Thursday, February 2, 2017


Bead Fabrication

Having begun beading on  my friend Linda’s fabric by putting a pellon backing on it for easier stitching, I then realized that this method no longer limited me to the kinds of fabric I could bead on. I have a lot of these hand-smacking-forehead moments. The creative process can both open you up and give you a terrible case of tunnel vision.

Up to now I have been doing bead embroidery with something called Easy Felt, which you can get at most craft stores.  It’s not the floppy felt you might remember from your youth – I got a felt board with various floppy felt critters and letters one Christmas. I remember my Dad borrowing it to create title boards when he edited his Explorer Post whitewater canoeing movies.

But Easy Felt only comes in certain colors. Which is a pretty frequent beader’s lament: why doesn’t this bead/thread/felt come in more colors?  No turquoise, no seafoam, no rose, no celadon; red purple but no blue purple. But with pellon you can turn any fabric into essentially a piece of Easy Felt.

So, off to my home away from home, Jo-Ann Fabric, to buy monochrome fat quarters. The first one I worked with was in my favorite turquoise. I had bought a bunch of acrylic cabochons for another project that never quite took off, so was happy to find another use for them.

Here is the result. I like the somewhat muted palette that still shows a lot of color - with little accents (I restrained myself) using Czech shaped beads.




  
You will also notice I forgot to iron the fabric before I fused it. (Sound of hand smacking forehead – OW!!)

4 comments:

  1. Absolutely gorgeous! See, sometimes less really is more. Now you still have beads left for another project or two.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love that bracelet and the selection fo colors you chose was so gorgeous!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love these colors. I use fusible backing and fusible fleece for fabric purses that I've been making on Mom's old Singer. No beads, but having fun with fabric.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd like to see what you are making, that sounds cool. I haven't tried fusible fleece - I'll have to look into getting some.

      Delete