Yesterday, I claimed the purple piece followed directly on from the blue-green one. But is that really the case? I presumed that, because the iconography (large ‘lifesaver’ focal held in place with stripey) is so similar. That's my memory; and after doing the whole thing large, I probably switched back to the smaller hoop for its greater ease in handling, then decided to add the outer ring of embroidery of seed beads, thinking that I wanted more seed beadery, as with my first two pieces in the series.
But I don't know for certain.
Assorted agates—mexican crazylace and dendritic (or whatever the offwhite translucent and black version of moss agate is called); also red, picture, dalmation, and leopardskin jaspers; pink rhodonite (note especially the fish:); tigereye; citrine; carnelian; golden and snowflake obsidian; freshwater pearls and mother-of-pearl; abalone; vintage; artisan (stripeys); seed and bugle beads. There's even one tiny ceramic bead. Oh, and another of those evil pretty, pink plastic beads. Completed in Autumn? 2012?[1]
At any rate, there is a kitty and fish for it to eat, like the other two in this series:)
There's a strong strain of ‘let's use this up...’ —I have a lot of white and colorless seed beads because I detest dyed seed beads,[2] and an easy way to remove dye from beads is to anneal them. Provided you have a kiln with tight temperature controls, which I do, and ideally a hood to deal with fumes, which I do;) You see where this is going, right? Yeah, lots of white and clear beads.
I enjoyed embroidering all the little beads, but it took forevah. Also, what was I to do these relatively large scale objects? (It didn't really occur to me to frame them until a year or two later, and they're not well framed.) I wasn't crazy about the color scheme, but it made perfect sense for the fabric, and iirc, the season. However, the piece is forever linked to visiting with neighborhood friends, and so has a warm place in my heart.
[1]There are no white micro bugles, which I purchased in shiny finish in July 2013 and again in matte 05sep15—since by then I'd lost the first lot!
[2]In a well-dyed piece of fabric, the dye chemically bonds with the fibers; but glass is not at all porous, giving the dye nothing to bond to; otoh, chemical salts in glass mean its color persists pretty much as long as the glass itself. Hence, my preference.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
