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Re: Welcome! :)

33672 views 18 replies Latest reply: April 19, 2018 at 3:40:25 AM

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Member since:
Apr 25, 2017
Posts: 27

PhoenixNakia message #16
Re: Welcome! :)
April 12, 2018 at 5:04:25 AM

Morning Melanie,

Thanks for the compliments. No worries with when you get back to me. I too will be busy for the next few days~~4 to be exact~~but, not in a fun way. Nope, I have to go back to work which is a 4 on & 4 off weekly drudgery. I work nights and on work days/nights I have no time for fun things like beading or embroidery.

I will be going to bed soon for my "work nap", I get up every work day at 2pm. I live 50 miles from work, so I get very little sleep ont the 4 work days. Bummer, but we like to eat & I love to spend money on my craft fetishes.

I can work in square stitch too, was the first stitch I learned when I first started beading at the age of 19 a ton of yrs ago. At the time I couldn't afford a loom or good beads. I had to buy the cheap beads from the 5 & 10 variety store in the small town I grew up in. I used white cotton thread from my Mom's sewing stash. It was a bear to keep from knotting up every other line of beading. During those early beading yrs I developed my own way of picking up a whole line of beads and sewing them down 2 at a time in my own square stitch way. I don't have any diagrams of the technique and haven't worked in that style in over 25 yrs or more. My reason for creating my style of picking up a line of beads at a time was I hated picking up one bead at a time back then. Now it doesn't bother me to pick one at a time. And I loved being able to cut the beaded projects and not losing all the beads too. Had to do that a time or two when some bead color kept bugging me til I went back and cut the line it was in out and corrected it. That was why I never learned how to loom bead back then even tho after I married my hubby bought me a simple Native American style loom. He and our son used it, but I stayed away from it. Now I have 4 looms I bought especially for loom beading. Do I have time to work on all of them at one time? Not a chance!!

The bead in the center of the star is a piece of turquoise in a sort of teardrop shape. It a piece, from some left over I bought yrs ago for use in past beading projects. The pieces in the loop are a few more like it along with turquoise colored 11/0 Delica beads.

Thanks for the offer in helping with PDFs. When I have time to get back to creating future projects I will let you know if I run into problems. I'm not very experienced in the beading program, but as I use them I am getting better.

Gotta' go, have a few things to do before I turn in for my nap. Have a great day and I will be back in a few days. And YAY I only have 45 more lines to go on the vulture loomed background to finish. Then I can begin the tedious part I hate most~~those 311 warp strings!! Just one reason I don't like loom beading.

~~Walks In Spirit Creations~~
Bead Weaving, Embroidery. Tapestry Weaving
De'Andrea

Look at that smile! (Photo guaranteed unretouched)

Member since:
Jul 1, 2009
Posts: 4584

Stitchboard Admin message #17
Re: Welcome! :)
April 13, 2018 at 2:25:05 AM (in response to PhoenixNakia message #1)

De'Andrea,

Ouch, the four days off must be nice, but what a hassle to work the other four days! Especially when you have to drive 50 miles each way, yuck. I hope working nights is at least quiet?

I worked a sort of split shift many years ago. It was a horrible job, but the hours were pretty decent. 11:45am to 8:30pm (dinner was 3/4 of an hour and not included in the hourly count, so that was the reason there was an extra 15 minutes beforehand and an extra 30 minutes after). It was a not too bad schedule for those who didn't like to get up early, but so inefficient with the way they did things! They ordered a 15 minute meeting before starting work. Then we'd all work and you had to work up until exactly 8:30. Some people's managers understood that if you got a call at 8:30, you wouldn't be off the phone until at least a few minutes later, so they'd allow them to be "offline" from the phones for the last few minutes. But my manager was a stickler. She wanted me to be available until 8:30 on the dot. So the next shift had arrived and would be goofing off, slowly getting on the phones and most of my shift would be "offline," but I was expected to be there "online" until 8:30 and I'd almost ALWAYS get a complicated call at 8:30. But then, my phone was one of the few available.

I was SO glad to leave that place!

It's really nice to have money to spend on crafty things.

I can totally relate! There's always some beautiful beads or yarns that call out, especially in the middle of the night. "Buy me!" One cannot resist the call!

I love that you worked in square stitch, too, especially how you developed your own technique!

LOL, I wasn't inventive enough to work with two beads at a time, so I just went the plodding old one bead at a time way. It took forever, but I did love ending up with something that looked like it was loom beaded!

There weren't very many things around for beading in the past...some of my first seed beads were from large plastic packages, sigh. No bead stores anywhere in my area. Even the big box craft stores came much later. Only place to buy anything was a department store, and most didn't carry beads.

That's so cool how you have four looms!

I forget...is retirement in your near future? I hope you can be using all four looms at once when that happens!

Love the details of the turquoise in the middle and the loop.

The star is gorgeous as it is, but I think the details that aren't standard really help to make a piece, particularly this one.

Anytime you need help with PDFs...I'm not an expert, but I do know enough to be dangerous.

LOL.

All RIGHT...45 more lines!

So psyched for you!

Argh, working in the ends...beading, crochet, knitting...it's so tedious! At least doing the actual work is fun, but the ends are just too annoying.

When working a beading project I try to get a few rows up so no worries about crossing ends woven in, which makes it a LITTLE less tedious. Still is a chore, though.

Melanie (cat slave and Official Feline Can Opener) =^.^=
~~~~~
I'm a beading, knitting and crochet addict. If that means I'm admitting I have a problem, then I admit to nothing. Please refrain from helping me.

Member since:
Apr 25, 2017
Posts: 27

PhoenixNakia message #18
Re: Welcome! :)
April 18, 2018 at 5:39:43 PM (in response to Stitchboard Admin message #2)

Hi Melanie,

Your shift work you did sounded quite frustrating. I am not a phone person, don't like to talk on them and use mine mainly as my portable internet instead. If my tablet had phone availability I would do away with the phone itself.

I hate weaving ends in too. The vulture tapestry I have not used the end tuck method throughout it. Instead I tie the new thread to the old one, slip the ends close and continue away. Since it will have a suede backing attached to it and is a wall hanging I know it will not have extra stress on it and should never coem apart like a bracelt or something used daily would. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do with this particular piece excet tuck all warp threads in and hide them. I used Fireline for the warp which I will not do again for one this large. I prefer the Nymo so it can be tightened as neede once started. The Fireline does not have much give beyond the initial tightening and as the beads are worked in and it needs adjusting it has broke 3 threads I ahd to repair with beading in place. Was not a feat I enjoyed, but nmanaged it to the best of my ability. The edges were not as smooth going from side to side as I like on my loom work, but usiong the springs provided with the Mirrix loom it is hard to set them and keep them spread apart like I prefer. I will remodel this loom and change the springs for threaded bars next tiem I use it for bead work. Some folks don't like threaded bars, but for me the warps stay in place and can be tightened better. The spring for me kept stretching and sagging. I have it tied & held down in a way the Miorrix company would gasp from horror if they saw it!

The square stitch method I developed for my own beading in the early years and picking up a line at a tiem of beads did require learning just how much slack to give the line so as I sewed each 2 bead section into the next it took up the slack and came out with all gone once at the end of the line. Given soem beads , especially back then were not uniform and the slack allowed for that and kept the piece from buckling. It's kinda' not a way to bead I think a person would pick up on if not shown in person how to judge the slack. When my son was a teen he learned and did nice work. He just never continued with his craft work. Back then he learned to crochet, sew, bead and cross stitch. It was fun teaching him to do those things since I didn't have a daughter to spend time with.

~~Walks In Spirit Creations~~
Bead Weaving, Embroidery. Tapestry Weaving
De'Andrea

Look at that smile! (Photo guaranteed unretouched)

Member since:
Jul 1, 2009
Posts: 4584

Stitchboard Admin message #19
Re: Welcome! :)
April 19, 2018 at 3:40:25 AM (in response to PhoenixNakia message #3)

De'Andrea,

It wasn't a great job, sigh...a lot more trouble than the pay was worth.

I don't mind talking on the phone, but only to people I like...and this was dealing with a lot of rude, obnoxious people.

So glad you've found a way to work with the Mirrix loom as you like it.

Meh, if they don't like it, they shouldn't complain...you own their loom! I think that's flattering!

You're so right about the Fireline...it has little to no give. I kind of like it for that, but then, I'm not using it for looming, only off-loom techniques. When I first started beading I was using Nymo, which I didn't have the patience to stretch. (And at first I didn't know to stretch it.) When Fireline and other fishing lines became available, wow! What a difference! My first fishing line thread was Power Pro. Then they invented the Fireline Crystal and I never looked back! I once went back to Nymo for a project that was "better" suited to Nymo than Fireline and was sooooooooooo disappointed that it had way too much give.

Conversely, the first time I used a fishing line thread, which may have been Power Pro, I was working a project I'd originally started with Nymo. It was a beautiful lacy stitch and it was just awful with the Nymo...the beads flopped all over the place and looked terrible. This was a pattern in a magazine and it turned out the magazine had used something soft like Nymo...their beads flopped all over the place, too! Well, I started using that Power Pro and suddenly...the beads were standing up on their own, looking perfectly perky and the stitch was looking incredible! LOL, so I fell in love with those fishing lines!

Beading back years ago was soooooooooooo different. I remember there were hardly any sources and bead stores were few and far between.

One was lucky to get beads from a mom & pop craft store, and some of those were cheaply made, irregular beads.

There truly was a dearth of good quality beads and such.

Thank goodness now there are beads in all colors, sizes and finishes!

How cool that you could share your hobbies with your son!

IMO, worrying about gender-specific is such a waste of time. Men as well as women can enjoy sewing, beading, cross stitch, etc. I've met several men over the years who did fine work in traditionally "female" arts...and they enjoyed it.

Isn't that what counts? Just like women can enjoy sports and such.

I don't believe in limiting people, keeping them from doing what they like. If it's harmless and enjoyable, why not?

LOL, I have a funny story sort of about gender specifics like that. My husband's grandmother apparently wanted a granddaughter, so she gave him a doll. You know what he did? He played with it...like a boy. He was more interested in taking the doll apart to see how she was made! Even lost her head in the process.

So his grandmother may have wanted a granddaughter, but that doll didn't turn him into a girl, LOL.

I think boys will do what they enjoy...and I LOVE how the two of you spent time together.

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