Beadworkers Guild challenge: Bead a Song - 2

Perhaps you remember my last article about the Beadworkers Guild Bead challenge in which I told you that I'd come back about it... I was waiting for photos of our group entry to become available. Apologies for the quality... I made a screenshot of the photos in the digital July journal, which is all I can show, together with some bits and pieces made by me and some of the participants (but not placed "in situ").

We chose "English Country Garden" so that each member could make something. Boy have I been busy with it! It takes a lot of time to write a tut, so imagine so many more for a common project. 

Our leader Sylvia thought of making a carousel to best display the 3 distinct couplets of the song in 3 different scenes. How to make the carousel and how to put it all together, including gates between the scenes was all studied and made by Jenny Wilson. The entire group of designers and beaders got together with them through zoom to throw ideas at them. This is how the bench, bird "bath", insect hotel, gates, a buddleia tree and even a pond came on the table... The song got broken down into lists of flowers, birds, insects and greenery. The participants could then choose what they wanted to make. A spreadsheet to keep track of who chose to do what was kept up to date. It took a while before someone accepted to bead spiders, ha ha.

The question "how will it fit in the box" came up quite early, but we couldn't really find the answer... until  Sylvia suggested a brilliant solution: magnets.

Luckily I had patterns already made which could be used - grass, lady bugs, spiders, a dragonfly, lily of the valley, leaves, a bee... Sylvia had (and made) a moth and forget-me-not's. From Liz Thornton (who participated) and Jill Devon's book, The Beader's Floral, we used a pansy and vines; and I based my mini-roses on a tiny flower in there. It is still is available through the BWG website.

Bénédicte Damnet (and her husband Jean-Luc) made graphs for the birds and the insects with Beadographer. Those who made these had to adapt a bit and did a great job. Here some of the beautiful results:

Gillian L.

Sharron S.

 

Gillian W.

 

We needed daffodils, phlox (creeping), lilies, lupines, leaves, hollyhocks and snowdrops (which I designed). Foxgloves were designed and made by Helen McIntyre. We left out meadow sweet (fillipendula) and stocks (matthiola), but had huge panicles of buddleia flowers instead.

Some designers made one of a kind additions. Jess Hayman beaded an incredible bench, a fountain and a pond... masterpieces!! 

Helen McIntyre made miniature fox gloves. Jenny Wilson made the buddleia flowers and the gates, I beaded a gnome, a hedgehog, and a larger lily, daffodils, and vines.

We were more than 30 beaders in the group, most from the UK but also from the USA and elsewhere. Some did a lot, some less, some had unfortunate life events preventing them from accomplishing what they wanted to do... in the end, we can say that we are all tremendously proud of the result.

Bench by Jess

In total this piece represents a looooot of beading, also a loooot of assembling stitches and work for the leading team who did a fabulous job in putting together this mix match of items of different scales. I think that it is beautiful beyond expectations.

There was no other group entry this year, which was quite a bummer. Winning by default is not really a win, but the whole group is chuffed to bits with the end result.

Pond (Jess) with grasses (many hands)

 

Hopefully I will have more to show & tell next year, but for the moment, Eddie the muse is playing hide an seek, and I am quite busy with many other things.

The theme is nice though: Mardi Gras. That's going to be an amazing display of color for sure. I would like to encourage all of you to participate. 

 

Fingers crossed for inspiration! 

 

 

Happy beading to all!

Cath

 

 

 

International Beading Week is here

We're having the best of weeks right now and our Guild,  the Beadworkers Guild, has again a wonderful programme of speakers and teachers during the Zoom sessions they organize. I cannot even start to tell how excited I am to see Jill Wiseman in person coming Thursday, not to speak about the wonderful Edgar Lopez! 

Awe-inspiring bead artist Floor Kaspers is back with us again too, with a pattern for her ribbon necklace and a presentation about conceptual beadwork. 

You can still sign up to participate in the Zoom sessions, the Guild has pushed the limit of the number of attendants a bit up so that nobody misses out!
 

We had great joy with our Australian friends in the morning of Saturday and Sunday, and I did a bit of Q&A about the Yearlong Rainbow challenge and the Beadworkers Guild Challenge. 

Have I already talked about the challenge on this blog? Sure!! But maybe you will like to be reminded of how it works. To keep the IBW group active and interesting we do some kind of Bead-a-long. We bead components in the colors of the IBW banner. 12 colors, 12 months. Each month another color, and in the end we all have a fabulous beaded treasure in the colors of the happiest thing on earth, the rainbow.

This year I made a Solitaire board for which I covered beads with marbles. It is inspired by Floor Kaspers beautiful colour mixes.

 

As every year, I offer the pattern for my IBW rainbow project to the community.

 

You are welcome to join us in the Facebook group. You can also learn more about the guidelines on the IBW website.

But for now, we all are having fun making new designs so generously offered by other beaders and designers. Just look at all the goodies you will find on the website here.

This year we also have something new: the Guild organizes a Gift exchange. I don't know for who it will be but this is my make for this lovely Swap. 

Hopefully it will be something my swappee will like. Fingers crossed!

Last but not least: I do a special sale!! Use code IBW2024 to get 25% off of all patterns and books.

Happy shopping and happy beading and 

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL BEADING WEEK!!!!!!!!!

Cath

Beadworkers Guild Challenge: Bead a Song.

When the new theme for this year's challenge was published, I knew instantly what to make, but I didn't feel like entering the "Previous Winners" category, because I needed time to bead together with other beaders of our Zoom beading group to enter the group challenge.

So I entered the Challenge in a Matchbox, to keep things small. It didn't win but I didn't even go for that, and there have to be losers anyway. That said, I am perfectly happy with it because I found the right technique for my "Little Yellow Basket" to a) look like real basketry, and b) to pop up. One can roll up the sides, so it is much taller than the matchbox, haha!

 

 

 

I used Peyote, Geometric Peyote, Herringbone, Netting, Brick stitch and Russian Spiral. The hinged handles and top are fully functional. There is a tiny little envelope, because the song mentions a love letter. I added tiny little flowers and bows to each  side. The perfect little basket to go picnicking in the garden... 

Which garden?

Well... maybe an English Country garden!

which is the song title we chose for our Group Challenge entry. Boy have I been busy with that! It takes a lot of time to write tuts, so imagine for a common project. We chose "English Country Garden" so that each member could make something. Some made a bird, some made leaves and greenery, some made flowers, some made an insect and some made several of all these, depending on their availability. 

A looooot of beading in total. This creation also exceeds the size of the box's maximum measurements: Sylvia, our fearless leader, thought of using magnets to allow an easier installation of the elements which travel flat.

There was no other group entry this year, which was quite a bummer, for winning by default is not really a win, but the whole group is chuffed to bits with the end result. 

Thing is, I have no photos to show but my garden gnome.

 

I forgot to make a photo of his friend the hedgehog, also in the scene... We will have to wait for the June Journal to show what was made. Torture. 

What I know about the other entries is that there was a lot of yellow and the pieces entered were all stunning.

So... apologies for this unusually short post about the challenge - I didn't want to let you wait until the end of June about this, and will post more as soon as I can. 

Until then... Happy Beading!

Cath

It's all about love

I have new things to tell you! And thinking about it, it's all about love. Quite a while ago, I answered to someone that I bead to create emotions. This remains true.

For my lovely physiotherapist who is awaiting a baby girl, I made a long necklace with a small "Mexican Bola", also called Chime bead, Pregnancy or Harmony ball. She chose the colours and I happily obliged. At first I tried to make a bola canasta for her, of course, because she saw them. But it didn't work, which I expected, because the chime bead has to be free to sound right. So I made a larger one, which didn't seem right for her. So I turned to an older of my designs, the Open Heart. It looks smaller, more feminine. I can't wait to give it to her. And to my surprise, when I posted a short video on Facebook about how it sounds... many of you ordered the tut to make one too! Thank you so much!

Left to right: Small Bola, Open Heart, a bit larger bola

 

I also want to tell about 4 women I would like to celebrate. They (and others) make the world a better place.

Let me start with Carol, who is such a sweet person. She sells crocheted items for charity. She made soft mask adapters during Covid and gifted hundreds of them to nurses and paramedics. One day I asked to buy a pair of fingerless gloves and a matching beanie. She sent them to me but she never wanted to be paid. I was surprised! I promised myself to do something to thank her. But there is not so much that I can do... So I named my Laroque Girandoles after her (because they look as sweet as she). I reversed 2 letters and voilà! I was stunned that they landed on the cover of the 101st Beadworkers Guild Journal this month!

Laroque - Girandoles

For the note, these "Girandoles" were created within the framework of a long article about seed pearls and how incredible creations were made with them back in time. I hope that you will enjoy learning more about it. If you click on the image below, a link will take you to the Pinterest album with all the pictures I gathered while investigating about this wonderful art.

 

My 3 Bowlas - for which I just planned 3 workshops (see more details here) are obviously also named after persons, and they're awesome:

The turquoise Bénédicte is named after Béné, whom I met on Zoom and Facebook. She and I bonded immediately. If there is something like cosmic sisters, we must be two!

The yellow Martina is for my wonderful friend living here in Switzerland. It's going to sound strange, but I wish that we lived closer. Lol! She lives in the mountains, at quite a distance driving, and has a busy job. But we manage to meet from time to time, and love to bead together, and help one another with other things when we can.

The red Sabine is named after the most lovely customer one can dream of. She is incredibly supportive of my work, through email and on Facebook, she often posts an encouraging comment. She also has bought every single pattern in my shop, but in addition to that she also has bought some of them more than once to support me when things were tough for me. Let that sink in... She doesn't need them. She just buys them out of sheer generosity. 

Bowlas: the Sabine, the Martina and the Bénédicte

 

I'm so grateful for these women. And for other women too. From now on, I will name more of my creations after people who rock my world.

Last but not least, I finished writing the tutorial for the Pilot Wings, the slide pendant that so many of you asked a tutorial for. Here it is! I called Silver Wings the one made for the stand of the Beadworkers Guild in Daventry and at other shows this year - they celebrate their 25th anniversary! Happy Wings is the name of the one that I made to do the tutorial. I hope that you will make Blue Wings, Fairy Wings, Rainbow wings... Many wings!

 

Thank you for reading me and for beading with me. And if you have a story about a friend or about some random kindness, something that made your day or the world better, please tell me about it in the comments!

Cath

A triple Anniversary!!!

Hello everyone! 

I realize today that I haven't written on my blog since December and it's April! How could this happen? I don't know, but I've been very busy the past months with beading new designs, and of course I cannot show you much before things are published. That might be the reason why I didn't write anything here.. but today, I have things to show and tell.

First a little hurray: today is the day I started beading, 20 years ago. In my head at first... and beads arrived a bit later :D That's because at first I found myself marveling at photos of utterly gorgeous creations made for that year's Bead dreams contest, shown on the website of  Fire Mountain Gems and Beads. I was so overwhelmed with the variety of materials and techniques, that I had to first find out  where to start.

I think that I have browsed every page of their website (if that is possible), to understand what was what, and to learn as much as I could and when I finally placed my first order, a very modest little package of beads that included glass pearls and Matsuno silver-lined seed beads, I never would have dreamed that I would win their Gold Grand Prize in 2006 with my "Roma" design. 

 

 

Now just to say how far we've come with our smart phones and YouTube videos... back in 2005, to send them digital photos, I had to order a little camera because I didn't even have one. Oddly, I never made a new photo of the set since then... and thought that for this 20th anniversary of my beading adventure, a new photography made in my light box was a must.

Secondly, I just sent a box with lovely beadwork to the Beadworkers Guild for their "Silver with a hint of black" yearly display. This colorway was chosen by the Guild because they celebrate their Silver Jubilee! 

 

Happy 25th anniversary BWG! 

 

Thank you for bringing beadworkers together and for promoting our lovely Art! 

 

Together with other pretty things, another Fire Mountain Gems and Beads contest winning design traveled in the box: my Skadi Gauntlet (2019 Grand Prize Bronze medal). I did a new shooting for it too - it is in the yellow 'box' in the photo collage above. I also had lots of fun trying out the bright colored backgrounds that came with the Puluz light box. Silver (and black) perfectly matches every color, and suits everyone.

You can spy a bracelet designed by Sylvia Fairhurst - Ice Ice, on the right, and another one made with a special Diamond Weave variation  on the left. 

 

Also, let me know what you think about the knotted ribbon necklace with donut? I might tutify it, as well as this Sterling Silver slide pendant... when I have a moment :D

 

All these colors bring us to this year's International Beading Week. It will be the 10th Edition of what probably is the most exciting Beading event online AND in real life for those of you who are lucky enough to have IRL meetings at this occasion! This wonderful celebration of the Art of Beading initiated by the Beadworkers Guild started as National Beading Week and it is the very best week in the year for ALL beaders WORLDWIDE. Who is going to meet? Who will be bipping? (Beading in Public). For that's what it is about: to show and share to give the gift of beading.

 

Below you can see that this year I decided to take the little beads from the logo and use them to decorate my solitaire board. This will be my contribution to the free patterns this year. Stay tuned! 

        

 

I hope that some of you will be able to meet with beading friends, and that some of you will do demonstrations to inspire somebody to give our beautiful art a try.

 

Talking about Silver and Black matching everything: Black & White do this too, reason why I chose primary colours together with black and white for my new workshop design "Bowlas". The metallic colors were chosen to fit the primary colors best.

And the base features a unique mandala: 

 

 

I will soon update my website with dates. If you wish to organize a class for your beading society or shop, please get in touch with me through the contact page.