Sunday 31 May 2015

CHAPTERS 6 AND 7 Buttons and Beads


Chapter 7 - Simple Button Making

I have made a variety of beads, buttons and toggles, it was great fun and I am sure I will be making many more to include in my projects in the future. I enjoyed exploring different ways of making buttons and beads.

7a - toggles made from man made fibres (vilene,napkins. baby wipes) they are dyed and/or painted 




7b - paper toggles and beads some with thread decoration



7c - toggles and beads made from different fabrics and wrapped with threads

7d - a Dorset button



7e and 7f - the following two images are of stuffed buttons made from cotton bias binding. I dyed and painted the bias binding using silk dyes. Then I joined a length of binding in a circle, gathered one edge, pulled the thread tight and secured it. This was turned right side out, stuffed and the bottom edge gathered and the tread pulled tight to give a small fat ball/button. The stuffed buttons were subsequently embellished with stitching, beads and small mother of pearl buttons.




7f


7g - these are old plastic buttons that I covered with a dyed fabric and then stuffed lightly to give a padded surface. I  decorated the surface with 'Dorset button' stitching.













7h and 7i - these are felt buttons, two circles of felt were stitched together, stuffed and subsequently embellished with stitching and beads.





7j - this image is of a thread covered bead and a thread wrapped stone.




7k- my collection of beads an toggles


Add caption

7l- crochet buttons






Chapter 8 - Beading


I love using beads in my embroidery so I have really enjoyed this chapter. In keeping with the spiral theme and my focus on shells I started by embellishing three felt shell shapes with different types of bead.
8a, 8b and 8c






8d - the sample below shows beads and Angelina fibres trapped under organza. The background fabric is a dyed cotton.




8e - this sample shows shells from my local beach trapped with stitching




I worked my bead sampler on a ribbed cotton place mat. This gave a good firm background to support the beads. I started by couching spirals of a random dyed, tube rayon ribbon. I threaded knitting yarn through the centre of the ribbon to give it more 'body'. The couching gave me different shaped areas to embellish with beads.   I used a variety of beads and filled the spaces with different methods of stitching my beads. The images below show the whole sampler and close ups of the different sections.














This chapter was fantastic, I love hand embroidery and using beads!!