My Latest Bead Project

Currently I’m half way through a major bead endeavor that I’d like to share with you. To back up a bit… I entered a bead Round Robin that my friend was hosting. A Round Robin is where a central theme gives each beader guidelines as to what kind of project to make. Then each beader interprets the theme how they wish into a project. For instance, if the theme is “chivalry” then you could make a dragon, a castle, or a queen. If the theme is “bug” then you’d make any kind of bug you could dream up. Often a book accompanies the work, one that you buy or make, and you can communicate any guidelines you wish to be followed, or ideas, or the progress of the work. At this point your name is put on a list of approximately 8 beaders. When you’ve done a small portion of work on your piece, you then mail it to the person who’s name comes after yours. So each work rotates once per month to a different person, and each person contributes what they want. So one month you may work on a dragon necklace, then the next month you may work on a queen’s crown bracelet, and so forth. Eventually your work comes around to you again, and you get to see all the contributions made by each beader. You can look through your book to see the documented journey of your piece. Then sometimes there’s a reception where all the pieces go on display and each participant gathers to meet each other, chat and visit. It’s a blast!

So anyway, I joined a Round Robin and the theme was a doll. So I made a doll, and to make a long story short, my piece got stolen after it was delivered. What I mean is, the box got left at an outside door by the mail carrier, and then it was stolen. Gone forever. I have to admit that I was horribly disappointed. Although all the work I did on it (over a span of two months) wasn’t a loss, since that was such enjoyable beading time. It was the investment of my collection of beads that hurts. I went through my bead stash and pulled out many rare and un-replaceable beauties that are now gone forever. Ouch! My doll has never surfaced, so I felt that the right thing to do was bow out of that Round Robin. I didn’t want to just rush into a new doll for the sake of having one. I like to put a lot of thought into it, and plan it out. Who knows… maybe the thief is working on my doll and they’ll mail it back to me! I can only hope!! Ok, so one door closed, and another one opened….

I learned about another event where the theme is, you guessed it, a doll. This time it’s a bead Challenge, where you have to work in the theme and you can do whatever you want. You have to submit it by the due date, which in this case is sometime in June, but you keep it and complete it all yourself instead of sending it to different people. I decided that I could do this one.

For my project I chose a theme that I love: The Sun. I’m making a Sun Doll. And since this is something out of my imagination, I’m going to just go along like I know what I’m doing, and see what happens. I used ultra-suede for the body, cutting a random pattern and sewing it up. I stuffed the bottom feet with rice to give it weight and help it stand properly, and the rest is filled with poly-fiberfill. That way a needle can pass through it easily, which is how I plan to add the beads: by sewing them on with a needle and Fireline. At this point, the body looks a bit like Beaden-stein! There are some copper wires inside the armature so I can pose it. I want it to be balanced so it will stand on its own.

I made the sun head separately out of ultra-suede, and then used Sculpy clay to form a big, cheery sun face with glass beads for eyes. Once it was fired, I used colored pencils to give it a glow, and then sealed it with a high gloss coat of varnish.

Now I can add beads! I chose blue for the body to be representational of the universe. I chose an assortment of pearls, glass, stones, seed beads and especially crystals. I began on the bottom of the feet, which seemed like a good place to start. I did a random pattern in seed beads on one foot, and then put my signature on the other, along with the date. Seed beads will allow it to stand flat with out being tipsy. Then I began to add big beads!! Working my way up, I tried to hide all the ultra-suede with beads, and where it was showing, I used seed beads to fill in the spaces. I also wanted to cover up any bead holes that were showing. This is slow, tedious work, and I love it! I chose special beads for the belly, neck and center of the back, and used just about all the beads I had picked out. There were just a few seed beads and random stone chips left in my tray when I was done!

Its time to sew on the head… which I’m just starting to do. I’ve got to sew the head on before I attach the face, because I need to be able to pass the needle through to the front as I add beads to the back. In the beginning of May I’ll be posting a follow-up article so you can see the progress of my work!

Happy Beading!
The Bead Belle

Ps…. I apologize for the picture quality of my photos… I’m no photographer! Forgive me! :-)