Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

I finished my September Bead Journal Project early. Hey, start early, finish early. This is it.

I’m pleased with the way it turned out, and I’m anxious to start on the next on. But what should I do? September 2.0? October Beta? Or October 1.0?

I have a few ideas for the next one, but I haven’t decided for sure so I guess I will keep busy with some other things.

If you want to see more about the beading process, go to my other blog, Crackpot Beader.

(Note to techies: See I did learn to link to my other blog.)

I am now beginning my September Bead Journal Project. The first issue was what size to make the projects. I decided on a 2.75 inch square. Since some of last year’s participants found a larger format too time consuming, I went with a more modest size. Now I wonder if I should have gone larger…

I started by using some of the amber chips from the little necklace I picked up in Lithuania a year ago. Amber was all over the place in all the Baltic nations, from upscale stores to street stalls. I wasn’t interested in purchasing anything large, fancy or expensive, and I couldn’t find any loose amber beads. So I went with a child’s necklace of amber chips.

To see what the Bead Journal Project is, go to http://morebjp08.blogspot.com/
Now if I could only figure how to get the official button posted on our site…

I decided to do a “color movement series” with the fabric paints. The idea is to make a dilute solution of paint and water and dip the fabric in it and squeeze it out. When the first piece is laid out to dry, add a few drops of second color and a little water and dip the second piece of fabric. Continue with a few more drops of the second color and a little more water for the third piece of fabric. And so on…

My color movement series used Golden Fluid Acrylic paints in magenta and cyan, and this is the result.

I spread the fabric outside to dry, thus offering the opportunity to explain to my neighbor what I was doing.

The wrinkles sunprinted, giving an interesting texture.

One surprising effect is that the front of the fabric is darker than the back. I also discovered that after I added the blue paint to the solution I needed to make sure my fabric touching hand was clean before touching the dry fabric. Some of the pieces have blue splotches. My idea is to work the same way you would in breading vegetables (or meat for those so inclined) before frying–one hand in the breadcrumbs (dry fabric) and one hand in the egg mixtures (paint).

I also did a few other pieces.

And I had some help.

As to my neighbor’s question about what I’m going to do with this stuff? Hey, it’s a Crackpot Project, and use and function are of no importance!

I’ve decided to join the 2008 Bead Journal project. http://www.beadjournalproject.com/about.htm

This means I am committed to making a beaded project each month for a year, starting in September. I get to choose the size and shape, but all the projects are expected to be the same size and shape. I think 3″ x 5″ is reasonable for me. I will challenge myself to try some new techniques and to move out of the safety of monochromatic color schemes.

To see what some of the 2007 participants have made, go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/2007_bead_journal_project/

I finished my vase made from a “silk hankie” (un-spun silk fibers) and hardened with Paverpol, a fabric hardener from the other Holland.

First I took the already dyed silk hankie and added various decorative threads scattered across the top. It was sandwiched between water-soluble stabilizer and then stitched in a manner I would call diagonal, curved, semi-parallel stitching. (Mathematicians are gagging–we know who they are).

Then I made the mold. This is a vase thoroughly covered with kitchen plastic wrap. The Paverpol apparently sticks to everything except plastic. Because I wanted a narrow bottom and a flared-out top, I wrapped quite a bit of plastic wrap around the middle of the vase to support the flare.

Then I painted the silk hankie with the Paverpol. I wore plastic gloves and used a plastic bag under the silk hankie. I shaped the hankie over the mold and left it to dry in the basement for three days.

Then it was time to remove the vase from the mold. I thought it would just slip off. No. I pulled out the plastic wrap supporting the flare and cut out as much as I could around the vase. From there it was just brute strength, of which I have plenty due to my rigorous exercise regimen.

This class has been too much fun!

The three drawer box is finished!

The fabric recipe is light blue felt, cheesecloth painted teal and purple, a few tissue paper fragments, blue tulle, stamping with silver and pearl turquoise to even out the tone, decorative yarn, lace and other fibers (some painted teal with Glimmer Mist), a few Angelina fibers, and purple tulle.

I was waiting for more Misty Fuse to arrive so I used the closest thing I found–Fine Fuse from Quilters’ Resource. It is not quite as soft as Misty Fuse, but it worked pretty well.

I was quite pleased with the way the outer fabric turned out. I think it’s the two colors of tulle that I like.

As I was putting it together, I decided there was too much contrast between the inside and the outside of the box. So I used a sponge to stamp silver, pink and purple on the lining fabric.

The beads were some I picked up for 10 cents each with the knowledge I would use them somewhere… I used a variegated perle cotton to sew them on and I deliberately left the thread tails on the inside.

Now, what to put in this little treasure chest?

I finally finished the third project for my online class. The the first layer for the cover fabric is pattern pieces fused to muslin. Then that fabric is cut up and fused to felt. Two layers of blue tulle are fused on top. If you look carefully, you can see that the pattern I used was for one of the Bear Suits.

Using the blue tulle gave the pattern pieces a little bit of a blue tinge that I liked. I did audition several colors of tulle before I picked the light blue.

The signatures (sets of pages) are white cardstock. Finding and then preparing the string to sew them in took a couple of tries. I didn’t like the look of white or natural colored string on the outside of the sketchbook. I found some vintage kite string in the junk drawer and used fabric paint to color it to match the felt. I ended up doing this twice because the first length was too short.

I wanted to embellish the strings somehow. My first attempt was braiding, with each set of four strings used together. That was not exciting. I played around with braiding a little more. Finally I found some instructions for making a 12 strand braid on a Cub Scout website. That was pretty cool, but not quite what I wanted. (For those who wondered, the pattern is over 8 and under 3.)

I then thought about beads. I didn’t think I had any beads with holes large enough for the string, and we were snowed in so there were no shopping opportunities. One idea was to make fabric beads to match the cover fabric. But then I went into my bead stash and found these. I picked them up last summer at our locally-owned, friendly yarn store for ten cents each. What a deal!

The title of this project is “The Sketchbook of Permanently Unfinished Ideas.” The first thing I plan to sketch in the book is the Finnish Knock-Off Project. It’s not only unfinished but also unstarted. But I now have another idea of how to do the knock-off.