Make Something Beautiful - Day 29

It was a freakishly warm day today. I love the weather, but I really miss Spring and Fall as seasons. One week of 60-degree weather does not a season make.

In any case, since I'm gearing up for a show on Sunday, I thought I make some more Dragon Tail Earrings.

Also, I added a couple hundred stars to the Tiamat dress, truly my most epic project.

I may also be working on a new project. Maybe the eye will tell you something.

Facere pulchrum!

Vanessa Walilko
Chainmaille jewelry, chainmaille clothing, bead embroidery, and beaded art

Surgical strike, bead embroidery-style

I knew almost as soon as I started putting down the beads that I wasn't going to be happy with it. But, due to emotional distractions and general obsessiveness, I powered forward anyway.

The result is this photo on the right. Notice the matte gray and the matte black right smack next to each other. Bad mojo.

Now, take a look at the second photo. I sprinkled some seed beads on over the matte gray. Sexy, no? (Am I the only one that thinks seed beads are sexy? I really need a life...) A little flare of shimmer between the big gray and black spot made me happy again and I think it makes the piece better. (And frankly, if you have Delicas hanging around, you should use them.)

But what to do? I had already sewn all the beads on, knotted so very many threads. It's now time for a surgical strike! A delicate removal of beads...

Anyone who has done any sort of bead weaving or bead embroidery knows that if there's a mistake, threads will be cut and tears will be shed. Anyone who has done this enough has figured out how to save as much of the work as possible. I'm going to post a few tidbits that I've picked up over the years, hopefully they'll be useful.

1) The first step is reinforcing all the work that you want to keep. If you're smart, you'll use only one thread for a color, thereby saving you this step. If you're a kid like I am, you'll forget all about that, and just work on whatever section inspires you at the time. For me, this means sewing over the black beads again.

2) In the second close-up, I've started taking off the matte grey beads. There are threads all over the place. As much as possible, I try to knot the loose ends on the underside of the work, preserving as much of the beadwork as possible. Once this is done, I'll be adding the new beads. Then I have to make some jewelry for Rebeca for One of a Kind! Phew!


Vanessa Walilko
Eclectic chainmaille jewelry designs, hadmade jewelry, chainmaille fashion, and epic beadwork
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Tiamat dress in progress

I've been looking back over my blog posts and photos, and I've been working on the Tiamat dress since September 2008. It's amazing to consider how long it has taken for me to get a good obsessive momentum with the dress. I tell people it's an elephant birth--it took a long time to gestate, but now it's alive and kicking.

Here's a current progress photo:


(You can see more photos at my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/KaliButterfly

I'm really thrilled with the way that the neckline came out. Since I hear that the Babylonians saw the Milky Way as part of her body, I wanted stars to be an integral part of the design. (I'm only hoping I have enough of those black lip stars since Fire Mountain Gems stopped carrying them! *insert worry here*) I've used or will use amazonite, blue goldstone, hematite and flourite stars in the piece, as well as the 1,000+ black lip stars I did manage to squirrel away.

But what am I doing blogging? I have to get back to work!

Vanessa Walilko
Kali Butterfly
Eclectic chainmaille jewelry, unique handcrafted jewelry designs
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In progress - The Tiamat Dress

I was much too obsessed with my chainmaille jacket when I was working on it to actually to the in progress photos I had originally planned on doing. However, I decided to take photos of the dress while it was in progress, since this is the most epic project I've ever worked on.

Of course, when I say progress, I really mean, "fussily obsessing about where things are going to go next." I'm working, right now, on placing the cuneiform characters. I managed to find a PDF of the transliteration of the first 100 lines of the Enuma Elish, and the original cuneiform characters. After some editing, I sized the characters in relation to the width of seed beads and came up with a good scale for the characters in relation to the dress.

in any case, that was months ago. Today I was only concerned with the position of the characters--how they would flow with the dress. I came to this formation--the vertical formation is the characters for Mummu Tiamat.

For anyone interested in reading the Enuma Elish, you can find the full text here. These are the first four lines of the epic, taken from the site listed:

When on high the heaven had not been named,
Firm ground below had not been called by name,
When primordial Apsu, their begetter,
And Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all

Here's how they look in relation to the whole dress:

Back to work!

Vanessa Walilko
Handcrafted beaded jewelry, chainmaille jewelry, beaded armor, and beaded sculpture