*****TECHSPOT****************************************
Diversionary Tactics
When you want to create an asymmetrical pattern without pre-planning or any thought at all, you can try this line of thinking.
Basically you consider X amount of colors that you would like to use  and incorporate together.
Then, through selective rotation you pick the least used color for that particular surface area.
So, if  have a purple bead row and it's going in a certain direction, and on the other side you have a blue bead row and they join in the design (and you're using let's say purple, blue and red)... At this point, you're going to obviously want to use red because that surface area, where you are weaving the beads have mostly blue and purple beads.
Let's say you had an equal amount of colors... In this scenario , you would probably want to pick the color that is  the furthest away.
You want to make sure to keep all of the colors at all points separate from each other so that existing rows of color eventually get blocked by new rows of other colors...
What is fun to do however, is to make channels ...and that's when you allow the bead color to move upward in its own particular exclusive row.... and you'll see this as a pattern that is flowing outward from a center point rather than lines of color that flow together in jointed bits.
Three colors can actually be challenging because sometimes it's hard to weave larger surface areas and not double up on the rows as the need gets larger.
 I personally don't mind adding because it just makes the lines look like they are fanning out into a thicker stripe patterns.
It does become challenging when you start to do a larger number of colors such as 13..you can easily forget one or two colors.
I actually learned a technique from this bead artist :what he would do is, he would never pour out all your beads onto a tray (of course )but he would also keep his little beads segregated in piles ...and that way he never lost track of everything he was using...
This works with new beads but of course can become really difficult when you're using recycled piles of old backstock.
If you don't mind the inconsistency of color throughout the whole body of work, you can easily forget about a certain color or type of bead and just add on a new color but you can't keep forgetting and forgetting ....it or it just looks pixelated you don't have any connected design at all. 
Pixelation designs can be cool but just keep in mind that if it's really a recycle mix from a bunch of projects, you could have a bunch of different size beads ....and that can make for some really cool asymmetrical weaves if you are good with flat works such as peyote stitch and keeping your work flat....
I have seen recycle bead work that's lumpier it just doesn't serve a particular design shape value... usually the hand wants more control than mashed potatoes and clouds... but sometimes mashed potatoes and clouds are it..
No approach is ever particularly 'wrong' in this way...but flat beadwork is usually more practical in function.
 
In this image of "Fireball Up in the Sky" ring, we can see that distinct separation of beads rows, starting and stopping around the center..and some I allow to continue. Im a big fan of intense psychedelic patterns..and glass beads shine the brightest- pure fire.
 

For the best production, leave nothing for the return:                                                        9.22

Let absolutely nothing be your future, 

Have nothing as your support, 

and allow it to stop at nothing.

Pietra Dura repair                                  4. 21

While stone is the preferred material for Pietra Dura repair, polymer clay can make a really convenient alternative.

 
Interestingly, I read somewhere that while people refer to this type of artwork as 'Pietra Dura' the accurate name called pietre cas?..pietra dura is more like the micromosaic work.
 
Sculpey brand polymer makes really soft, flexible clay as well as boasting just about a million colors to choose from. I found this to be a godsend when it comes to trying to match Pietra Dura stone colors.
 
One thing that's really nice about working with polymer clay is that it's pliable...so it's easy to reproduce some of the swirls, and gradations that you see in natural pietra dura stones.
 
After trying tons of approaches trying to repair a pietra dura pin, I finally turned my sights on polymer clay... this style of work really requires lapidary skills to repair authentically, and if you don't have the facilities or the skill, polymer clay is a sweet solution.
 
One drawback to working with polymer is dependent on the amount of work that needs repair- mainly, different sections of color that are neighboring one another. Since polymer clay is soft, it makes it nearly impossible to get smooth outlines when filling in sectionally(area by area).
 
The solution to this is to harden sections that are isolated from each other, and then to later add touching sections, after the first have hardened. This guarantees a smooth crisp shape that mimics the fine detail that Pietra Dura exhibits.
 
In this pin, you can clearly see the repair work found in the right flower, near the stem. Note that it doesn't have a clear shadowed gradation that the rest of the original work has.. I purposely kept this piece to show some of the repair work clearly.
 
Another repair section is found in the leaf, in the upper right side of the pin. The underside of the leaf, as well as some of the green leaf work that is curled has been replaced with polymer clay. 
 
The green section of the leaf is nearly undetectable, which just goes to show the versatility and success that you can have using polymer clay as repair material for Pietra Dura.
 
I thought that preparing this pin would be a real headache, but polymer clay made it simple. There is one part to this repair however, where I really had to take a chance; and that was when I decided the best way to repair this would be to place the whole pin in a low temp oven (in order to harden the polymer clay).
 
I originally attempted to create thin layers of cured polymer that mimicked stone and tried to cut and inlay the work, but found that the shaping of polymer clay was too brittle to work with, in such small shapes.
 
It left me with the idea of trying a low bake, although the original binding material was a complete mystery to me... I had no idea if it would ruin all of the work or not, but I took the chance and at 240 degrees for 8 minutes the Sculpey was cured, the pin undisturbed. 
 
There WAS a couple of spots where the original binding material had bled to the surface, but I cleaned it while it was warm with a paper towel and it showed no more.
 
This pin is fully backed with silver, not all pietra dura work is, and this method may or may not work for that type.
 
A silicon pot holder works well to lay the pin on while baking- it makes for a great level surface for pins with a larger pin back.
 
While on the one hand, using polymer sort of feels like a cheap shortcut,  it does make a good solution if you don't have the skills to repair correctly but you still want the work to look filled in (perhaps until you can take it to a professional who can repair it authentically).
 
 

St Patrick's JustLi Bendy Doll                3.21

 In true "AnnaLee" doll style! A large, life size leprechaun chills out on the front porch, smoking his felted pipe. LOve the AnnaLee doll style, but havent seen any of this style at this size. I also felt challenged to recreate the simple bendy folds that felt creates when working with it.

In order to do that, I needed to obtain large felted blankets, as well as creating a home brew of fabric stiffener. 

Surprisingly (or perhaps not on reflection), the body and upper legs needed heavy weight in order to keep it propped upright. Fortunately I had extra iron rods laying around, which worked really well for this.

Using extra fabric off hand, orange yarn for fluffy hair, acrylic paint for the  face, polymer clay for the buckles and pocket watch.

 

The body has a wire fram, as does the hat and pipe; the pipe was a fun frame to make, and I could see exploring that a bit further..making cool wire framed, poly filled fabric shapes! 

 

Happy St. Patricks Day!

 

 

Egg Painting                                          4.20

Eggs painted with beeswax

Egg decorating is a really fun way to celebrate spring. It's almost a silly activity when you think about it, but after trying it a couple of times, a certain appreciation develops.

It can take a delicate hand, and loving patience to minimize the damage that can be easily done when working with eggshells.

Yet, there's something joyous and pleasant about the egg that makes it a popular go-to when the weather starts warming up...The shape? The surface? .maybe just knowing it's a yummy symbol of life..?  No matter the reason, egg decorating has become so popular, there are literally dozens of ways to decorate them.
Usually vinegar and food dyes are used in a dipping method, which has led into marbelizing the surface of eggs, as well as all sorts of stamping methods.
Tie-dye eggs are really popular too and has a million variations to it- from string, to lace, leaves and rubber bands.
One approach which piqued my interest, was one using silk ties, where you wrap the eggs in the silk fabric and set with heat/steam.
This year however, the traditional beeswax method seemed to appeal; melted beeswax painted on, silk dyes and then baked to set the dye and melt the wax.
The traditional hand painted method can be tedious, especially when doing large amounts, but the results are as joyous as the flowers of spring itself!

 

Wicker Dying                                       10.19

 

One thing that I really enjoy are wicker basket purses. They aren't like leather or any other purse materials because their shape stays quite firm using just the straw.
Of course, there are many pillbox style purses that use mixed materials, but basket purses relies solely on the weave to give their structure.
They're relatively light for the amount of bulk, and when woven well, have a beautiful pattern.
The main thing I like about them is their practical side; their ability to hold quite a few items firmly in their place.
Regular soft leather purses allow items in the purse to kind of jostle around- making it incredibly difficult to find smaller items (especially if you tend to carry a lot of little items in a purse).
 
Usually wicker purses have short handles for some reason... I think it's because it's trying to mimic a picnic basket of sorts, but for me, a longer strap is much more practical, and having thinner straps are more versatile.
Longer straps allow a cross body use as well as a single shoulder sling but even more than that, a longe strap allows the weight of the purse to fall below the hips making it easier to push a purse back, or keep forward when walking.
 
Most wicker purses are sold in their natural color-probably to mimic the light, breezy nostalgia of summertime which is when wicker/raffia/straw is often seen at the beaches and parks ( which in a way, is kind of ironic  considering that the materials used in these purses are an early harvest material you might see in a natural landscape closer to autumn).
 But if you like them as much as I do, you're going to want to look for a winterized version of the color pallet- in darker colors that reflect the colder seasons.
An easy and not so easy way to accomplish this is to simply stain a wicker purse that you like.
However, not all raffia and wicker purses are created equally. When looking to stain a wicker purse, you're going to want to use some of the cheaper made purses because the more expensive ones will put on a finishing coat to prevent the wicker from fraying too easily.
These top coats are incredibly difficult to work when staining or painting- and you will want to use a topcoat sealant, so the color doesn't rub off- which it will easily with a good quality finished wicker..those plastic 'top' coats sink into the fibers.
Even with a a few layers of top coat (over your paint) some of the wicker finishes are so good, that it can still rub off no matter how much paint or top coat you use. 
A simple solution is to use an acetone bath, but can damage the actual material ...or boiling, but can sometimes leave film in a pan and can make the basket purse lose their shape permanently.
It's kind of tricky, so you're going to want to look for purses that have a matte finish and do not look shiny in any way.
Of course if there is a wicker purse that you just love, you can still experiment.
 
You can see from the picture that the purse on the left has a matte finish and was easy to stain using wood stain.The fiber drank the stain right up.
Yet the purse on the right, has a glossy finish which is actually due to the top coat that I used , but was just as shiny originally.. I have yet to see if it will keep it's paint job and top coat over the harsher extremes of winter.
Both have thin wool straps in a dark brown; fuzzy, soft and sturdy..reminding me of mittens.
 

IPoly Dye                                              9.19

 

Receiving a skirt that was much too bright (blue) for my needs, I decided to darken it slightly.
However, upon reading what the skirt was made of, I discovered that it was a synthetic fabric.
From what I understand of material, synthetic fabrics are practical to dye.. simply because they're essentially made of plastic.
I learned this the hard way, a really long time ago in high school... when a counselor I had wore the worst god-awful Cosby style sweaters( but worse because they were all in pastels), and I let him know in no uncertain terms that they were the worst sweaters I had ever witnessed.
I remember offering to dye the sweaters, yet soon discovered that the sweaters were synthetic, and no dye I owned would be able to save them.
Fortunately that counselor was smart enough to only give me one sweater to experiment with had I've been given more I probably would have experimented on all of them like little test subjects.
I tried and tried and tried and nothing would stick. Although I will say that the sweaters were so awful, that even a mish mashed muddled, half dyed sweater lent some sort of artistic flair, which was still better than the original design.
To this day, I stand by my opinion and to Mr.B, wherever you are, I'm sorry I fucked up your sweater, but damn . That shit was ugly.
Years later, I discovered that if you take a water down acrylic paint that you can actually coat synthetic fibers and 'dye' it... but this is more of a top coat rather than a true dying experience, and usually leaves the material somewhat stiff and rough to the touch.
Of course, when you're making costumes or creating fabrics that don't really need to be pliable, acrylic paint is your best bet: it's cheap, easy to apply, and can be customized in terms of exact color.
But for this particular satin skirt I wanted pliability, and also to retain the satin finish.
Little did I know that Jaquard had anticipated this small market and created a dye made specifically for synthetics called IPoly.
IPoly seems to have gotten mixed reviews online; some people having good experiences, while others not so much.
 
 
  Since I had had some experiences with fabric already, I knew that a synthetic bright blue would not be died dark blue by using a dark blue poly dye, but instead purchasing a black dye... which would depress the blue nicely to a navy blue.
The Ipoly dye was different than regular diye because it came in 2 pouches- with one pouch being dissolvable water (I was not expecting THAT).
I made sure to use a vent as other said it smelled noxious, but I actually found it to smell similar to any other dyes on the market.
I also decided to use double the strength because some of the negative reviews made it sound as if the dye was not strong enough, and I knew with Satin that I would want to use a stronger die because satin has a sheen to it- a guarantee that it would reflect the deeper fabric content(not just the surface dye particles).
Word of advice to anyone using ipoly dyes: make sure to have bleach off hand, soft scrub off hand, and plenty of scrubbing pads off hand because it will dye synthetic fabric but it will also die any synthetic surfaces in your house including plastic tubs, or sinks, or countertops ( including some metal painted surfaces found on refrigerators.. yeah I learned that :).
While the recommendation is to constantly stir the fabric in a free-flowing that of died in high temp water for half an hour to an hour, I found that a solid 10 minutes was enough to do the trick.
I was actually concerned that the skirt might be dyed jet-black( something I really did not want), and satin is tricky to work with because when it is wet it tends to darken in shade with no hint as to its true shade when dry.

 

Luckily the skirt dyed to a nice dark blue as I had desired, without a longer time being processed.
It is possible that a longer process time would create the same shade, just retaining the pigments better, but I did not want to take that chance seeing as how dark the skirt looked after only 10 minutes.
Keep in mind I did use a concentrate of ipoly dye by using two packages instead of one, but after a wash and fabric softener, the dye seems to retain just fine, even after such a short amount of time in the vat.
All-in-all I recommend ipoly dye for any sort of synthetic that feels softer to the touch- and isn't a Cosby sweater made of rough plastic fibers.

ARGHhhhhhhhhhhh..roping for pirate hats    9.18

Going along with more rope inspiration ( see News&Views archive about related), this green and black satin rope was the perfect addition to this leather pirate hat. Wide rims are really the best things for rennaissance costume-cosplay recreation.

The key with adding rope to a costume hat is a good sense of proportion. Rope works really well for a pirate themed costume simply because of the symbolism of ropes used on ships...but other things can work well too-  like braided raffia for a more caribbean allure-feather boas for drama-even tattered rags for a floppy vagrant 'look'.

  From this angle, you can see that the green rope borders the black rope on both sides. This was done purposely so that  more black rope could be added in the center and still have a good sense of balance with the rope detail. The thrift store leather hat was quite thin brimmed, and I knew I would need as much brim as possible to get nice bicorns.

A feather pin and silk ribbon add nice flair.

 In this case, the ideal pirate look was a bit gaudy, very fine, yet a slight bit over the top. A huge pearl is added to the center of the silk bow.

Also, the rope ending is hidden under the backside of the silk scarf- actually loosley tied on top..this way, the scarf still flows, but stay put on top of the unsavory ending knotwork.

******************TECHSPOT*******************************

 

A really great way to save on the cost on colored nymo beading thread is through the application of dying nymo thread after the work is complete. This not only allows for exact color match, allows you to use just as much as you need.

 

Having the complete rainbow collection of nymo threads is fun, but not always practical and is always more costly than the simple white and black threads on cone; Not exactly sure why nymo colors are more than the two basics ( black and white), you would think that it takes effort to make both black AND pure white thread too- and that perhaps GREY would be more cost effective ( using no dyes)..but I dont know much about the process.

Fortunately, white nymo is usually a good bargain for beading, and since it reflects light, it can help enhance any color you choose to dye over it. Keep that in mind when trying to dye the thread depressed colors, or opaque colors..sometimes using slightly darker colors will get a better result ( sometimes double dying works best, but caution with double and triple dying..there are layers that will build up in between the thread which is a nifty trait for some goals with beadwork, but not for others. too many layers can cake, fall off in pillings, exposing the thread and work against the goal of covering the nymo thread.).

 

 You can see on this bracelet in the picture that I used white nymo thread to bead a green beaded cuff. The first picture ( above) shows the white thread a bit better, but this second image shows how the green does reflect a bit with white nymo thread when light shines through. Even with no overdye, its not terribly contrasting using a  simple black or white thread ( depending on how translucent you want the beadwork to appear).

 I could have used green nymo, but the green nymo threads I had ( and could find) clashed with the greens I was using, and knew overdying would be the way to go later on.

Because of that, I considered all the materials I would be using since later on, the whole object would be later exposed to paint.

Had I used a mother-of-pearl cabachon, or something made of paper, or fabric(pourous) I probably would not have considered an overdye ( would have predyed the nymo thread by unspooling and respooling- which is even more tedious than overdying).

 

The ideal paint for nylon like nymo is acrylic paint. You're going to want a fully pigmented acrylic paint to then water down.The cheap paints don"t always fully coat as the loaded acrylics do.

 

I water the bath down to a very watery consistency, but never at the expense of actual pigmentation. If the paint is cheap, I might have to keep the body thick, and keep a toothbrush and hot water handy to brush away excess thick paint.

 Use a paper towel underneath to help catch drips or wipe areas clean in a hurry. Use a paintbrush to blot the paint. Also, thicker paint can ( in a few layers) fill in areas of work where beads might not fit.

You can see on the back of this cabachon setting a spot here and there that look inconsistent with the bead pattern. This happens often when the beads are being tapered and areas have to be compromised due to various angles- you end up with gaps here and there that has threads showing through.

Thicker acrylic paint work as a good filler for smaller gaps. Using acrylic for gaps too large tends to let the acrylic filler flake off.

As you can see in this final image, the green acrylic paint has added a nice depth to the design. Giving a richness to the green beads and lending an overall solidarity to the shape.

 

I havent tried, but have considered some fun ideas using acrylic paints and beads to make images that pop through the bead design...

 

Or, perhaps make a rainbow thread by using various colors though the overdye technique.

 

Some things are better through predye and respooling ( hand dipping each part of the thread, letting it dry then spooling it back up).

 

Just depends on what the desired end goal is, but this overdying technique is a handy trick to have when you want absolute control over the colors. Happy dying!