Becky Beads

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Rebecca's Musings and Artistic Wanderings: Etsy Bead Weavers Challenges

Rebecca's Musings and Artistic Wanderings: Etsy Bead Weavers Challenges

Etsy Bead Weavers Challenges

Buy Frolicking Goldfish Necklace!

Etsy Bead Weavers

Readin' n Beadin'

Mary Higgins Clark will always be associated with the bead work on this bodice!

The gold fish fantasy on the other hand was done without a soundtrack. I was more interested in quiet for most of the process though I heard my son Simon and his girlfriend Jill watching Fantastic Mr. Fox in the next room for part of it and realized that the soundtrack/music (Alexander Desplat) for that movie is quite good!

Readin' n Beadin'

I have been going through my clothes trying to figure out why I still have items taking up valuable closet real estate when I never wear them. The item pictured above is one of the results. It is part of a transformed two-piece ensemble I originally made to wear to my son Tim's high school graduation: a sarong style skirt with a short bolero type jacket, the jacket an afterthought to wear to keep my shoulders from getting sunburned during the long outdoor ceremony. I was not happy with the design after its debut - the top didn't sit right over my bust and the skirt missed the mark - too fuddy-duddy. I ended up shortening the underskirt and using the extra fabric to fill in the midriff gap of the bolero, reshaping a bit and adding beaded trim. While my son, the graduate now two years older and a rising college junior, entertained his friends upstairs, I retreated to the greenhouse with beading supplies and a book-on-tape to start my "Readin' n Beadin" tradition.
 My daughter Jean it turns out has been doing closet purging too. Everyday when she is deciding what to wear, if she pulls a top or dress, pants, skirt out but nixes, she asks herself "why?" and if the answer is obvious, the item goes into the give away pile. If she decides "not today" because it doesn't fit right or has a design/cut issue, it goes into the "go to Mom" pile, and if she likes it but realizes it is not her style but might be great on me, it too goes into the "go to Mom" pile. She brought me a few great tops over the Father's Day weekend, and I fit two pairs of her favorite jeans that are too wide at the calf and hem, and three dresses that swim on her body, one XS T-Back dress, particularly loose that she bought without trying on. It must have been mis-tagged.

Vacation Mode

I have been putting art and design on the back burner during these busy days of summer, spending a lot of time in the garden and being a hostess to visitors. Cleaning out clutter and going through my wardrobe have also kept me on my toes. It feels like I am on vacation even though I am working hard every day. Below is a mess of toys I dug out of the cellar to clean, sort and either throw away or save. I got rid of about 89.999 percent, with the ultimate cooperation of Milos. How can you throw away a Corgi car or a Tonka truck, even though it shows wear and tear? Or Duplos, Omagles, Hot Wheels or Ninja Turtle action figures? Decisions and quandries. I also tackled other areas of accumulation and clutter, such as cardboard boxes, bags and tarps. I had no idea how many tarps Milos has collected until I gathered them all into a pile. The pile was as tall as I am.

The suitcase below was a no brainer - torn, worn, and ripped up inside. The photo will be the souvenir.

I have guidelines to inform my good riddance activities:
1. Junk takes up valuable real estate, as do empty boxes, plastic and brown paper bags and cardboard. Out!
2. The only difference between us and a "white trash" family is that our junk is inside the house and not scattered in piles in the yard
3. It costs us nothing today to recycle and throw away, but I am sure the day will come when we will have to pay for garbage disposal. Let's save money by divesting ourselves of trash while it is still free. Let's get paid for those returnables now, while the dollar still is worth something.
4. Cardboard and empty cardboard boxes all go into Milos's garage. If he wants to save them, he gets to have them.

Day Thirty Eight

I am DONE!!! except for cleaning the haze and sealing the grout and unglazed tiles, which should darken and brighten the overall appearance. Nonetheless, I am very happy with the work and feel a combination of postpartum depression and elation - very special emotions that signify for me the depth of my commitment to the art of this project.

BeforeDesign Plan

Checks and Grids

I realize that my visual life these days is unified by checks and grids - the mosaic, the bead weaving and two of my most recent sewing projects using gingham. I finished the bracelet - jazzy dancing tulips.

Another project was copying the pattern of the shirt on the right and sewing four clones (more in the future, for a girls' camp) - now I am waiting for the buttons I ordered from Thailand... but the shipping is taking a long time! The EBay seller wrote me that riots probably snagged up the postal service. I may have to buy them on cards from JoAnn's after all.

The buttons arrived!

Day Thirty Seven

I thought today would be the day I finish the grouting, but it was not to be - things always take longer than you think... and on top of the disappointment, all my careful color mixing has not had the DRIED effect I hoped for. The grout dries much lighter than the mixed color. MUCH lighter. I will probably redo some areas, especially the central brown figure just above the doorway.

Even the dark grout dried in the container looks dark... but on the wall - it looks light! Maybe when I use the sealer it will darken... I will test that.

Grouting, especially the way I have to use my fingers to press into tight areas, is not compatible with nail polish!

Day Thirty Six

Today I continued with coloring grout and filling in. Once I get the color I want, I rub it in using first the metal trowel, then the small make-up sponge, then my fingers if necessary. I am trying to control the grout in very narrow places at times such as up the stems. My fingers work best, either with rubber surgical gloves on or off, depending on happenstance. There is a lot of hand rinsing anyway. After applying the grout I have to let it set up for about a half an hour - usually I work on another area and then go back when the grout that has slopped on top of adjacent tiles looks lighter, indicating it is dry. I am excited by the opportunity I have now to enrich the design by using color in the cracks. Often I stop and sit back, just staring at the mosaic, imagining interstitial color possibilities.

The heart-shaped motif here has 3 grout colors worked in.

I use acrylics to achieve the colors.

Here are the rags - damp and dry - for cleaning up and the small sponge, the containers etc.

Day Thirty Five

The Grouting began. We had bought a big box of gray non-sanded grout, which I am sure would be too dull a base for the color grout I want to mix for certain areas of the mosaic, especially in the flower and the leaf motifs. I had a doctor appointment in Great Barrington. Not wanting to make a special trip to Home Depot in Pittsfield or burden Milos with an extra errand when he goes there tomorrow, not wanting to even try to park on Main Street in Great Barrington to go to Carr Hardware, I realized I could buy the grout in West Stockbridge, en route and a pleasant small town, at a small convivial hardware store. But their grout supply was limited to a repair tube. The saleslady suggested I go around the corner to "The Floor Store," where I have never set foot inside, but always admired their colorful opus quadratum sign. The small showroom is packed with great tile and carpet samples but I did not see much in the way of work supplies. When the patron was free to help me, I explained I just needed a small amount of white unsanded grout to experiment with on my mosaic. He said they didn't not have any in the shop but he could get some in the warehouse. Remembering my aborted field trip to Connecticut to buy tiles that "can be ordered, we only carry white, blue and black in stock," this conjured up much more inconvenience than I was prepared for. Instant gratification was what I was after. But my better half told me to smile and wait. He then remembered that he had a partially used bag "around here somewhere," and opened a closet door, a closet like a closet in a bedroom, to give an idea of the scale of the room. He poked around various cans and bags in what could have been a storage cubby in our cellar, but couldn't find it. He then called the warehouse. "Where is the warehouse?" I asked, wary of getting in too deep here. "Just a mile down the road on 41, do you know Quarry Road?" I wasn't sure. He got Joe on the phone and they conversed about unsanded white grout. Joe found a bag, "25 pounds" I heard. "Too much" I said. "Isn't there an opened bag?"he asked. Pause. There was. He explained he would be sending a customer over to pick it up and he hung up. "You can have it for 2 bucks," he told me, proceeding to draw me a map of how to get to the warehouse, down to the spot where I would find Joe. "1.3 miles." I gave him the two dollars, thanked him and left. Without any problem I pulled up in front of a garage where Joe was working and he pleasantly handed me a worse-for-wear bag, very second hand garage workshop, rolled it up tightly, and there I had it. Enough white grout to handle my needs. For two bucks. No receipt. I drove away feeling a very warm small town feeling.
I gathered all my supplies - gloves, sponge, plastic and newspapers to protect the floor, clean water, dry rags, empty container, mask, glass of iced coffee, camera...I kept remembering one more thing! I used acrylic paints to color the grout mixture, and I put about a half  cup of water in a yogurt container and added the dry grout powder, about the consistency of basically plaster of paris. I squirted in dabs of color and mixed with my narrow trowel. There were white lumps I couldn't get rid if and I surmise the grout was a bit damp and somewhat imperfect. Oh well - it will be fine. I am not that much of a prissy perfectionist.
When I put the grout on, I scooped clumps on with the trowel and then spread it with my rubber trowel, but then found the sponge is easier to control in the small areas I was filling. Also, my unground glass edges really were chewing up the rubber edge - they chew up the sponge, but that is not that much of a loss.
Below are pictures from today's session. Also shown are the bracelet I am working on and the camp shirt project cut and ready for sewing.

Day Thirty Four

DONE! with the tiling - now for the grout... but I certainly savored the moment.
I drank a glass of wine while I tidied up the disarray in the room and set my sights on the grouting plan.

Day Thirty Three

Today I came very close to finishing the mosaic (ungrouted). Tomorrow will be the big day I am sure, even though I have a lot of sewing to do, and the garden continues to take much of my time.

I am so close to being done! But I had to stop after standing on the scaffolding and reaching up and down and hopping on and off to see from a distance for about three hours. My feet were aching. And I had to start cooking supper. While working today I listened to Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter. I mosaic-ed through a thunderstorm, driving rain, and then sun.

My palette today - down to neutrals only.

See the state of disarray in the greenhouse that will soon be cleaned up. Note the accumulation of emptied tofu containers.

The dress I sewed today. The shirring is much easier to do on gingham because of the nice clear perfectly spaced lines to follow.