Vintage beaded brooch.

This week I received a brooch I ordered from My Vintage Jewels. It appears to be handmade and is beaded with micro beads. The seller estimated that it was made in the 1930s or 40s. I thought the flowers were very sweet and I love all the bead work.

Look at how she sewed on the pin back! I took a lot of stitches to sew that on.

I'm glad this piece of bead work found its way to me.

Temporary delay.

After becoming the proud owner of a thimble, I procrastinated for a bit and then decided to get going on my leather pouch again. After only a few stitches, my glover's needle broke. Drat! Because the thread was doubled up, I cannot easily switch out the needle; instead, I have to cut the thread and start over.

That happened on Sunday. It's still sitting just like this.

Am I the only one who dislikes starting a new thread?

Embellished.

I added some crystal sequins to the bead embroidered leather pouch. It was fun to do because it was very free form.

The amount of sparkle on this in hypnotizing. I might have overdone it a little with the crystal sequins. Maybe.

I need to get to JoAnn Fabrics today to buy a thimble. The next step involves stitching through more layers of leather and my thumb was bleeding after just a few passes.

How is it that I do not own one thimble?

On my tray.

I thought I'd share my current project. Wow, my bead tray looks so nice and neat. It never looks that way for very long.

I am really enjoying bead embroidery on leather. It's nice to change gears and try something new in your medium. This is more of a design as you go project, which has been very fun.

I still followed the general placement of the flowers as in this Laura McCabe kit. The next step will be much more free form.

You can find the online class and kit at Beaducation. I've been very pleased with the entire experience and would highly recommend the classes there.

It only took three years to finish.

I took this Jeanette Shanigan workshop at Bead & Button about three years ago. It took me a long time to finish. Why? I don't really know. I had the flower embroidery part of it finished during the class, so maybe it was just the tedium of stitching the two pieces together.

I even put it in the center of my studio table to force me to finish it, but all I did was push it aside and work on other things. You can see an example of this in this photo, which I originally posted on my blog in May. See? There's even a strand of beads for another project lying on top of it!

I took the class with my mom. Don't tell her I told you this, but hers still isn't finished.

The pattern called for some spiral rope type of embellishing around the edges, but that was a little much for me. I like things a little more simple.

There's an article about Jeanette in the latest issue of Bead & Button. She has coordinated a Bead Artists Against Breast Cancer project that is really amazing. Bead artists submit their small beaded squares of a particular theme (this year's theme is roses) and Jeannette sews them together into bead quilts that are then auctioned off to raise money for breast cancer research. View some samples of the quilts on her site.

The surgery to remove the cyst on my ovary is tomorrow. I cannot have any solid food today. I thought I should post now in case I get cranky from hunger later! :) The recovery time is two weeks, so I'll see you back here as soon as I can.

The purse.

I mentioned a while ago that my mom made me a spectacular birthday present. I was finally able to get a decent photo of it.

The flower design is needle felted onto the wool. If you don't know what needle felting is, Betz White has a nice tutorial on her site.

My mom said she finished needle felting the design and then thought that it needed a little something else. That's when she decided to add some bead embroidery to the center of the flower and the leaves.

I'm often stopped by people wanting to know where I got it. It's fun to say, "My mom made it! Can you believe it?!"

Thanks again, Mom! :)

In other news, the surgery has finally been scheduled for next Friday, November 9. I'm glad to have it scheduled so I can get it over with. Thanks again for all your well wishes - you guys are the best!

This weekend I think we are going to take N. to see Bee Movie. I'll probably be making some soups and things to have on hand for when I'm recovering from the surgery. A nice, low-key weekend.

Hope yours is enjoyable as well! See you next week.