Beadworkers Guild - A night at the opera - part 2 - planning and playing

For those of you landing on this page from elsewhere but part one, I recommend reading that first. Also, if you're in a hurry, come back when you have a bit of spare time, to enjoy the read with a cup of something that you fancy, because this is not a 5-second read.

As explained, I already had a bag. A round ball like this:

Now to make something beautiful inspired by The Lady of the Camellias.

My goal for this bag was to tell Marguerite's circle of life, from innocence, opulence, and illness to death, and my motto was "the more, the merrier". More bling, more texture and more gold, to cover this round bag with luscious bead-embroidery.

Before doing anything else, I wanted to see what could be achieved with Tyvek though. Guild member and beader extraordinaire Sarah Cryer, who is much more into bead embroidery than me, introduced us to this novelty material to create texture in her work. 

Preliminary tests with Tyvek

I treated myself to a heat gun and Tyvek to create these interesting "moonscapes" with it. I watched videos on YouTube to learn more about the process. First I tried without paint. Then I used acrylic and gold paint to color it the same colours as the bag. Once dry, I cut out pieces to heat. 

I painted the Tyvek with Marguerite's life in mind

I found it to be best to avoid sharp angles
and use small to medium size pieces

Tyvek shrinks when heated. You must be careful not to burn yourself, but also not to burn the Tyvek, because it melts. I had lots of fun playing with this material. It  is rather flexible, but tends to lie flat, which wasn't so great on a round ball, but it worked. Also, depending on where, one has to poke it hard to have the needle pass through it, for when heated, it becomes harder, like plastic. I think that it's really nice though.

Part of these pieces of Tyvek found a place
on the bag. 

The novel states that Marguerite always had a bouquet of camellia flowers with her, and they carried a message: white camellias meant that she was available for lovers, red camelias meant she wasn't.

You need more than 'enough' flowers,
for they are not always well shaped

I chose to use cream and red camellia flowers on the bag, which would represent Marguerite's short life, and added one white camellia for her birth, and one black for her death (she died from tuberculosis at only 23). Also...

... I colored one camellia and 2 leaves a tea rose color, 
representing the brief moments of true bliss.

For the foundation, I purchased "laminated" jacquard fabric. The fabric had lots of variations in texture, which I intended to put to use to place my beads and colors. This fabric appeared to fray a lot. 

It's been quite an adventure to cut and assemble the parts, which I chose to call my "orange peels", and I made them rather large compared to the size of the ball. Using the fabric to have more texture makes the fabric shrink, adding beads and other things like the flowers too.

I made my own chablon to cut the fabric

The gold fabric was a bit too champagne rosé

But that ended up being a blessing in disguise.
I colored certain portions of the fabric

For my beads, I mainly used durable, good quality materials: freshwater pearls, 24kt and 14kt Plated seed beads, Swarovski crystal beads, pearls and elements and rhinestones. Lots of micro crystals too. And of course sequins. This bag is meant to shine at the opera!

The fresh pale colours and the layout on the champagne side of the bag represent Marguerite's birth and the effervescence of her demi-mondaine life-style. The dark, yet sparkly side of the bag depicts her loneliness, illness and finally her death. Back in her days, her sacrifice, her life falling apart and suffering, were seen as the ‘earning of her wings’, reason why there is a black feather on the side of the black flower.

First orange "peel" in the make

I started with the dark side of the bag. Only one 'range peel'. After finishing the first, it became obvious that it would have been better to embroider all 3 orange peels already attached to one another. So the second portion was made of 2 (and the other side of the bag of 3). 

Planning where to put things is one thing,
changing and rearranging them
a hundred times, is
the next thing

At this stage my arm was hurting a real lot. I thought that I'd never finish this bag. Then I discovered how putting a small cushion under my hand and arm while sleeping was life changing. 

When covering the bag on the first side, I decided to add padding under the fabric, for a better fit. I then had to add more fabric to one side. Fortunately it worked well.

the moment of truth

For those wondering, yes I used glue. To apply it in the slit between the bag's frame and the ball, I used a syringe and a dentist tool to push the fabric neatly in place, very slowly. It worked! Which was a big relief. 

Now if the dark side of the bag looks as if beads are dripping from top to bottom (especially in the black portion), and the cup chain looks "broken", the bright side has a symmetric layout with a continuous swirly silk wave and continuous cup chain.

To plan the layout, I pinned the silk elements in place.

The pale side of the bag took much less time to make than the dark side, thanks to lessons learned. One of these lessons was to add fragile elements the latest. 

On the champagne side, I added lots of little flower-shaped sequins to surround the Tyvek. I had those adorable sequins only in white and wanted them in reds / coral and gold too, so I dyed them. 

I also dyed my thread. 

Shibori silk must be the most fragile fabric ever. To protect it, - as well as the flowers and the leaves -, I planned where to place these elements, and then embroidered the entire surface without them. The photos here show the empty spaces for the leaves and the flowers. If you look at the beadwork closely, you will see the different names of the lady of the Camellias written with beads.

Marie

Marguerite

Camille

Violetta

While waiting for materials like (more) silk flowers and real Shibori silk, which was surprisingly hard to find in ivory (the one I bought from Perles & Co. was not real Shibory silk at all), I made the other items for in the bag: sweets and opera glasses.

Last but not least, the inspiration for the sweets:

Napoleons

Berlingots of Carpentras

To find which sweets Marguerite might have carried in her bag I had to put some Sherlock glasses on. I opted for two sorts: the "Napoleon" - which are round candy balls from the Netherlands, and the "Berlingots of Carpentras", which are attested to be the oldest French sweets (and still made today). 

You will discover the finished project in part 3.