April 29, 2007

Busy Beading + Finger Weaving

The last week or so has been occupied with travel beading. In between, I celebrated living another year. I made a flying trip up to Phoenix to meet two long-time beading friends, have lunch, visit the Glendale Bead Museum and (of course) tour a local bead shop.

Left to right - Judith, Crystal from Sun City AZ, Bev from New Orleans.




I also made another trip back up to Payson AZ to bead with a group of friends in that area. Some of those people had taken my free form workshop and I was delighted to see where that technique had taken them.



What had started out as a bracelet became a beautiful embellishment for paper craft. Isn't she delightful?






"elements" - I had used free form elements to teach with and one participant took it to heart and made many separate pieces that she then joined and applied to an art doll. Isn't this a great, original way to put free form beading to good use?



This piece will still become a bracelet. The subtle use of color and texture suits the beading personality of it's owner. It will be an outstandingly beautiful wrist adornment.



I seldom get to see what people in my workshops end up finally creating. This was a unique opportunity to see where this technique had led some of the participants. I'm so pleased that they took me seriously when I said that the beads will sometimes tell you just what they want to be.



I just returned from another bead cave in Huachuca City AZ. This is a group of friends that I've enjoyed beading with in the winter over the past 5 years. This winter I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I had in the past so this was both a catch up and a goodbye session. Both of my two travel beading sessions allowed me to work on some fun, original beadwork.... and use up a bunch of left-over larger beads.

Finger Weaving


Over the past few months I've been exploring finger weaving from Robin Adkin's book "Timeless Treasures". The first bracelet that I made caused me to break out as I had included some vintage bronze leaves and they reacted badly with my skin.




I started another bracelet that would not have any metal accent beads.





One of the Bead Cave participants decided she wanted to try this technique also. It just showcases how different individual beading styles can be, even when using the same base technique. Sparse can be just as effective as lush.













I'm quite happy with my new finger woven bracelet with a mix of odd beads.





I have another one on my board and I'm still deciding where it is going to go. The flat beads don't allow for two passes of the cording, so I'll have to get creative if I want to use them. The bronze colored glass triangles offset the green beautifully. At the moment I think I may make a bracelet that simply repeats green squares with bronze triangles.

2 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday, Judith! Looks like you've been having a lot of fun with the beading and the friends and the traveling.

    That finger weaving technique looks interesting. Maybe it's something the Goddesses can do this summer?

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  2. The three of you look great!!! And don't you love the finger weaving technique? I have done a couple of bracelets and even a necklace with it!

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