Thinking I might make a cloth book for these samplers, I'm making my "pages" rectangular with a one inch margin for binding. One of my goals with this project is to experiment on different beading surfaces and trying as many techniques as I can. I could well change my mind and do a decorative box to hold these pages, which I suspect may become heavy, especially if I do them back to back.
Okay, so you're wondering about the title, right? I cut a piece of craft felt and gathered my stash of purple and blue beads because I have more of them than anything else. I confess, I picked up a few more accent type beads at the craft store while I was there for something else, and you know you'd do the same thing! It was a focal bead I applied first and because it was 8 or 10 mm, I put size 8 seed beads to either side. I looked at the irridescence and thought it would make a great dragonfly. So I made one, then another. Then I went about surrounding them until they merged. At this point their irregular shapes made me think of an opened oyster. I suppose I was also thinking of another fave seafood sadly no longer available, abalone. If you've never tasted the meat, you've at least seen the shells. Those are the colors I wanted to bring out.Laying down beads around the dragonlies I practiced 3 methods, couching, add 3/back 1, add 5/back 2. I decided the 3/1 system looked best for me, and I tacked down to the previous row as needed. My tension was too tight, but I left it that way because I liked the irregular surface that presented: wavy, like the lines themselves. By the way, the dragonfly tails end with 3 delica that are close but not the same as the surrounding color. They are laid in such a way the dragonflies might be emerging.
After the wavy, inner shells, I tried to be more careful with tension. I added the next color in the same stitch to bring the two shells together, but changed stitches after the first row. On the right I built a ruffle from comanche stitch; on the left I worked it into peyote, incorporating beads of different colors and size. At the bottom I alternated stitches with lines of color to change direction of the beads.
This is a much more dimensional piece than the scan allows, and the colors change with different lighting. My intention was a small composition of color and texture. I'm happy with the resulting design and hope it invites playful interpretations. Do you see two faces or masks or heads? Do you see a butterfly or exotic bird that has taken on a couple of passengers? For me it's enough if you find a pleasing arrangement of shiny beads.
Below: I have a goodly supply of purple and blues. I'm ready for a change of pallette and an excuse to buy more beads...
