It's Baaaak!

After two and an half months on the lam, the X-acto knife is back. Prior to the visit of the grandsons in mid-June, all the dangerous tools were to depart temporarily from the Room Eventually to Be Known as the Room Formerly Known as Pink. The X-acto knife resisted. Luckily, it was discovered just before the boys arrived.

I fear I may have spoken too sharply to the knife about the situation, because it left in a snit, only to return in its own good time. Its whereabouts were unknown until yesterday when it showed up in the Fabric Storage Cave, aka the basement. In the meantime, numerous searches were conducted, and an enormous amount of time was wasted in unnecessary cleaning and the disruption of the spontaneous organizational system. One fears that other important items may have escaped during this process.

All I can say is the X-acto knife is lucky nothing rusted while it was in the basement.

Floating Tucks Portfolio

I finally finished the Floating Tucks Portfolio I started at the Grand Rapids ASG embellishment workshop in mid-July. Pretty impressive that I finished it so quickly, considering the number of in process projects currently cluttering up the Room Eventually to Be Known as the Room Formerly Known as Pink.

I surprised myself by choosing primary colors instead of something elaborate and beaded. That decision was influenced by the notebook I found to cover. I decided I wanted the paper inside to coordinate with the cover.

The tucks (vertical in this picture) stitched with #12 Sulky variegated thread in primary colors in both the top thread and the bobbin. I had not used the heavy thread in both before, and I was pleased with the results. I used the edge stitching foot to keep the tucks the same size. The horizontal stitching pulls the tucks in alternate directions. The #12 thread is used in the top but not in the bobbin. I made a fabric bead to simulate a button closure.



This is the inside of the portfolio. You can't see in this photo that the yellow paper is actually graph paper. Great for those of us who need all the help we can get in drawing diagrams.

The colors of the outside and the lining are really much closer than they look in the photos. But they are not a perfect match. That's the reason for the green piping. With that little separation, they look the same. I auditioned the green as binding, but it grabbed all the attention, and the effect of the variegated thread on the outside was lost.

The directions called for a Velcro closure, but I only had black and white Velcro. Then I decided to paint some white Velcro with blue Dye-na-Flow. That actually worked well. But it's scratchy. So in the end, I chose to do a little deconstruction so I could slip the reinforcements for a magnetic snap between the layers.

This portfolio is modified from "Wrap It To Go" from Fons and Porter's Easy Quilts, Fall 2007.

Now if anyone knows how to rearrange the photos and wrap the text, please let me know!

Marty S

No Controlled Substances

Just to make this perfectly clear: The Crackpot Beader is not involved with any controlled substances.

Except chocolate
and beads
and fabric
and fibers
and more chocolate
and more beads
and more fabric
and more fibers.

Hmmm... The Crackpot Beader may be in deep trouble!

Road Trip #2

My fiber arts friend Barbara told me about the bead store in a small town to the south of us. It sounded like a road trip to me. So off we went to Trade Winds Beads in Watervliet.

They had a great selection of seed beads. I looked for some to go with the amber chips I brought back from Lithuania last year. And some other beads and other beads and other beads...

Then Barbara whispered to me that there was a discount if I spent more than $40--at least I think it was $40. No problem there! I definitely got the discount!

Barbara is off to Vermont, but she is talking about another road trip when she gets back. I wonder what she has in mind...

Good Grief!

Good Grief! I started this thing! This will be my own adventure as part of the Bead Journal Project 08.

I am part of another group blog, but this is my first attempt on my own. If it goes under, I'll just jump. My personal IT consultant doesn't know a whole lot about making blogs, so I'm on my own.