Fancy Fish Redux

The fish are checking out sample pages from my new tutorial

This week has been a flurry of sorting and purging to move my studio and renewed work on my Fancy Fish Tutorial.

Our Destash Sale last weekend was a bust in terms of finding new homes for our old inventory.  Turns out it was openning day for ticket sales for the Mariners and there was a Sounder's game, so the few people who did try to come couldn't find parking.  Ouch!

The hours spent in the studio waiting for visitors were productive time however, as I continued to sort through my stash.  It's really frightening how much I've collected over the years.   I'm looking for new homes for much of my fabric collection from when I used to do costume design, wearable arts and crazy quilting.  (Thanks to a link I found in my inbox this morning, I may try consigning some of it through Our Fabric Stash.  Talk about timing!)

While sorting through tubs of fabric, buttons, lace and who knows what, I also came up with a better way to organize my Fancy Fish Tutorial and ideas for several additions.  Luckily, the kind souls who'd purchased my tutorial were willing to wait a couple of days for delivery.  So it was back to the the drawing board and several more rounds of edits.  I finished it up Tuesday evening just before bedtime.  And sighed with relief.

The latest edition topped out at twenty-four book style pages.  This is my most detailed tutorial yet and the diagrams are the prettiest I've ever created.  I showed my newly refinished tutorial to my husband (who had been out of town for the past week) and my best friend yesterday and got a tongue lashing from both for underpricing my tutorials.  Chatting via email with one of the people who'd purchased my tutorial, she agreed that I'd underpriced it - especially since my license allows the purchaser to sell items they make with my pattern at local craft shows and galleries.

Bowing to their wisdom, I raised my price a little on Etsy.  However that didn't seem fair to my blog readers who knew the old price.  So, through the end of the month, you can still purchase my Fancy Fish Beadwoven Friends PDF tutorial for the old price by using the coupon code BLOGFRIENDs, which will take $3 off at checkout.  This coupon is only good for my Fancy Fish tutorial, please!  

Time for School

These guys are surprisingly difficult to photograph, but here's my current school of Fancy Goldfish.  The one at top right was a Christmas gift for my husband, and he requested a single line of thread so he could hang it in his office, which is what you see trailing off to the side.  It's loosely based on a Japanese Fighting Fish.  But then I stole it back for photographs.  :)

Hedgehogs and Oak Leaves

Art Bead Scene caught me with their challenge this month.  How could I resist an illustrated still life entitled "A Hedgehog in a Landscape"?  Painted by Giovanna Garzoni (1643-51), one of the first woman artists in her field, this piece is a collection of some of my very favorite things.  This time of year, every trip outside my door is a chance to collect (or photograph) brightly colored leaves, mahogany colored buckeyes, and the prickly outer hulls of chestnuts.  A hedgehog in the garden would be just perfect. 

Since I'm unlikely to find a hedgehog in my garden, I thought I'd create my own little critter, and treat myself to an artist play date in the process.  So I broke out the polymer clay supplies and set to. 

wood & aluminum forms, cooked poly clay, painted & waxed

I'm a poly clay dabbler at best, so wasn't trying for anything fancy here, though I did manage a couple of nice Skinner blends. Started with aluminum foil crunched into the approximate shapes I wanted (I used my cat's toy mice as a reference), then pulled out some wooden beads, too.  If I was going to the trouble of pulling out all the supplies, might as well make a few different things.

While they cooked, I played with some wire, creating oak leaf charms.  They got better as I worked - my first wraps were pretty 'rustic'.  (Kinder word than 'crude').

Once they were out of the oven, I had a little fun with acrylics and finished them with a wax varnish.  I'd carved oak leaves into one of my beads, which left little clay burrs around the edges.  400 and 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper took care of the burrs without disturbing my design,but left the surface looking rather dull.  The acrylics and varnish took care of that  beautifully, giving the bead a deep lustre. 


Then it was time to stitch my hedgehog his coat. 

A right angle weave 'coat' with a pink underbelly

Stitched the belly flat using right angle weave, then tied it onto the hedgehog with bead 'ropes'.  The bottom-left photo above shows my "bondage" hedgehog.  :)  Then I filled in between the rows, using increases and decreases as necessary to fit the curves.

 And here's my little guy with his new coat!  I'd originally thought of adding an extra layer of bead work on top to give him a really spiky look, even started in on it, but decided I liked this better.

I glued his eyes in last - they're size 6 seed beads.  With the addition of a pin back on his belly, he's ready to travel.  Though he'd make a great pocket pet as well. 



And what did I do with the rest of the beads, and the leaf charms?

Oak Leaf lariat with poly clay beads & freemotion leaf

I used a couple of my beads in this lariat, along with some machine wrapped cords and an oak leaf I'd made with free motion embroidery ages ago.   Fun to see how my different areas of work can come together. 

I also have plans to turn the rest of my wire leaf charms into earrings, next play day.