As all the veterans know, and most of you newbies, I'm working on a long term project with sculptural beaded items from many nations in which beading is culturally important. I narrowed that down further by making items which are oriented toward women, especially married women and mothers.
I started by making a kimono out of crystals in right angle weave. It took me about a month and over 14,000 4 mm crystals. There were some frustrating moments, but the end product made me very happy. It's in the style that a married woman would wear, and although small, is an actual garment.
For the next nation, I had planned to honor Native American beadworkers, specifically those who came from my home town. Unfortunately, the tribe denied my request to use their motifs, so I'll have to make something more generic. (After studying their history, I can't blame them for not wanting an outsider anywhere near them) After a lot of thought, I decided that the Native American project is going to be a cradleboard, done in the Eastern Woodlands tribal style. But there are a few things in the pipeline before that takes place:
First is a wide Egyptian beaded collar. DD requested this, and I spent a lot of time brainstorming the best method to use. In Carol Wilcox Wells book, "The Art and Elegance of Beadweaving," she used multiple sizes of seed beads and Ndeble stitch to make a curved neckpiece. I expanded on that idea, and got seed beads from size 4/0 to size 15/0 to make a wide collar. Because Ndeble stitch shows thread, I used matching C-lon instead of my normal GSP line. The collar part is done and is blocking under a heavy weight in my room. I researched Ancient Egyptian motifs and found an Isis motif that would lend itself to bead embroidery. Once time permits, I'll transfer the motif to a sheet of Lacy's Stiff Stuff and get embroidering.
I'm also planning to make a Russian Kokoshka. That's a traditional beaded headpiece worn by Russian women until 1917. I found an incredible pattern online which I plan to use as inspiration. I got a pointer to a book on Russian embroidery deisgns, which I found online and have been studying. Right now, I'm in the materials gathering stage: found red silk brocade, buckram hat forms and very heavy interfacing online, and once I get finished with the broad collar (and the Ceylon pearl seed beads arrive), I'll get started. (Here's a URL with the inspiration piece:
Cheers,
Kathy N-V