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.

Arboreus

One of the pleasures of subscribing to bead magazines is encountering a new stitch or design and suddenly seeing new ways to apply it.  Such happened when I first came across the plaited Herringbone or Ndebele stitch in the April 2002 issue of Bead & Button magazine. The pattern was for a bracelet but I loved the stitch so much I wanted to do something more with it.

Here’s the bracelet design made by the creator of this stitch, Chika Terai:

 A lovely design, but…two sides of whatever you created with it would always be V-shaped, and designing for something besides a bracelet would be a challenge. But that was answered when I immediately saw a wall hanging in my beading future.

I used a palette inspired by the autumnal colors of a cherry tree outside my window. It went from green to yellow with splashes of purples and reds.  I stitched it organically rather than create a pattern to follow. With this stitch you start at the center and work your way out to the length you want on one side, each row getting shorter than the previous one, and then you do the same for the other side. I call the result “Arboreus.”

It’s funny, I haven’t thought of this stitch for a long time, but am now thinking about finding other possibilities for it – creating earrings, using this stitch in lieu of brick stitch, or for neck straps to frame a bead embroidery pendant. Hmmm…

Want to try it yourself? Chika has a free tutorial on her website, Sweet Pea Beadwork, and you can find it here.

Feeding the Beast

Contrary to popular belief, one does not acquire a bead stash so they can sit atop it like Smaug, who, as Tolkien tells us may not have known a good [bead] from a bad, but “had a good notion of the current market value.” The goal in building a bead stash is to possess every kind of bead ever created is to have the right beads on hand for the project you want to, no, have to make right now.

All right, I admit it, Smaug dwells in the heart of every serious beader. While buggles (non-beading folk) may not understand the pull of the stash, I maintain that everybody collects something and thus can sympathize with a beader’s need to feed the monster.

So here are my words of wisdom on tending your bead stash as it takes over your life.

Don’t Buy Cheap.  Truer advice was never given and never taken.  I heard this from experienced beaders when I was starting out but did I listen? No!  The lure of inexpensive beads was too great and I wanted more bang for my buck. I didn’t stop to consider that there’s a reason some beads are cheap – they aren’t uniformly shaped, their colors fade, their finishes rub off as soon as you have finished the piece (if not while you’re actually working on it – gah!), and they just sit there, like some black hole sucking up space and giving nothing back. Eventually you move them to a remote part of the bead room and they are never heard from again.

Wait For It.  Sign up for the various newsletters put out by bead sellers and wait for the sales. Many have free shipping.  Never buy at the regular price. This means you may not always have the beads on hand that you crave, but ideally, by practicing a method of patient acquisition you will achieve bead nirvana, that state where you actually have on hand the beads you need.

Buy Narrowly. Stick to a specific colorway, for a time at least, building up stocks of different kinds of beads that complement each other. I like to buy in the metallics because copper, gold, bronze and silver go with almost anything.  And if they are too expensive, go for the luster version, poor woman’s gold-plating I call it.  I know you should push yourself to work outside your color preferences but early on, make those preferences work for you.

Indulge Yourself. Make room in an order for that special type of bead or color that may be more than you want to pay. Order just one.  And stop there.  You can do it.

And one day, one golden day, you will come to a bead project you want to make and all the beads will be there, ready to hand. At that point you will realize that your bead stash sucks up more money than your mortgage/rent/school loans/taxes and you are totally fine with that.

Bead On!!