Epic beadwork

When I finished my scale mail cropped jacket, I was thrilled that it was done, but a little sad, too. What was I going to work on now? Well, I've decided to make a return to a few things that I haven't done a lot of in a while: sewing and beading.

My latest piece is a giant soft sculpture dragon with bead and stone embellishments. It's still in the preliminary stages, but I love the way the head is coming out with the carved stone horns and the lampwork eyes. Oh, and I was lucky enough to just have some orange fabric just sitting around that looks like scales. Hooray!

Also, I started work on Tiamat again. I just put on some This American Life of MST3K and bead away. I'm in the final third now, I just have to fill in the space around the cuneiform characters. There's a certain amount of meditative repetition that occurs with chainmaille. Not so with bead embroidery. I have to think so much about where the next splash of color is going to go that I can only work on it for a couple hours before getting frustrated and/or exhausted... but the payoff is worth it.

Vanessa Walilko