Beaded Butterfly II

I just have fallen in love with making these! I asked Hannah (my 14-year-old daughter) what colors to use and she said peacock. So this is what emerged.

Next to take flight will be colors of my choosing. Soft golds, cream and beige. Here's the progress so far. I wish I could keep working, but I'm off to grocery shop and get Hannah a haircut.

My First Pin!

I love when I get asked to make something I never have tried before. This time, Sue ( a co-worker of mine) asked for a pin for a Christmas present for her grandmother.

She didn't have a preference to shape and only told me she wanted it red and white. Hmmmm. Red is not a color I work with too often. Not sure why, just don't. So I went to work and collected a variety of red and white beads that I had and once I saw the various shades of red, I was pretty excited. Red is a fun color!

My first thought was a fan shape with some fringe, but when I ran that by Sue, she didn't seem to enthused. OK, how about a star? flower? random shape? butterfly? Yes! she liked that idea. Butterfly it is.

Well, this little pin came together so easily. The only 'problem' is that it is only about 3" across at the wing tips and about 2 1/2" long. Bummer, so many cute red and white beads that didn't make it on the pin.

I started with two red rings I got from Robin Atkins and worked my way from there. The butterfly body was done by putting down two bead foundation rows side by side and then covering those lines on an angle. It worked up nice and firm.

I used pellon covered poster board for the base. I placed the embroidered finish piece onto a thicker piece of peltex and then used ultrasuede for the backing. The peltex gave it such a nice cushiony but firm feel.

I'm so happy with the end result (but not with the pics! It was too dark outside, so I had to shoot inside, and the flash was overwhelming and without a flash the varying shades just don't get picked up.)


I think I saw a caterpillar creeping across my studio table - I have a feeling another butterfly will be emerging soon......

Flower Sampler Class II

Here are the rest of the Iroquois flowers. Our instructor told us these are traditional patterns that have been used for generations. They would have been worked in mostly size 10 or larger clear beads.

I found the paper pattern that we glued to the velvet difficult to work with. If I got too close to the edge, the paper tore and the beads 'slid' off onto the velvet. Too far from the edge, and the paper shows. Next time I will use pellon for the pattern.



Next class we add stems, leaves, buds, etc. to our liking. I'm really looking forward to that. It should 'ground' them so they don't look like they do now - just plopped down.


Working without an outline around the petals was different. I'm not very happy with the way that they smooshed into each other. The sides of this flower were pretty tricky to keep the outside line even. Two foundation lines, layed right next to each other give it a nice solid feel, but didn't leave much room for the top lines to go over the top without leaving the edge of the paper pattern.
I'm not quite sure what the point of the round bead in the corner of this flower is. I guess it's artistic interpretation!

I really like this flower. In person it gives such a 3 dimensional appearance.

This silly little thing reminds me of troll hair!