Fish Are Friends Reveal and Blog Hop

Today's the day for the Fish are Friends Blog Hop.  Thank you to all the members of my Design Team, and to everyone else who participated in this challenge and hop.  The goal again was to use my Fancy Fish tutorial, or another favorite fish pattern to create wonderful new creations.

Without further ado - here's the Official Fish Friends list:

 Francie Broadie - FAB Custom Jewelry

 Shirley Moore - Beads and Bread
 Bobbie Rafferty - Beadsong Jewelry
 Tanya Goodwin - A Work in Progress
 Cynthia Machata - Antiquity Travelers

Kathy Jo - KJ's Beadacious Beads

Therese Frank - Therese's Treasures

Nancy Sopp - AlaskanNancy 

Alison Oman

Amy Severino - Amybeads

Hostess: Karen Williams - Baublicious

 

Acrylic puffed oval beads as cores for fish bodies

For my own entry, I wanted to do something different.  You've already seen my Fancy Fish.  Some new, larger core beads seemed like a great place to start.  The photo at left shows one of the larger beads in comparison to the standard sized core beads I use.

Then a friend asked if I could stitch a Lionfish.    I didn't want to try to go for photo realism, but Lionfish and Scorpionfish are such fun with their spikes and plumes.  So I decided to take artistic license, lots of artistic license, and see where it took me.

My new fish is an extrapolation from my original pattern - you won't find the exact instructions for it in my PDF, but rather it is an outgrowth of the pattern.  I stitched two fish, but I think I may save the second and try submitting it to some magazines.  

My latest, very Fancy Fish - isn't her topknot fun?

Fish in Process

My New fish with one of my Blue fish

Oh, and later this week, I'll be hosting a giveaway here on my blog for some core beads for Fancy Fish. 

Alison Oman's Three Fish Friends

A couple of the participants in my Fish Are Friends Challenge and Blog Hop don't currently have their own blogs, so I'm hosting them here as guest posts. Here's Alison Oman talking about her interpretations of the design:

Three Fancy Fish by Alison Oman with peyote stitch bodies

Another view of the Fancy Fish by Alison Oman

This has been an adventure for me!! Not only am I an avid loom weaver, I'm REALLY left handed, soooooo the RAW has been quite a challenge for me....in fact, I'll admit the two fish I've done so far I cheated and did peyote for the body.

However, my photography skills are really awful - I have a point and shoot camera and the colors and beads just all meld together.

My daughter is the camera aficionado and she has had fun walking around the back yard with these three fish.

I've had such a great response from the fish and as the local art gallery is having a show called "Fish" in July I'm working on a piece that is inspired by your fish designs.

-Alison

A Walk on the Beach

The point at Golden Gardens - normally all this sand is underwater

Sunday, my husband and I managed to sneak away from all of our various obligations for a short while and go for a walk along the beach.  It's been ages since we managed that - I think maybe even last year which is simply sad, considering how close it is. 

The cool morning air and lightly overcast skies made it perfect weather and meant that when we arrived the beach was still relatively empty.  And at low, low tide!  Seattle's beaches don't have the cool, huge rocks that make tidepooling such a delight in other places.  Instead, our beaches have lots of little stones and a few big ones, scattered here and there.  With the tide out, the first thing you see is lots and lots of bright green sea lettuce and eal grass, but if you look more closely there are all sorts of hidden surprises. 

I thought I'd share.

I love the lines drawn in the sand by the retreating water

The floats in this seaweed look just like crab claws

A sailboat anchored just offshore - I'd love to go sail in it!

More lines in the sand - organic patterns, yippee!

Sea stones

pilings from an old pier - normally they're underwater

barnacles on on of the pilings

I found a crab hiding underneath this rock.  Love the textures!

Doesn't this remind you of a bezeled cabochon?

a perfect seashore still life

another texture shot - makes me want to do a freeform piece

encrustations

these mussels are about the size of my pinky nail - tiny!

A dungeness crab's molted shell

It just makes me want to break out the beads and start playing!  Oh, and in case you're wondering - the beach is Golden Gardens, just a few miles north of downtown Seattle in Ballard. 

Fish Are Friends Blog Roster

Can you believe it's already July 7th?  This year is flying by!  June in particular.  Now that my schedule's finally calming back down, I hope to catch up on blogging over the next week or so.  But first, just a reminder:

Next Saturday is the Fish are Friends Reveal and Blog Hop.  Are you ready?  I'm definitely working on it this week.  Since I've been so absent lately, I thought I'd better post the list of whom I believe is participating, including my fabulous design team:

Fish Are Friends Reveal and Blog Hop

Saturday, July 13th

(list updated 7/12/2013)

    Francie Broadie - FAB Custom Jewelry
    Shirley Moore - Beads and Bread
    Bobbie Rafferty - Beadsong Jewelry
    Tanya Goodwin - A Work in Progress
    Cynthia Machata - Antiquity Travelers

Kathy Jo - KJ's Beadacious Beads
Therese Frank - Therese's Treasures
Nancy Sopp - AlaskanNancy 
Alison Oman
Dolores Dwight 
Amy Severino - Amybeads
Eleanor Pigman - Eleanor Pigman

If you don't see your name on the list and you want to be in the Blog Hop, please let me know so I can add you!  Remember to send me your blog address if you have one and make sure that you give me a way to contact you via email.  

If you don't have a blog and would like to participate, no worries.  Simply send me pictures of your beaded fish along with a brief write up and I'll set up a guest post for you on my blog.  Here's a sample of a guest post from February's Choose Your Own Adventure challenge.  

Also let me know if you're on the list by accident.  :)

Happy fishing!