My latest project… nearly done! Finally!

The doll is finished! Well, the body and head of the doll are finished, but I’ve still got some odds and ends to work on. Let me tell you how I got this far…

Once the head of the doll was sewed on, I began attaching amber colored beads around the neck. I continued to fill in until I had a good portion of the back of the head done. I had to do it this way so that I could pass the needle through to the front of the head easily. Once I had that back area finished, I could attach the face to it. The face is made from Sculpy Clay in a soft yellow color that I mixed myself, and then hand sculpted into a face using black glass beads for the eyes. The face was fired in the oven and then I used colored pencils to give it some highlights and color. Then I used a high polish glaze to make it as shiny as possible. Once it was dry, I put it on the front of the head and traced around it with pencil. Setting the face aside for safety, I began using a couching stitch to lay beads down on my tracing, and then began peyote off that base. I did about 20 rows of peyote and then set the face down into it, continuing with the peyote until it ended just below the temples of the face. This technique works great for cinching in around something like a cabochon (or a sun face!) to hold it in place tightly. Then I did peyote in a zigzag stitch back and forth around the forehead to bring it up a bit higher on the face. I ended by doing a row of 2 mm round Swarovski crystals from temple to temple. Beautiful! This peyote alone took me 9 days to complete. It was pretty tedious and difficult because the thread kept catching on the points of the head or the beads on the body. I was really glad when that was finished. Now the fun could begin!

I began adding beads to the front of the face, and it was really fun choosing huge, big, bright crystals and shiny beads to put there. I wanted it to just BEAM! (pun intended!) I kept going until the beads covered the front and back in a big circle around the face. Next I added a Swarovski crystal point on at the inner part of the points. These are actually pendants made by the chandelier division of Swarovski, but they’re so perfect for my sun doll. I would add a point and reinforce it really well, since crystal can be sharp… I didn’t want it to cut through the threads and potentially fall off at some later time. I put each point on and filled in around them as I went. When that was done, I added the outer points and filled those in. It was really fun watching each part of the face become finished. And once I had all the points done, I got up and did the happy dance!! Wa-hoo! It seemed like it took forever, but it was so worth it. The doll blazes like its on fire! Just stunning.

I added one more piece to the doll. It’s a Swarovski crystal star fish (article 6721) in light amethyst. I attached it as though the doll were wearing a necklace, with size 13.0 charlottes in montana blue. I did this for sentimental reasons… my sister Diana passed away on July 4, 2004 from unknown reasons, and she loved stars and her favorite color was purple. She would tell her kids, “You’re a superstar!” I imagine her zooming around in a Heavenly universe, trailing after shooting stars and watching us from afar. One time I was visiting her in Connecticut and we were riding in the car together. The song Drops of Jupiter by Train came on, and I watched her sing every word, thinking– how does she know all the words to this?? And today I listen to that song which has so many universe references, like, “Now that she’s back in the atmosphere with drops of Jupiter in her hair… tell me, did you sail across the sun… did you fall for a shooting star… tracing her way through the constellation… did you make it to the milky way…” and so on. For a long time that song would make me cry so hard every time I heard it, but now it just puts joy in my heart and I sing it at the top of my lungs whenever I hear it on the radio. So this represents my sister hanging out in the universe. Moving along…

Now I’ve got planets to make. There has to be planets hanging out in this universe, don’t you think? So I decided to make beaded bead planets using this great technique I found a long time ago in a beading magazine. . I’ve used it in a lot of projects and taught many people how to do it. Here’s the jist of it… with a round bead of any size, insert your needle (with about 4 feet of thread on it) through the hole of the bead leaving a 6” tail, then do it again, and again… and you end up with all kinds of thread stripes on the outside of the bead, and it kind of resembles a pumpkin. Then you start beside the hole, pick up one seed bead and pass your needle under the next thread. Pick up another bead and pass your needle under the next thread, and so on. When you get to the end, start another row below, adding enough beads to fit between the threads to fill in the space. Work until you reach the middle, then pass the needle under the beads to go back to the hole, go through the hole and start the same process on the other side, eventually meeting in the middle. You have to do it that way, because if you just went from hole to hole you wouldn’t be able to get the needle in at the second hole. It would be too crowded. Make sense? If not, e-mail me at IMBEADEN@yahoo.com Attn: Dara and I’ll try to explain better. You end up with circlets of beads going around the large bead. Very pretty.

I’ve decided to do 9 planets and then have them hanging in clusters from the hands of the doll, as though it were playing with them as toys. Yes, I’ve heard the debate about whether Pluto is actually a planet, but in my universe it is. :-) When I first imagined what the doll would look like in the very beginning, this is what I pictured, so I’m just going to run with it and see it through to the end.

So this is where I stand now. In a couple of weeks I should have the doll finished completely, hallelujah! Its due to be on display on the east coast as of the first week of June, and it will be there for a month. However, when the doll returns to me it will be on display in the store at Garden of Beaden and you can come to see it!

Happy Beading!
The Bead Belle