Bead Journal Project ~ Christi C ~ A Sense of Place

Above is a preview of a feast for your eyes which follows!

Christi C. lives on lovely Lopez Island, which is one in a chain of islands off the NW coast of Washington state, known as the San Juan Islands. This place is near and dear to me, as I also live here on one of the islands.


Christi joined the 07-08 BJP and completed her piece for the first month, which was June. Then life got in the way and for some months she didn't do any beading at all. After a while, she realized there was something missing in her life and that she needed to return to beading and the BJP. This year, in November, she is working on last year's November piece. She plans to finish all 12 pieces to complete the project.

Personally I very much identify with Christi's work, feel its pull on my heart and hear the songs in her designs... She's chosen to explore her relationship with the place where she lives, showing with found objects and beads what her island is like. I love the notion of art used to reveal a sense of place and her pieces do it particularly well in my opinion! Since she is another BJPer who doesn't have a web presence, I've photographed her pieces and you get to see them (all click-to-enlarge) below!


^June ~ Driftwood ~ the beach and all the water that surrounds her.


^July ~ Lavender ~ Christi grows lavender as a business and July is the height of the growing season.


^August ~ Three Shells ~ about the sky.


^September ~ Lichen ~ this lovely grey-green plant form becomes more apparent in early fall.


^October ~ Madrona Bark ~ distinctive tree with rust-colored bark, found only along the NW coast.


^November ~ Beach Stone ~ about fog and layers of clouds in the sky, both of which are common at this time of year. This one is still in progress.

I think it's fabulous that Christi is continuing to work toward completion of her 12 pieces for the 07-08 BJP! I personally know three other women who are also still finishing their pieces for the first BJP... I am so very proud of them (and many others unknown to me) for their perserverance!

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If you have any interest in seeing photographs of our islands, my husband, Robert Demar, also explores his relationship to the place where we live. You can see his photography here. Some of my favorite images are here and here. He's done two studies of Madrona trees (featuring macro pictures of their peculiar fracturing bark)... one in black & white and one in color.

Bead Journal Project ~ Christy, Donna & Lunnette!

Only about half of the 260 participating members of the 08-09 Bead Journal Project are active on the Internet. I'd like to introduce and show beading by three who are not... three who do fabulous work but do not have a web presence!


This is Christy H! She works full time, lives here on San Juan Island, is a mother and grandmother. We met through our husbands (both then were fire fighters) but quickly found that we had stitching interests in common. She encouraged me to come to the Quilting Retreat on Orcas Island three years ago, which began a bond that has grown, flourished and wandered into mutual beadlust!

You can see some of Christy's BJP pieces from last year on her BJP member page, here. She's still working on finishing, with the final piece underway now. Below are her recently completed pages for February through April. They are 3 inches square and solidly beaded.


February ~ Memories & Dreams ~ features a heart-shaped piece of fossil ivory, a gift from her Aunt... old and new ~ it's all about relationships that claimed her heart in the past and her heart dreams for the future.


March ~ Little Christy ~ features a sea turtle for her love of the sea and yellow/orange colors for the exuberance and joy of her childhood.


April ~ Moon & Sea Spiral ~ this one is all about seeking peace and calm, also about the sea, sea shells, peacefulness.

Christy is now working on May, the final piece for last year's BJP! She has many ideas for the current BJP and plans to get caught up soon.

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Donna H is Christy's Mom. Gradually, we got both Donna and Christy's sister, Kathy, hooked on beading too. (I'll introduce Kathy and her work in a later post.) Donna, a very young, energetic great grandmother, lives in Cabo San Lucas (Mexico) during the winter and Homer, Alaska during the summer. She and her DH, Ken, drive back and forth twice each year, with side-trips to San Juan Island on the way. She quilts, sews and beads!


Donna joined the BJP for the first time this year. Her idea for the year is very intriguing to me! She's making a color wheel! It won't be a totally ordinary color wheel. She intends to stitch the sections together and then bead across the seams, blending the adjacent colors to achieve an almost seamless wheel of color rather than the traditional color block wheel! Below you can see what she has done so far... September through Dec. The pieces are about 3 square inches each and placed next to each other for the photo but not yet sewn together. (Be sure to click this one!)


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Here is Lunnette HH! She, Christy and I get together nearly every Tuesday afternoon to stitch and bead. We have the most wonderful, comfortable, quiet, appreciative and non-competitive relationship. I cherish our time together more than I can say!


Lunnette is mother to two grown boys, a volunteer firefighter (for nearly 20 years!), part-time clerk at our drugstore and an avid quilter. For last year's BJP, Lunnette went small because she didn't want beading time to interfere with her quilting time. You may remember her buttons (here and shown below)!


Having enjoyed the journaling aspects of the BJP last year, she decided to go bigger and combine her beading with quilting, photo transfers and surface embellishment this year. She's making hexagonal pieces, each of which showcases something about her life, her passions and/or her joys. They are about 6" across and she will make them into a quilt at the end of the year. She's right on target so far, with three completed.

September ~ features her extended family with lots of subtle meanings to the way she's embellished the photos and her fabric selections.


October ~ honors her career as a volunteer firefighter on San Juan Island. As you can see, the "doors" open to reveal more of the story. The County's volunteer fire department recently celebrated its 50th year and Lunnette celebrated her 19th year of service! This is the piece that gave me the idea to make a "book" on the surface of my Nov. piece (butterfly, see in progress here).



November ~ the month of our annual quilt retreat, this piece showcases Lunnette's long-standing love for quilting and two of her quilting buddies (Christy H and Krispi S, both of whom are active BJPers this year and last year).


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I feel honored to bead with Christy, Lunnette and (when possible) Donna... to know them, to share a passion for beading and to introduce them to you! I will twist their arms a bit to get them on some one's computer, somewhere, to read comments you make about their work!

Painting Fabric with Dyes ~ with Ann Johnston

Who-hoooo!!!

Four and a half yards of plain white fabric
turned into these
colorful (and color-fast), hand-dye-painted beauties:


Detail pictures follow... and all are click-to-enlarge.

Some of you know how much I love to paint decorative papers with layers of acrylic paint (see my website here and past posts here)! And some of you may remember my post about a brief opportunity to paint fabrics with dyes in Chicago a year ago (see here). To you it will be no surprise that, instead of going to our annual quilt retreat this past weekend, I took a 3-day workshop from Ann Johnston!!!!

Ann describes herself as a quilt maker, who took up fabric dying to get the fabrics she wanted and needed for her quilts. I'd describe her as a quilt master, an artist with double mediums of dye and fabric. Below is a sample of her dyed fabrics showing some of the techniques we learned.


Three days was just barely enough to scratch the surface, to learn a little about the variables involved in immersion dying and painting with dyes. The confusing parts for me concerned mixing the four solutions:

• Procion MX dyes ~ we mixed all of our dyes using only 6 colors (2 reds, 2 blues and 2 yellows) plus black
• soda ash ~ fabrics need to be saturated with soda in order to fix the dyes
• print paste ~ sodium alginate and other ingredients mixed with water ~ used to thicken the dyes for painting
• urea water ~ used to thin print paste

Also confusing was the whole curing process involving time (4-24 hours for the dyes to set), temperature (72 degrees or more) and moisture. I need to take some time to re-write my notes so I don't forget so much.

We started with a selection of plain white, quality, cotton fabrics with no sizing or wrinkle-free treatments. My favorite of the fabrics were a Hoffman Indonesian lawn (the same as used for Bali batiks) and a medium-weight ultra sateen, by Robert Kaufman.

Our first lesson was to make a very light and a dark value of the same color by immersion dying. Then, also using the immersion process, we did a two-color blended fabric. Below are my light red, dark red and orange-olive blend curing (fixing) in their respective dye baths.


For the remainder of the first day and the next two days, we painted dyes on fabrics using brushes, rollers, stamps, stencils and sponges. My favorites were done in layers. Each layer had to cure and dry (but not too quickly) before applying the next layer in order to preserve distinct edges. I didn't try to paint fabric sets, but have arranged pieces that look fairly good together for the detail images which follow.







My roommate and tablemate was Marie, of Z Quilts.


We both had a great time... and it was fun and a privilege to get to know Marie better. You can read her blog about the class (here) and see pictures of the fabrics she painted (here).

Although 19 of us were crowded in a 3-car plus garage for this class (now I know how sardines feel), we all managed to have a great time and produce some wonderful fabrics. Some of the local women have already formed a study group and figured out how to buy bulk supplies.

Pleased as I am with most of my fabrics, the jury is out about me doing more of this. The number of variables, the expense of it and the space requirements are the downsides. The fun of painting and the often serendipitous results are the upsides. Time will tell...

Meanwhile, I'm already back to beading. You'll see more of that soon!

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If you're a quilter, you may want to check out Ann Johnston's latest book, The Quilter's Book of Design. I've skimmed through all of it and find it one of the best ways to look at the design process that I've ever encountered. It easily applies to related art forms, such as bead embroidery, as well.

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A thought about taking workshops ~ I've been teaching workshops and classes for 20 some years. Only a few times during these two decades have I found time to take a workshop taught by someone else. And what a pleasure it is to be on the other side of the room once in a while... not having to know anything, not having to be responsible for anything except my own learning process, not having to prepare all the kits (Ann's were awesome!), not having to pack and put it all away when I get back home!!!

Ann handled all the difficulties (crowded space, great variation in previous dying training by her students, trying to convey years of her experience and knowledge in just three days, empowering students to experiment and play with the basic techniques on their own) admirably well! It was really a joy to sit back and be a beneficiary of her efforts. Sweet!

November Bead Journal Project ~ Mom & Me

Wow! I've been reading the BJP blogs, catching up after my week in Minnesota with Mom ... I'm vividly impressed with all the creative expressions of our hearts!!!! This just gets better and better, don't you think?


Before departing for Minnesota on Nov. 1, I gave some thought to my Nov. BJP. Since I was visiting Mom, who is a real a sweetheart, and since this important trip has been on my mind for several months, it makes total sense that my journal page for Nov. should be about Mom (and a little about me too).

With that decision made, visions of photographs of Mom came to mind... also the image of a butterfly. Mom was a scientist at heart, she studied entomology (insects) and ornithology (birds) in college and graduate school. She doesn't get into what things symbolize as much as I do. Yet, she's always been drawn to butterflies.

So, I googled butterfly images to see what might inspire me. At first I was impressed with the fancy ones. But after skimming 20 or so pages of images, I found myself repeatedly noticing a plain little yellow butterfly with a single distinguishing spot on the upper wing.


As it turns out this beautiful creature ( Zerene eurydice, commonly known as the Dogface butterfly) is the California state insect. Mom was born and raised in California. Although I considered using the more dramatic male version (see below), the more subtle and shy female coloring seemed more appropriate for Mom.


OK, I thought... now what? How can I use this image AND the photos of Mom? A book!!! I decided to make a book on my page, with a beaded butterfly wing for the front cover and the background fabric of the page for the back "cover."

I drew the butterfly on interleaving paper, and basted it onto some yellow dupioni silk from my stash. I basted around the wing and the along the veins to give myself beading guidelines (see back and front below).



Here is an example of one of the inside pages of the book. I used Photoshop to make the images into vignettes and collage them onto a partially screened version of the wing. Then I journaled in the yellow areas, writing little thoughts that came to mind as I looked at the images.


Basted silk, beads, yellow embroidery floss and the wing pages traveled with me to MN. Mom was quite impressed that she was the subject of this month's BJP page, also delighted to see some images of herself that she hadn't seen in many years. Here are two of them that are included.

Mom and me, taken in 1943 when we lived in Palo Alto, CA.


Mom, taken in 2004.


While I was there, I worked on beading the wing for the cover. I got it finished the last day I was there, but only have the in-progress picture below.


My sister-in-law, Julie, said I should consider it done... She said the silk has a papery-like texture, similar to the appearance of a butterfly's wing. I agreed with her, but decided to try beading the entire wing, giving myself the option to undo it back to how it is shown above if I didn't like it. You will see my decision in the next post!

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You know I'm a bunny person, right? One of my two totem animals is the rabbit, right? Well, arriving at the Seattle airport a tad early on Nov. 1, I decided to do a little window shopping. Look what I found at Fireworks!!!!! Is he cute or what?!



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While in MN, Julie, Brenda, Terri and I got together one evening to bead. We had a whee!!!! Brenda brought her beautiful gate (September's piece) and was working on her October pathway. Terri has 5 (or maybe it's 6) of her "pages" started, some nearly completed. Like her Pirate book from last year, this year's piece will be a sort of "book." Julie was working on a free-form woven bracelet for a sale she's having next month, but brought her BJP work to show'n'tell. I'm totally in love with the way she visually described her experiences in Yellowstone National Park this fall in her September piece (see below).


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Mom's doing fairly well, especially considering that she'll be 92 years old in a couple of months. We braved Minnesota's chilly night to go to my brother's house to watch the election returns... and celebrated with champagne during President-elect Obama's speech!!! Mom still reads the newspaper every day and was much relieved to know there will be some changes in the years ahead.

Having read and appreciated Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope, a year ago, I was convinced we needed him in the oval office. A couple of weeks ago I bought his first book, Dreams from My Father, which I've been reading during the past week. It feels like an amazing privilege to be watching our new president on TV while at the same time reading about his struggles to find himself, to identify his authentic place within race and other issues, during his youth. I believe he has the potential to be a great leader!

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Long travel day to get home yesterday... I flew from St. Paul to Seattle, took a shuttle to Boeing Field, and caught a puddle-jumper flight, which landed and took off in Oak Harbor and Orcas Island before finally arriving at San Juan Island, where I live. Ordinarily, I'd enjoy the extra flying time (over beautiful emerald islands), but yesterday was totally weird weather... high winds at certain altitudes, three levels of clouds (the lowest of which barely skimmed over the surface of the land and was extremely fast-moving). Some of the middle layer was busy dumping a load of rain, and once we saw the most brilliant rainbow.


However, if you know about flying small planes, you may be able to guess at what a nail-biter it was to be landing and taking off. Rock'n'roll, you say? Bounce, you say? Swerve to the side, you say? Yup! Took me an hour for each of the three landings to calm down after getting home. Had to put the cat on my lap... But, here I am, safe and sound!

Bead Journal Project ~ Sept and Oct Finished!

Finally, yesterday was OK weather for photography! I've been waiting for slightly overcast skies to photograph my finished Sept and Oct. BJP pieces...


Above is the start of October's BJP.

Before starting it, I had spent a fabulous day at the Quilt Museum and Quilt Festival in LaConner, WA. It's a show I try to see every year, because they exhibit the "best of the best." Only ribbon/prize winners from other shows around the country are eligible. The word "stimulating" comes to mine, but is inadequate for the amazing, creative and technically excellent work I saw! Also, be still my heart, they have vendors! One was Peacock & Periwinkle, an online fabric/ribbon/bead/button vendor with a lovely assortment of Dupioni silks.

I didn't have my camera with me, so you'll have to imagine a huge punch bowl filled with vibrant silks in all colors. Each piece was a 9" x 12" rectangle, folded in to a triangular-shaped puff. I pawed through them, selecting a few favorite colors, but not wanting to spend money that day, I put them back. Then my friend decided to buy some and I learned they were only $1.00 each. Wow! Can you see me diving back into that bowl? Yup! 22 pieces immediately jumped into my hands.

OK, so I chose three that appealed to me and layered them on my backing paper, as shown above. The picture was taken near the end of the first day of my Improv Bead Embroidery class taught in Baltimore, Oct. 3 & 4.

I beaded quite a lot in Baltimore, as I had a couple of "free" days (see here). By the time I got home, it only took a couple more days to finish. Here it is... Love in Delicate Balance.


When I started this piece, it was all about three fabrics that appealed to me. As I began to bead, I seemed to be making a "fence post" of sorts. When I put a heart on the cross-rail of the post, it looked like it could tip over, and I began to think about what a balancing act love and marriage can be sometimes.

Several years ago, my husband had an accident lifting a heavy object on his job of 17 years in the maintenance department at the Port of Friday Harbor. For months and months, he worked nearly every day with constant back pain. Several different types of treatments failed to improve the situation. He was on Dr. prescribed pain meds. About a year after the accident he had spinal fusion surgery. The pain levels were still very high 3 months later, different than before, but still high. With the help of pain meds, he continued to work at the Port.

Then at work about a year ago, he was on an aluminum extension-ladder which was balanced on a float leaning against a pier, when suddenly the bottom of the ladder disintegrated. Down he fell into the water, grabbing and tearing out many feet of electrical conduit on the way down. The incident resulted in more pain and increased levels of pain meds to compensate. However, this time, he found that he could not manage to work as he had previously and the Port didn't have (or wouldn't create) a less physically demanding position, so he became unemployed.

Not a pretty picture... a formerly active, able-bodied man, now with back pain, on pain meds and unable to work. Do you think he got kinda depressed? Yup, he did. So what happens to a marriage when suddenly he's home every day, sleepy from the meds and too depressed to do much? It gets challenging, really challenging. Maybe not for everyone, but for me it's been what I call character-building.

There is one possibility for which we both hold hope. His surgeon thinks the pain may be caused by the hardware (pins) holding the two fused vertebrae in place. Wanting to have the hardware removed, my husband had a bone scan to determine if the fusion was complete. It was not... far from it. So, since then he's been wearing a "bone growth stimulator" every day. Next month there will be another bone scan. If the fusion is complete, there will be surgery to remove the hardware. And maybe, hopefully, that will relieve the pain.

Meanwhile, try as I may to be a good, understanding wife and partner... I sometimes feel that our love is in delicate balance. You can see how that looks in my Oct. BJP.

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I showed you a picture of my incomplete, September BJP, Depression Lifting, here. Below is a picture of it completed.


I haven't decided yet what I want to do with this year's BJP pieces. Last year, I turned the edges and put picot edge stitch around them immediately after finishing each piece. At the end of the year those finished edges seemed to limit my options as I considered what to do with my work. So, this year I'm going to leave the edges unfinished until I decide.

Meeting 2 Wonderful BJPers in Baltimore

I have a bunch of posts to write and pictures to show, hopefully in the next couple of days!!!

Today, I'm thrilled to write about meeting Angela Plager, BJP member for both years, and Susan Elliott, new BJP member this year! Both live in MD but not in the same area. The three of us met for the first time while I was in Baltimore teaching Improvisational Bead Embroidery and Beaded Button workshops for the Baltimore Needlework Guild.


Angela (on the right) has been beading for a long time. She teaches various weaving and jewelry techniques for local bead shops. She also enters her work and has won awards in various beading competitions. She came (and stayed in a hotel) for the whole week I was in Baltimore and took my classes, but also helped me a great deal by managing my little "shop" area and by displaying her BJP work for both years!

I am totally in LOVE with her ideas and work for this year's BJP!!! It is so amazing, I don't even have words for it. You can read about it and see pictures on her blog, but they only begin to give you an idea of how fab her work is!!!! She also had her BJP pieces from last year with her, and it was grand to see/meet them in person.... way wonderful to see and touch the real things!!! The pictures especially do not show all the thread embroidery details she works into her pieces.

Because Angela has been stitching beads for a long time, I was worried that she would drive to Baltimore and sustain the hotel expense only to find that she already knew everything I had to teach. Fortunately for both of us, she learned some new-to-her techniques, including her favorites the bugle bead pathway and using tall stacks to make a beaded bezel. Also, the improvisational approach was new and fun for her to try.

Since her husband, Wayne, will be returning home in a few days after a second deployment to Iraq, she decided to spend her time in Baltimore working on a vessel/box for him. She used her new techniques and practiced working improvisationally on this piece... saying it was really freeing and fun to work this way!! Here are two views of Wayne's Box in progress. I'm sure you will see it finished on her blog soon.



Besides beading in the classroom, I had two days off while I was there. Naturally Angela, my wonderful hostess, Carolyn Everly, and I spent both days beading... except when we took time to drive into the Baltimore city center and visit Beadazzled. I finished my September BJP and got a good start on Oct. You'll see them in my next post.

The Baltimore classes were a blast! I love teaching needleworkers, who are used to slow, meditative progress, detail and stitching in general. They were ALL quick studies! Some of them are totally excited about bead embroidery... One even decided to be an un-official BJP participant! I feel a tad guilty for being paid to have so much fun!

Susan Elliott, top picture on the left, was responsible for their interest in getting me all the way across the country to teach... and it took almost 2 years from their first contact to make it happen. We were very blessed in class because Susan brought her September BJP piece, Returning Home, shown below, so we could all see it in person. It is such a touchingly beautiful piece. If you haven't read about it on her blog, please go here.


Susan and other Guild movers and shakers took Angela and me to dinner one night at a fabulous French restaurant in the little historical town of Ellicott City. Other than the fact that I was on the second day of a nasty head cold, it was really fun to be pampered and fed as only the French can, to spend a couple of hours entertained by Susan's travel stories and to be in the good company of such impressively talented women!

Meeting, beading and being with Angela and Susan was a great pleasure, a gift! We connect on the internet, realize how much we have in common, get to know and like each other... That's a very special part of the BJP. Then, later, to meet in person is so easy. It's like we already know each other... the shyness and formalities of meeting evaporate into instant bonds. I love it!!!