Module 3 - Chapter 8 - Beaded Sampler

As a background to my beaded sampler I used dyed linen fabric backed with muslin. This was then stretched into a wooden frame for support whilst stitching.

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 From left to right, from the top, an edging row of seed beads; alternating seed beads, and round green beads; an edging of clustered pink seed beads (inspired by Jenny Marty's beautiful bracelet); pink round beads oversewn with pink cotton thread; towers made up of a seed bead, on top of a sequin, on top of a vertical bugle bead, on top of a square bead; a green circular paperclip couched with pink thread, surrounded by mini sequins & bugle beads; matchsticks trapped under red sweetie wrapper.

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 ...alternating seed beads, and round green beads; alternating pink seed beads & red bugle beads; and edging row of green bugle beads threaded either side of a lime green beed; spiralled curtain hooks decorated with green seed beads; 2 lines using more than one type of bead; a compact area using more than one type of bead; a pattern made with tile spacers stitched with metallic thread and decorated with a bead at the intersection; alternating groups of beads and sequins threaded in groups as an edging.

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 ... a sequence of red beads & bugle beads threaded in groups of 3; small painted seeds (from a tree in India) held down with knotted thread; 4 cowrie shells (inspired by a Kalashi headdress belonging to Angela Thompson's collection) edged with 4 small sequins held down with long legged detaiched chain stitch; a large group of sequins threaded either side of a large pink bead and stitched down to form an edging; painted tap washers trapped loosely under green dyed plasterers scrim; a pattern of square glass beads held down with a cross stitch alternated with round plastic children's beads.

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... a random selection of buttons piled on top of eachother; rows of sequins each threaded onto one long length of yarn; a random selection of lightly spinkled beads, including shisha glass stitched down with embroidery thread; bugle beads held down in groups of 2 with a cross stitch and forming a basketwork pattern; large beads stitched down in groups of 3 to form an edgining.

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 The bottom of the main panel is edged with double rows of random coloured seed beads.

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The pieced bottom section (inspired by Module 1) is held on with beaded safety pins (inspired by a visit to the Zandra Rhodes exhibition); the chain (inspired by the Angela Thompson headdress, and also synonymous with Birmingham) is held down with clusters of green seed beads; bottom row from left to right; a fringe of large random pink beads & sequins; rows of green seed beads & bugle beads forming a pattern, with occasional beaded loops at the bottom; seed beads and bugle beads in a fringe decorated with bells (inspired by the Angela Thompson headdress) a lattice pattern of pink seed beads made by catching a bead from the previous row.

In June this year, Angela Thompson visited our local embroidery group with a collection of emroidered garments that she had collected on her travels around the world.

Amongst her collection was this headdress worn by the Kalash women, a tribe found in the Chitral Valley on the Pakistan/Afghan border.

The Kalasha people are a peace loving pagan tribe living in remote villages and renowned for their blue eyes and fair skin. They are said to be descendants of Alexander the Great.

I was inspired by the use of shells, bells, buttons and chains amongst the beads on the headdress and felt this would be a useful reference for my beaded sampler!

kalash 1

kalash 2

kalash 3

kalash 4

Module 3 - Chapter 7 - Simple Button Making

TOGGLE BUTTONS

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Strips of fabric were rolled into toggles.The finished shape of the toggle is determined by the length thickness and shape (rectangular or triangular) of the strips of fabric.

From left to right (& top to bottom);

• pink canvas and green calico fabrics cut in isosceles shape & rolled together.
• green sweetie paper rectangle loosely spiralled with green wire.
• pink cotton 'right angled triangle' frayed and rolled.
• rectangle of patterned fabric overdyed green
• 'double isosceles triangles' rolled, then wrapped with metallic pink machine thread.
• 3 rectangles of varying thicknesses, the last layer using fabric decorated with machine whip & cable stitch.
• pink canvas 'filled' with thread cuttings from my 'scraps' jar.
• green isosceles triangle wrapped with wire & beads 



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The above toggles were made using meltable materials.

From left to right (& top to bottom);

• pink synthetic felt wrapped around green cotton & zapped with heat gun. The felt shrivelled and beaded beautifully giving a crunchy lace effect.
• right angled triangles in pink felt & green tyvec using heat gun.
• green felt wrapped around pink cotton using heat gun. I think perhaps the felt had been given a flame retardant coating as it shrunk away and developed the odd hole, but did not bead in the way that the pink felt did.
• purple nylon netting wrapped around pink canvas. The netting disintegrated rapidly, but with care I managed to achieve an interesting 'knobbly' effect.
• tyvec painted red on the inside & green on the outside, cut in a rectangle & zapped with heat gun.The tyvec shrunk & shrivelled away from the heat exposing the red layers beneath. The result was very hard and plasticky.
• red synthetic felt rectangle wrapped around pale green cotton & scored with the tip of a hot soldering iron.
• double isosceles triangles of tyvec painted in red & green. The strips shrivelled to give an amazing scale like effect.
• green plastic bag wrapped around cerise cotton & zapped with heat gun. The plastic shrunk quite evenly & developed pin prick holes that got bigger as the plastic got hotter. With care, these were just big enough to expose the pink fabric underneath. Finally the toggle was wrapped with green wire.
• red & green felt with heat gun, again I think these had been treated as they only shrunk and formed a tighter toggle.
• green tyvec wrapped around cerise cotton, zapped with heat gun, then wrapped with green wire.
• red cellofoil triangle wrapped around lime green cotton & zapped with heat gun. The cellofoil reacted rapidly to become a dull, hard melted mass, but managed to retain its shine & simply developed holes where the heat wasn't too intense.
• tyvek isosceles triangle painted red on the outside, green on the inside & zapped with heat gun. The tyvec shrunk away in quite a uniform manner & exposed the green layers underneath giving a beautiful candy stripe effect.
• red/green right angled triangle zapped with heat gun, then decorated with soldering iron.

Module 3 - Chapter 7 - Simple Button Making

Dorset Buttons

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A selection of dorset buttons wrapped with varying thicknesses of thread, torn strips of fabric, and decorated with beads.

Module 3 - Chapter 7 - Simple Button Making

Wrapped Buttons

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Bright green rayon machine thread was wrapped heavily across the centre of the button to give a cross pattern. This was then decorated in the centre with beads.

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 This rectangular button was wrapped in fabric that had previously been whip stitched and cable stitched.

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Two mono-printed triangular buttons were bound together by wrapping with metallic purple and shiny green rayon machine threads in a spiralling pattern.

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This circular button was wrapped with fabric heavily decorated with cabled spirals.

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 I bought a 'gizmo' some time ago. It makes the most amazingly fine tight metal spring like spirals. I thought it would be fun to wrap this pink mono-printed kite shaped button with some green wire spirals.

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This triangular button was wrapped randomly with dark green metallic machine thread.

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 This circular button made from dyed silk noil was wrapped in sari silk yarn.

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This oval shaped button was covered with silk habotai and wrapped with  beaded pink metallic machine thread.

Module 3 - Chapter 7 - Simple Button Making

EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES!

Buttons prepared back in November ready to wrap and decorate.

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December was a very demanding month at work, along with making Christmas cards, I was unable to focus my mind on completing the buttons.

On 2nd Jan we flew out to Thailand for a couple of weeks. The holiday was amazing, and long awaited! Disappointingly though, I was unable to find any Thai silk or batik. Perhaps we were staying in the wrong area???

Now I am back, I intend to make a quilt for my sister's wedding. She gets married on 7th March, so I have just 6 weeks to complete the task! I managed to complete all of the patchwork last weekend, so I think the timescale should be manageable.

I have promised myself that I will not loose momentum on chapter 7, so I will be posting in small bites as I go along.

Module 3 - Chapter 6 - Hand Made Tassles

TREASURE!

 

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Yarns, threads and fabric strips chosen from selected colour scheme to make a variety of tassles using hand and machine methods.

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A variety of green cotton and synthetic threads, machine stitched in the middle using a wide zig zag to hold the threads together and folded half to form the tassle head. The neck is formed by tightly wound machine thread.

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'ORBIT' Lime green and variegated deep red & pink glossy machine embroidery thread, machine stitched flat in the middle and then loosely twisted in a spiral formation around itself.

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A selection of novelty threads in magenta and green, twisted to form a cord, then plaited. The top neck was formed with tightly wound green rayon. The cords were then unplaited, before forming the second neck. The cords were then unwound to form the skirt.

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torn strips of magenta cotton fabric, knotted together 3 times to form the head, then tightly wound with pink variegated knitting ribbon to form the neck.

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A selection of green threads and knitting wools machine zig-zagged together with metallic magenta threads to form a cord. Tied at the neck with the same cord. Loops at top of head trimmed to form crew-cut!

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Pink plastic bag cut into strips to form skirt. Tied in a knot to form head. A purple sweetie wrapper is held around the neck with green wire tightly spiralled around the length of the neck and threaded with green beads.

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Shimmery lime green, metallic green and variegated yellow/green machine thread. Knotted in the centre to form head, then plaited to form a long neck. An additional knot is tied at the bottom of the plait above the beaded skirt.


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A selection of pink cotton, rayon yarns and metallic machine thread, twisted together and folded to form head. Tightly wound with metallic machine thread to form neck, then untwisted to form skirt.

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Shimmery lime green, metallic green and variegated yellow/green machine thread, machine zig-zagged together to form cord in centre, then knotted together to form head. Neck tightly wound with magenta metallic machine thread.

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Dark red & pink variegated machine thread, knotted together to form head, then wrapped with the same thread to form a long elegant neck.

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Violet tappestry thread, lilac metallic machine thread and lace ribbon. A wooden bead is inserted into neck to make it fatter.

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Mini tassles made from light pink and light green machine thread, tied around neck of larger tassle with a beaded thread.

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Variegated violet machine thread, and magenta metallic thread, machine stitched flat in the middle, then folded to form head. Neck tightly wound with the same thread. Threads were beaded before being wrapped around the card, the loops were left at the bottom of the skirt to hold the beads.

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A selection of machine threads and novelty yarns, tied with metallic thread in a simple tassle with 3 necks.

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Two shades of green rayon tied into a simple tassle. The head is padded with a silk cocoon, then decoratively stitched with detached buttonhole stitch. The skirt was cropped short to experiment with different proportions, but I feel that this stumpy skirt looks ugly!

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A selection of green and magenta textured knitting and tappestry yarns twisted to form a cord, foled to form head, then untwisted to form skirt. The textured nature of the threads made the twisted cord on the head a bit inconspicuous.

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Actually the first tassle attempt. Variegated magenta cotton threads tied in a simple tassle.



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Pink ribbon and metallic pink machine thread, machine zig-zagged in the centre with violet machine thread and knotted to form head. Skirt left in loops. 

Module 3 - Chapter 5 - Cord Making

I really enjoyed this chaper and was amazed and inspired by the gorgeous selection of cords that were created.

 MACHINE STITCHED CORDS

A wide zig zag machine stitch was used over a selection of different 'core' threads by threading the core through a drinking straw taped in front of, and behind the needle. The machine was set to free machining with the darning foot on.

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Single threads and groups of threads were used as the 'core', including:

machine threads, hand embroidery thread and knitting yarn, strips of fabric cut into a continuous length, tights, ribbons, string, unspun wool fleece and silk, wire, and polythene bags.

The macine threads used for the zig zag varied between harmonious colours, contrasting colours, variegated threads and metallics. The 'core' was pulled backwards and forwards through the machine to vary the density of the stitching.

TWISTED CORDS

I experimented with combinations of various thick and thin yarns, fabrics and contrasting textures to make a range of different twisted cords.



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KNOTTED CORDS

A selection of machine stitched and twisted cords were used to create the following knotted cords.

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left to right:
2 twisted cords side by side and knotted at intervals,
2 machine stitched cords knotted together in a series of half hitch knots creating an interesting knobbly effect,
2 contrasting threads tied in alternate 'half knots' to form a flat square knotted cord,
a half knot repeated the same each time to produce a spiral effect,
looped braid edge,
continuous twist chain,
double ridge hitching (or alternate chaining.)

TURKS HEAD KNOT

I experimented with a selection of different cords. I thought that for my first knot it would be easiest to use a strong synthetic garden twine. I was very wrong! It was slippery and hard to control, but eventually created a nice knot! The pink twisted string cord created a nice simple knot. The last knot was made from a cord of twisted fluffy knitting yarn, ribbon, and green plastic shopping bag.

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PLAITED CORDS

A simple three-cord plait was tied in the following variations:

left to right:
using three different cords,
using two cords the same and one contrasting,
one thin cord,
one thick cord,
using a string of beads as one cord,
one of the cords pulled tightly after plaiting.

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Four plaited cords (2 green then 2 pink),
four plaited alternating cords,
seven plaited cords,
five plaited cords in a woven formation.

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WRAPPED CORDS

a soft fat core twisted tightly with contasting ribbon to give a 'bulging' effect,
a thin cord wrapped irregularly arround a thicker cord,
a thick cord wrapped around a thinner cord
threads wrapped in both directions around a thick, twisted fabric cord.



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