here's my first piece:

I call this My Favorite Things...because I've loved this fabric for  years and I put beads, shiny threads and hand embroidery.

Here are some close ups:

I'll definitely make more of both kinds of projects.  I have one Stitch and Slash projects in progress.  Pictures later! 

 
 

New Bead Embroidered Cuff

I finished this cuff yesterday.  I used a face cabochon that I made from paper clay and colored with Sharpies...I LOVE Sharpies!   I sealed the face with an acrylic sealer.  The glass cabochons were made in my kiln.  

I also worked on a couple of smaller cabochons.  Did I violate my vow not to start new projects?  No, I don't think so.  I've had the onyx cabochons glued to the backings for months.  So, I thought them fair game :)

Off loom project

In keeping with my pledge to work on all my unfinished projects, I'm posting one of my off loom beadweaving pieces.  Off loom is stitches like peyote, two drop peyote, herringbone, etc.  So here's my project:

Betcha can't guess who this is?

Yup, it's Merlin!  I'm doing this picture of Merlie in two drop peyote.  All I have so far are his ears. 

When I am finished with this, Merlin will be twice immortalized in beads!