Lisa Binkley's Fiber Art Blog

Little bead embroidery projects: Five years of designs

In the summer of 2007 I began designing bead embroidery projects for my workshops--small creations that could help students learn and refine bead embroidery techniques while spending some quiet, contemplative time creating something beautiful for their home, to incorporate into a piece of wearable art, or as a special gift.

I've gotten some wonderful stories about these kits: two identical ornaments (in blue and white; lower left of picture) that were made, attached back-to-back, and used with a clear acrylic dowel rod as the decorative top of the cake for a daughter's blue-and-white wedding on a beach (and then given as a keepsake gift for the bride and groom); people buying several of the same kits to make along side a friend, child, or grandchild; and other thoughtful and creative uses for these manageable projects.

Now that I've completed 12 designs, I thought it would be fun to see them all together. The pieces at the ends of the top row are my most recent designs and the projects for some upcoming workshops in November and December of this year, February of 2013, and July of 2013. The designs in the first two places on the top row are stitched on the same background fabric, but with very different approaches to fabric coverage.

Seeing these all together is getting my head swirling with new ideas for designs, themes, and palettes in the next five years of explorations in little bead embroidery projects.

Little bead embroidery projects: Prints as design challenges

In two previous posts I've written about small bead embroidery projects and how I've used them for teaching, design experimentation, and small, quicker-to-finish projects. The pictures I'm posting today are of four ornaments I've designed over the past five years. The ornaments in the upper photos were created on the same fabric and with the same general design but different palettes. The challenge here, once I had designed one of the ornaments, was to create a second ornament with the same basic layout but an entirely different palette for stitchers with different tastes in colors. I decided to work with one muted palette and one more contrasting, intense palette, which turned out to be a good design challenge for me. The underlying fabric colors are completely unrelated to either ornament design (the fabric is in muted browns, greens, and golds). But I knew that the fabric was dark enough and unsaturated enough that it would visually "drop back" once the more strongly colored beads were stitched on top of the fabric.

In the ornaments pictured below, I used the same fabric that was available in two different colorways. The base fabric on the left is golds and tans, while the base fabric on the right is browns, reds, and greens.  Here the challenge was to create fairly different designs on the same fabric. There are some strong lines on this print that I just love and wanted to highlight in both designs, but I took liberties elsewhere in the pieces to allow some of the fabric to remain visible while completely covering over other areas.

I've found that working in a series, even if it's only a series of two, gives me constraints that help me push my designs in new directions. I'd love to hear about other fiber and bead artists who have worked in multiples or series to challenge their creativity and approaches to design.

I'm "In the Spotlight" in Quilting Arts magazine

I'm very honored and excited to have my first feature article about my work. It's been wonderful to have my work in a variety of magazines and books so far, but it's especially exciting to have the opportunity to share my artwork and my thoughts about art making in a full article. So be sure to check out the August/September issue of Quilting Arts magazine and look for the "In the Spotlight" article : ). There is a lot of terrific and inspiring work throughout the magazine, and I've been enjoying reading it cover to cover.