Casie on the Rocks - part 4

Ah, work on my "Casidilla" (you know, Mexican food) continues. Casie is almost complete - down to her little pink collar, ears at attention. Just a great little dog. I have the big rock to work on, adding leaves and maybe some other "rocks" - I might even have some bead "chips" that I could use for rocks - I'll have to look.

I am starting to work on and think of another project that I have been invited to join. I know that some members are not keen on seeing pictures until everyone gets started, but I have decided on a few items. I have some shapes and colours that I will be working with.

Colour Coordination!

It's funny how your beadwork will reflect in your clothes, or is it your clothes represent your beadwork. I have this cardigan - limes, blue and periwinkle - and have had it for years. But over the weekend, I thought that I didn't have any blue in my wardrobe, mostly greens. Until I remembered this sweater. So I go it out. I made a green crystal bracelet, and then decided to make the same kind of bracelet with small turquoise beads that I have had for years.

Since I have been making beaded beads (ala Marcia DeCoster) to learn the technique, I decided to make a couple using some blue beads that were given to us by one of the Bead Cruise sponsors (Heather, Bev - help me with the name of the company, I can't remember). I just added a few size 15's in lime green for pop. And I have had the earrings since last summer when I made them for the Bead and Button show.

And here's Liz - all colour coordinated - even down to the lime green in her eyeglasses. Sorry, no picture of me, not until I loose 20 pounds.

Casie on the Rocks - part 3

Casie continues - I actually did quite a bit last night. Amazing how much beading can be done when I am not shoving food in my face, eh? I like the tilt of the head, but not the mouth. I'll be continuing with the body, and finishing the rocks this evening.

It's been a rainy day in Michigan, and exciting things going on my backgarden. I blogged the information at my other page
Molly's Little Adventure, if you want to read about it. It's been about 45 minutes and I am still giggling. Molly is just indignant about the whole thing now and wants to go outside to settle the score.

Casie on the Rocks - picture 2 and Bellisimo Beads

Progress is happening on "Casie on the Rocks" - much of the background is finished, although the bushes on the right will get some leaves sticking out. The rock/ground under Casie is progressing. It's going to be hard to bead fur on a dog who is practically hairless, but it will be a good attempt.

I haven't worked on this as much as I would have liked as I have been practicing my right angle weave technique for Marcia DeCoster's class at the Bead and Button show in about a month. I will be classroom assistant, classroom monitor or classroom 'ho - depending on who you talk to. Regardless of what you call me, I am honored that Marcia got in touch with me to help her.

My train ticket has been purchased, I have my confirmation for the show admission. I love going to the bead show in Milwaukee as I can see all my beady friends and meet new ones. I wonder what trouble Anne and I can get into this year. At least we know where there is a great bakery - although I need to stay out of there!

Casie on the Rocks - started

I know, I know. I was working on the Moose and the Alpaca - the Amerika's. But right now, I can't get into it.

So it's time to work on something else, which is Casie on the Rocks. Casie is my 9 pound toy fox terrier who I adopted when she was about 3 years old. Now she's 11 and beginning to slow down (which scares me to pieces). Casie sleeps by my hip almost every night, she's afraid of thunder, lightening freaks her out. She doesn't like firecrackers, cars that backfire, loud sudden noises like Alan yelling at the officials during a football (either American or European).

This picture was taken many years ago while we were on the north shore of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Canada. It's so beautiful up there - just wonderful!

I started with one piece of pellon (thank you Annie, for what seems to be my endless supply) and have added layers on it. Tree, rocks, Casie, her face, will be different layers. I started beading about April 18th and have gotten this far. The tree actually is thicker, plus using a variety of sizes (8s, 11s, and 10's) in multiple colours of brown have given the it great texture. On top of the greenery on the right, I am going to have small beaded leaves attached to the top to give it a real woodsy feel.

Tile pictures from Doha

My friend Char sent these to me many months ago. Thank you Char - many of them have the potential to be a bead embroidery piece!!

Amerikas

I started working on my newest piece of bead embroidery this week, about is a picture of about 65% of the piece that I have. The beads that are places now are beads that friends have given me: Sharon Hessoun gave me two ceramic beads, Maggie McCloud gave me the Swarovski rivoli, the scarab is from Dr. Maged Tanios, and a small piece of a bead from one of my Peruvian doctors - might be Jan Prazak, MD.

I anticipate that this piece will take me several months to finish because of the size. It's about 8 inches high by 17 inches long. I want to have all colours in the piece - varigating colours in the different area.

Celebrate Bead Week!

It's time to celebrate Bead Week! My "Loomatics" group will be celebrating in May (maybe not in this week, but certainly in spirit!) and I'll post pictures of our creations!! Let's have a grand time, promote the heck out of this and see what comes up. If you read different beading boards or forums, shout out with the link for other beading groups to see!!

Bead Cruise

One of the best things about going on a cruise is when you stop, you can see things that you normally wouldn't see at home. Unless home is a cruise destination. Alan and I were walking and saw three dancers doing a traditional dance. I managed one really good picture of the head dresses! Absolutely awesome! My husband has uploaded this to You Tube Mayan Dance for your viewing pleasure!

The organization was good - although, Heather - assistant, baby! You need an assistant! I enjoyed my classes. I love the technique of the Sharilyn Miller piece, but know that I will never make a bracelet, its just a little to chunky on my chunky wrists (does that make any sense?). The components that I did make are now earrings and I love them as earrings. I can see a necklace in my future. I loved the Mayan Cuff Bracelet class which was taught by Bev Herman at No Easy Beads. What a nice bracelet. I sent a picture to Bev - so it should be on her blog when it is finished. The workshops were interesting - I now know how to needle felt and have a bit of roving to try another piece with. I bought the wool at Bead and Button a couple of years ago and never really used it.

Another good part of the cruise is seeing friends who now live far, far away. Char currently lives in Doha and came to Texas to go on the cruise with us again! So many nice people were on the cruise that I can't even begin to name them - I got to know Estelle, Shelley and Lynn a little better - they are all from Ohio.

I can't wait to see where we will be cruising to this next year (if the husband stays employed) and what port we leave out of and where we will travel to!

Heather - Bev: you did a great job!

For the beaders at Bead Art!

Dulcey, Lora, Rockfish, Jan, Judi, et al! Hmmm, I didn't know that you were hanging around my blog! I don't read the forum as often as I should - I know, bad Liz! Here is a photo that I am going to put in bead embroidery one of these days; it was taken in a temple in Korea when I visited in 1999. I'll try and catch up tonight with my blog to add in some pictures from the recent cruise.



I've started working on the Amerika's - North meets South - I have worked on the black lines all weekend long. Well, in between episodes of Dark Shadows....which are very scarey, not.

Mayan Cuff Bracelet and Humble Beads

The Mayan Cuff Bracelet is a bead embroidery class by Bev Herman of No Easy Beads, which was recently taught on the 2007 Bead cruise. Now I know that you are asking "Why on Earth did Liz need a bead embroidery class?" Well, I'll tell you. I don't know. But Bev was teaching and I liked the project and I had a great time. Bev is a good friend and a good teacher - I am pleased with my results. I now have the beadwork attached to the leather backing, and most of the picot stitching around the side is finished.


These are Humblebeads that I purchased from Heather Powers at Humble Beads. I did the wirework for the pendant and charm last night and received multiple compliments on them today. Heather - I might need to get some of your business cards to hand out in Michigan, you might have a new audience.

Getting ready to Cruise!!

Countdown to Bead Cruise!!
This is my countdown weekend to the cruise. I've made my plans for pick-up in Houston and a ride to Galveston (thanks to one of my ex-doctors who is now in Houston) on Sunday, March 25. Hubby and I will be in our little room in steerage (just kidding - it's perfectly acceptable!). Soon, I'll be taking classes (from great instructors like Sharilyn Miller, Rachel Nelson-Smith, Dona Anderson, Beverly Herman and Heather Powers) while on the Bead Cruise.

It will be nice to have skies and water like this:

And to put my feet in water like this:And not have weather like this:

Religious Icons

Here is what is completed so far.

Each icon is about 7x8 inches square. I still need to complete a cross for Christianity, but that is going to wait a little while. I want to work on some other pieces in my mind!

Ganesha and I are finished.....

....Finished only in the sense that my bead embroidery has finished. Ganesha and I have had some really good times together. He has evolved and grown through the months and really turned out better than I expected. It's rich, textural and just ..... become one of my favorite pieces.

Now off to see what beads I want to play with next!

I've been busy this week!!

As I work more on Ganesha, I am getting happier and happier with the results. Ganesha is a happy piece! I was at a series of workshops this week that are put on by the Great Lakes Beadworkers Guild and had the opportunity to show this piece to several members who "oohed" and "aahed" appropriately over it. Ganesha just looks happy, and I feel really good when I work on this piece.

My friend, Sharon Hessoun drove up from Akron, Ohio to take classes with the guild and spend time with her dogfriend, Molly. Sharon took classes from Wednesday through Sunday - then hearing the weather forecast for freezing rain - drove home ahead of the storm. We were planning on going to dinner at La Shish Restaurant, Sharon's favorite place in our area - the piping hot pitas delivered to the table with the garlic paste are worth a drive from anywhere in the country!

One of the classes that I had the opportunity to take was with bead artist Marcia DeCoster who taught "Cuffed Elegance" which is a free-form peyote bracelet with folds and splits and lots of craziness (thanks to Little Bear for that word - it really is the correct word for this awesome bracelet). I used size 8 beads, size 11s, hexes, cubes, triangles and everything else in my bead box! This piece is mostly in the khaki greens, but with pink and purple thrown in - just a touch of red. Putting the bracelet resulted in one of those "D'uh, why didn't I think of that?" moments! If I do say so myself, it turned out awesome!


My other class was to learn these components to make the "Terracita" bracelet, also by Marcia DeCoster. Using size 11 and 15 seed beads, crystals, and pearls to make these awesome components to start the bracelet. I love it.

Ganesha - gets crowned!

Ganesha is a happier Deity today! He was crowned yesterday and today he feel like a shining star! I used a gold plated daisy spacers to add lots of texture and richness to his crown. Now I just have the background to complete in the silver lined gold beads. I am using these again for a couple of reasons:

• I like the richness of the beads.
  
• I like the way that they appear different colours when light hits them.
  
• I purchased 1/4 kilo of them when I was scheduled to teach a class and I was making kits. The class was cancelled and I have 1/4 kilo of these beads.

Looking ahead to my next projects, I am thinking of a picture of Casie - my dog on some rocks - put together very similar to projects ala "The Lone Beader" with layering, etc. I do have to get more colours of 15's to complete the dog - so that will wait for a while.

I am also working on my largest flat bead embroidery piece - It's going to be called (at least for now) "North American meets South America" and it's 8 inches high by 17 inches wide. I know, I know - I really need to get a life!!!

Ganesha - gets happy feet!

That's a better picture - Ganesha now has happier feet - and they are certainly better looking than my first attempt at beading his poor feet. The next step is going to be his crown. After doing a "Google" search for Ganesha images on the computer, Sunil and I found out that there were 40,600 images to search from, and that his crown is actually very ornate - which I will try and reflect that in my beading. This will certainly be an "experimentation" (which was a word that I heard in a movie last night "Since You Went Away"- 1944 with Claudette Colbert, a young Jennifer Jones, an older Shirley Temple, Joseph Cotton and Robert Walker.)

I'm already thinking about my next piece - still looking for that perfect cross and still not finding exactly what I want.

Ganesh continues to evolve!

Ganesha and Mooshika have more colour than before! I am going to remove the feet and do them again - I do not care for the way that they have turned out (especially now that I have finished his hand). I know that I can do better. The garnet necklace lays better since I have gone through it a second and third time. I just have the finishing of the head, the circle behind it and to decide what the complete background will be.

Ganesha is coming along nicely!!

Ganesh - textures and colours collide!

Ganesha is really coming along nicely. He has some great colour, texture and lines. I added some blue sequins with Swarovski crystal flowers for a great kick of sparkle. Should his anklets be silver or bronze? Many decisions left for this piece - background? Moon behind him or just a circle of colour? Crown - golds, bronze or red?

Mouse is still waiting for his garnet to fall. I'll have to search to see if the mouse has a name.

Ganesha - gets a Garnet Necklace!

Ganesha, my good friend, received a royal necklace yesterday. It's 3mm garnets, brought all the way from his home in India (via one of the many beadshows that I have gone to). Ganesha was properly thankful for his gift that he bestowed one upon me - a weight loss of 3.6 pounds this week.

The mouse sits quietly hoping that a garnet will fall in his direction. Only time will tell.

Thank you Lord Ganesha for my gift.

Ganesha - gets royal colouring

Ganesha - a good start

Finished!

Star of David is introduced to Ganesha

I wish that this scan would show the colours a little better in this piece. The background is actually a pale blue and a midnight blue. The star is grey and hematite seed beads - or two shades of grey. The star is actually two pieces that have been woven together and sewn to the background of the curls. This piece is 7x8 inches. All I need is several more hours of beading and it should be finished. This is the most serious of the icons that I have worked on - and I don't know why I chose serious colours for it. The rich colors just seemed to work the best. I originally wanted to have a silver star, but after about 4 hours of work on part of the star - it just didn't look good, so out it all came.

My series of religious icons is growing. Last weekend, I was invited to a wedding of one of the doctors that completed his training in my program, Dr. Nikhil Goyal. As much as I would LOVE to go to his wedding - it's in India and way out of my budget. I took the icon that was on his invitation - Ganesha. I just learned the following about Ganesha: "By ancient tradition, the elephant-headed god, GANESHA , is always worshipped first in every ritual or festival. Ganesha has a pot belly, is short and is usually portrayed in a sitting position with one leg folded and the other touching the ground. Around his waist, there is a hooded snake. In his four hands, he carries a noose (human bondage to desires); an axe (destruction of all evil); a modak or sweet (joy) and a lotus (human evolution). His trunk, usually turned to the left, represents OM, the origin of the cosmic universe. Ganesha is the lord of all learning, the arts and of finer skills."

Obviously my Ganesha is a different model, because my Ganesha doesn't have a snake or axe or a noose. His trunk turns to the right. Sunil (another doctor) told me that Ganesha travels on the back of a mouse, which is why there is a little mouse in the picture. The bindi will be a red crystal and the necklace with the smaller red crystals as I was told that they are very important.

P.S. Here is a great view of Ganesha on his mouse - http://www.saigan.com/heritage/gods/godimages/108ganeshas/m4.html

Great Lakes Beadworkers Guild - Quilt to honour Barb Davis

It's been a year in the making! The Great Lakes Beadworkers Guild bead quilt to honour Barb Davis - long time guild member who lost her battle with breast cancer.

Isn't this wonderful!!

Religious Icons Part 4 - Star of David

And here I have started #3 in my religious icon series. I am trying something just a little different, this is going to be a little bit more three dimensional - with the star in two pieces on top of the background. In fact, this will be the first time that I have started with a background. I usually do the main colors and then fill in the background, hoping that I don't get bored. The idea for doing the star in layers came from another beading blogger - The Lone Beader - I hope she doesn't mind. She does some wonderful pieces, very cool stuff.

The color of the star is yet to be determined, but with a pale blue and a dark blue background, I need to really make it POP.

Ohm is Finished

I seriously need to get a life. Finished. The second piece of my religious icons.

Why did I choose to do icons that aren't main stream in American life? I work with many physicians around the world - Hindu, Sikh, Muslims, Christians, Jews - and I have learned that the world isn't just black and white. It's shades of everyone colour of every person who has touched my life over the years. Old boyfriends, lovers, friends, people I have met in my travels, pen pals from former years.

Perhaps it's my current belief that if one is truely not a hurtful person, if there is a reward - it will be bestowed on death. I believe that there is a God. But is it the only one? I don't know - and would never try and convince someone that there only one God. That's not my place on this planet.

I have at least 2 more icons planned in my series - a Star of David and a cross. Should I incorporate more icons into my series? If something was suggested, I might contemplate it.

I'm enjoying bead embroidery. I find it relaxing, almost meditative.

Allah is finished....

And I am very happy with this. I should be receiving the red beads on Monday to start my next one.....

Religious Icons Part 2

Work on "Allah" has been progressing nicely. Thank you to Dr. AlQaisi for helping me with the placement and making certain it says what it should say. I am filling in the background at this time with a soft blue and tiny pearls. My next piece is going to be "Ohm" - Dr. Sunil Rao is helping me with this one. I would like rich, vibrant colours in this piece - like the colours I have seen in saris worn at events over the years. Rich reds and golds, I believe.



Looks like I have to place another order with Charlene Booth for more seed beads!

Both doctors are Chief Medical Residents where I work. The other two Chief Medical residents in the program are Drs. Cristina Segovia-Ramachandran and Joao Cavalcante. All have finished medical school and their internal medicine residency. They have passed their board certification exams and will be starting a Cardiology fellowship in July 2007. I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with them. Cristina is originally from Peru, Fadi from Jordan, Joao from Brasil and Sunil was raised in India.