Update October 2013

So, a bunch to update...the Red Victorian Lady is history...was never going to finish her.  I warped the 22" Mirrix loom she was on for two projects: a seahorse and a French coquette.  Pictures of those will be added later as they are on my laptop and I'm blogging on my iPad right now.  I'm going a to use my 32" Mirrix loom to weave a fiber tapestry...maybe with a few beads thrown in :) 

I'm also practicing spindling my own yarn to use in my weaving adventures.  If I keep at it. I may get myself a spinning wheel for Christmas :). That would be totally cool...spinning and weaving my own yarn.

Also, The Beaded Cat is now on Facebook.  I'll be posting the latest patterns and gadgets, techniques, tips as I go.

Sharing with your Pet

For the past week, I've been trying to get some bead weaving done.  BUT, I've had a problem because a certain black cat, whose name shall not be typed here so as to avoid conjuring him up from the depths of where ever he is now, has claimed the chair I use for bead weaving. He's a fickle little cat and claims favorite sleeping places at random.  He'll sleep in those spots for weeks and then abandon them to sleep somewhere else.  Last Tuesday, I planned to bead weave for a couple of hours as Bob was working late.  I walked from the living room to the kitchen thinking happily of spending time with my beads and thread.  On my way back to my beading space in the living room, a furry monster hurried past me and jumped into my beading chair, curled up and shut his eyes.  Little rat fink!  

I think there will be a lot less "first come, first served" in this house given a certain fur person's lack of sharing skills!

Oh, and in my last post, I said I might not finish the Red Victorian Lady.  Well, after staring at my progress and thinking of all the time and material that has gone into her so far...I am going to finish her.  Just not very soon...

 

Caesar's Forum Update

I restarted my Caesar's Forum project.  I decreased the number of colors of beads that I am using and the result is MUCH better.  And the best thing is that in less than a week, I was able to put in 9 rows. There are 135 rows in this one.  It's only 170 beads wide which is about 8.5".  It's about 9" tall.  

Here is what it looks like now:

Here's what it WILL look like when it is finished:

 So, you can see that the bottom shadows are well under way in my bead weaving.  Looking forward to working on this one.  I can do 2 rows in 45 mins, so this should go pretty fast.  

And sad news about the Red Victorian Lady....I think I am not going to finish her.  12" wide is too much for me to deal with.  I have to make too many changes on the fly.  It's going to take me forever to finish her and I'm not enjoying it very much.  

I'll find something else to work on besides the three off loom projects I have.


 

Caesar's Forum Tapestry Bites the Dust

My Caesar's Forum tapestry is biting the dust and I'm starting over.   That pattern was one of the the first photographs of a location that I made.  Since then I've learned a lot about designing patterns from those kinds of photographs.  I think there were too many different colors all scattered around which muddies the outlines of the buildings and makes the shapes unrecognizable.  
SO, I went back to the drawing board and redesigned the pattern.  I'm going to restart the weaving process.

Progress on the Red Victorian Lady

Finished two rows on the Red Victorian Lady...should have done 4, but I have a couple of extra days off this weeks, so I'll catch up and keep on track.  This picture represents my favorite past time on Sunday afternoon.

Little wine....couple of rows in my favorite lady :)

 

Red Victorian Lady

More progress on the Red Victorian Lady!  I have 245 rows left to do.  She started with 297 rows and she is 12 by almost 20"!   I thing she'll be the biggest work I'll ever do.  It's quite a chore.  But she'll be beautiful when she's done.

 

More Progress!!!

I have made quite a bit of progress on the Red Victorian Lady.  I added three rows to her since Friday pm.  I plan to do two more tomorrow. I'm down to 247 rows.  I plan to do a minimum of 4 rows a week until I finish her.  

Blogger App

I used the Blogger App on my iPad, but I didn't like it.  Can't do as much as you can from a laptop.  So, here's my other bead weaving project.  I'm using a smaller Mirrix loom.  This piece is smaller than the Red Victorian Lady, so isn't as exhausting to work on. 

This is what it looks like now and the original picture...

Red Victorian Lady is back!!!

I'm blogging from my iPad...not a big fan of the Blogger app, but I don't want to drag my laptop out.

This is my Red Victorian Lady bead tapestry...I still have 250 rows to go...she's pretty hdifficult to work on...I am constantly adjusting the bead positions to make her look like I want her to.  And she's very wide.  I'd like to get her finished by late 2014.  

Updates!

I have two bead embroidered cuffs finished that I haven't put in my blog.  I've been making some crystal and copper, silver, brass jewelry.  Pictures of those later.
Now, here are pictures of my news bead embroidered cuffs:

The first is citrine, green adventurine and white marble cabochons with various gold, green seed beads.

 And this one is a paper clay skull with crystal eyes and red glass, and mixed glass cabochons.  I made the glass cabs myself.  I love this guy.  I have one more skull to bead embroider.  And of course, I can make more as I have a mold of a skull that I made from a brass stamping.

   

WOW!!!

Wow, I cannot believe I have not blogged yet this year!  I am falling behind!  I have embarked on some other kinds of jewelry making....some metal...some glass...and even some resin pieces...the non messy resin kind :)

Pictures:

Here are some of the glass pendant necklaces I've made lately... I have been buying digital pages from Etsy and gluing them to glass cabochons and putting them in bezel trays.  I'm using organza ribbon and waxed cotton necklaces for a feminine touch.  

I opened a new Etsy store Black Cat Artworks to display and perhaps sell some of my creations.

More pictures:

 
 A copper bracelet of  my own design...top is the  main focal part and the bottom is the whole bracelet....I love working with copper...I dip all my pieces in liver of sulphur to darken the copper then I bring out the highlights by scrubbing with a brass brush. That leave some dark spots and some more coppery spots.  I have more metal jewelry in the works.

And I am working on my next bead embroidery project....a bracelet with eye cabochons.