No housework - just homework

The Niagara County Historical Society has again offered a beading class by the very talented Anita Greene. This time she is teaching us this beyond-adorable small lidded box that she designed. I love any type of 'vessel'--especially small ones! This piece measures a bit over 2.5" -- so cute!


It is always a bit of a mystery when you take one of her classes. She gives us a choice of velvet colors and then just a list of bead sizes needed (mostly size 11). Without knowing what the piece designs are, choosing velvet and beads is harder than you'd think. I hadn't worked with crushed black velvet before, so I picked that. For the beads, I knew I would have to have light colors or they would just disappear into the velvet. So I threw together a random mix of beads and hoped for the best.


First class is always the worst. Prepping the pattern pieces. T-e-d-i-o-u-s. Lots of tracing, cutting and mounting the pellon and velvet to the posterboard. Once we have our blank canvas, so to speak, it's finally time to get to the good stuff--beading! And by that time, there was only 20 minutes left to the 2 hour class. That's OK bead homework is always good :)


As it turns out, the box will be covered with flowers, vines and leaves, a butterfly and a bird all surrounded by my favorite raised rope outline (which the Tuscarorans call the 'chase me around' stitch).


I decided to do my entire outline in a clear bead - a very traditional choice for Iroquois Raised Beadwork.Here are the pieces laid out-the two sides are not attached yet. As you can see the flowers will be on the front and back, with a butterfly on one side and a bird on the other.

Here it is folded up to get a better idea of the final shape of the box. Once the sides are on, it will bow out a bit - kind of like a little trunk. It sure is a treasure :)