Memory Lane: The Twilight Bag (not that Twilight - this piece was made well before the book and film came out)

In some earlier posts  (here and here) I talked about beaded amulet bags when they were all the craze. After learning circular peyote stitch I wanted to design my own bag.  Being BDA (Before the Digital Age – the earlier 90s) I resorted to graph paper and colored pencils.

I have always loved twilight for the slow bleed of one color into another, especially at this time of year for the stark beauty of bare trees in winter.  This was one of the first projects where I became absorbed in the process of creating not only the design on the bag, but everything else that went with it: the strap, the fringe, the closure. Beading is about building.

 Along with bags we were all back then learning about fringe, though it seems hesitantly done on this piece. I think I was trying to suggest the ground on which the tree stands, but it seems too short to me now.

I had more fun with the strap, for which I made peyote tubes that mimicked the color shift. 

I don’t wear this much anymore so it is nice to bring it out and introduce it to a wider audience. Say hello.

Beading down Memory Lane

Being a woman of middle years, I came late to the digital revolution.  Back in the mid-90s, when colleagues at the college where I teach were getting online I held out:  e-mail and all that stuff was a time-sucker and a fad.  Then of course I bit the bullet but resisted switching over from Netscape to IE back in the day.  And no Moodle for me and my courses, thank you very much. And as God was my witness I was never going to own a cellphone or have a Facebook page. Ah well…the irony is that every time I gave in and tried the new thing my response was the same: "Why did I wait so long? I love this!" Convenience doth make devotees of us all.

Where was I? Oh yes, the same goes for beadwork. Those of us who have been beading awhile can see the fads, the vogues, the revivals. When I began beading in the early 1990s amulet bags were all the rage. I well remember the Bead and Button issue (August 1994) that featured Carol Wilcox Wells' beaded bags and how to make one.

Up to that point, as usual, I had resisted the Delica siren call. I didn't want to invest more money in a new type of bead (yeah, this was a long time ago, I know better now). But I wanted to make a bag and Delicas, with their mosaic effect, were amazing to look at.  So I caved in, bought some, and made my first bag based on Carol's article.  I decided to use a repeating pattern so I could focus on the stitch and here is the result:

I call it "Prom Dress" as the fringe (I got a little carried away) made a fancy flaring skirt on the body of the bag.

And here's another photo showing my weak tension.  I could have had a nice job beading watches for Salvador Dali to paint.

   On the other hand, there are times when I wish I could summon up my younger beading self because tight tension does not always a successful piece of beadwork make. Gentle beading indeed!

Bead Fever

In my last post I showed a variation on caging large beads with beaded components. Here's another one.

Why? Because no beader can ever bead just one version of something, they have to bead more. Part of this is the fever of acquisition. You get into the moment of learning something new with cool colors and embellishments and suddenly you have to have a stash of beads to create more with them right now.  In the old days you went to the craft store or waited impatiently for the newest bead catalogue to arrive (which some companies made you buy, can you believe that?).

The internet has had a deplorably enabling effect on this impulse, which has contributed to the beggared state of my bank account. But what a thrill to acquire shiny new beads, and accent beads to go with, maybe books and patterns, and before you know it, you have created a new classification in the Dewey Decimal system of your bead room. Mine is more of a Demented Decimal system, but, like my office at work, I know where everything is.

So, having figured out how to cage my large beads between beaded components, I wanted more large beads. I found these faceted turquoise-colored beads at a bead show and have a feeling I was probably overcharged for them, but I loved the color and, well, bead show:  the beading equivalent of an opium den.

Nice color, eh? And these photos definitely do not do it justice. 

I again used Aleta Ford Baker’s “Indespiral” pattern for the strap, and you can find her tutorial here.

Here’s a close up of the strap join:

Next time: So what else can I do with all these big beads I bought?