Space Gypsies and the Bead Markets of Earth

As I mentioned earlier, when Space Gypsies visit the Bead Markets of Earth, they park their caravans on the dark side of the moon, where it's hard to get a fix on their exact location.  They are a hardy race, but the depredations of the wars have left them wary. You can count on them to visit Earth regularly for the best beads in the known Universe. They are especially fond of Africa and Central Asia, where ancient beads seem simply to spring from the soil. The other thing about the SGs is that they are oblivious to commercial branding or inherent "value," so they pick what they like, and combine colors freely, since they don't believe that colors can clash. These elusive folk have a way of thinking for themselves and following their own roads. Unpredictability is a good thing.

Here's a 44-inch-long lariat fastened with a curious gray mother of pearl button, long enough to serve the owner in many ways, as a bracelet wrap, a long necklace, a hip wrap for firelight dancing, or even wrapped about a turban. You can see it's quite the magpie's hoard of many beads:  painted Indonesian pottery, hand made rose petal and lavender beads, Masai pink Cheyenne trade beads, glimmers of fresh water pearl, natural seeds, labradorite, garnet, tiny faceted oxblood seed beads, and others. It's a fascinating treasure to entertain the eye.

 
And of course what SG is without a goodly selection of very long beaded earrings?  There are never too many, even if they do crowd one's helmet during extra vehicular activities.

I was able to pin one of them down long enough to obtain these lovelies, soon to be available in my Etsy store.  The first selection is a fine example of the SG penchant for combining salvage with antiquities; you may recognize some of the previously purposed metal, perhaps not.  The second selection displays antique mercury glass bugle beads and rare Japanese lacquer beads on steel, suspending mourning jet glass half moons.  Both evoke unknown planets and remote orbits, but the SGs will never reveal where they have been or where they are going.  However, if you want to meet one of these interstellar travelers, I suggest parking yourself in a suq near a bead merchant and keeping a sharp eye out for shoppers who look unaccustomed to gravity.  There's a certain sway in the walk.

Nuthatch Butt

I dunno why just as I get the shot set up the little cutie moons me, but there you have it.

Fall is here for sure. Nuthatches grab what they can and fly off to someplace private to cache their food for winter.

See the bittersweet vine? Those bright berries seem to be a good source of dye for my natural dye puttering. Hoping that gorgeous tomato-y red won't wash away. I have seen some birds eating them, but they are toxic to humans and pets. Like so many things, bright, shiney, alluring . . . and poisonous!

Here's your sound track for that.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o72GDj7svq4

Blackberries, Silk and Linen

Now curing on a tree limb out back:  two silk scarves dyed with a couple of handfuls of blackberries, and a linen sample dyed with an assortment of pansy petals and blackberries.

They'll need to dry for a while and then just sit around for another while, and then get laundered gently, dried and then pressed.

'Think I'll finish the scarves with some crocheted bobbles to weight their ends, and the little linen sample seems to cry out "reticule"!  I could see it with drawstrings and tassels, as a sweet little evening bag, just big enough for a phone, cash and keys.  You could slip it over your wrist and dance the night away.

The Textile Museum: A Magic Carpet Ride

You can enjoy an online tour through the collections of The Textile Museum in Washington DC. The sample above is from an online presentation, "Pieces of a Puzzle: Classical Persian Carpet Fragments,"  a true magic carpet ride that includes technique and design segments, along with more beautiful examples.  The site includes other presentations and fine resources for the designer artist.  Take a peek, and I'm sure you'll agree!
    

Fresh New Goodies!

Tzitzimitl is the Aztec star diety and I think a fitting name for this stunning Dias de Los Muertos necklace with a Mexican folk art calaca as its centerpiece. The holidays in honor of the dead have their roots deep in ancient Mexican culture. See how the bottle cap is stitched to the baseplate with binding wire? Cool, and an example of how structure can be design, or at least I think so.

The bottle cap was really made beautiful with techniques I learned from the demented Michael deMeng, using acrylic paints. I call that "deMengified."  With a bit of inventiveness you can make a thing look, I dunno, extremely rare, when it's only a smooshed bottle cap found in the street. Thank you, Michael!  You should tap on that link and go visit his blog; you won't be sorry, I promise.

It all started with a small, adorable calaca I got from 
Susie C. on Etsy. Mui autentico, and they just make me weak in the knees with happiness. The first ones I used, you will see in a previous post, I didn't paint, but Susie described that as "raw," so now I'm getting out the brushes.

At last I got up the gumption to try cutting up that wonderful old bullet riddled, sandblasted, rusty enameled pot I found out in the desert. Those little dots on the deep dark blue background look like stars to me. The painted Indonesian clay beads add to the idea -- they look sorta like little planets. And steel hoops, of course, with brass rivets. Now do check out those ear wires. At last!  Black niobium, which I ordered in 20 ga. wire from Unkamen Supplies on Etsy. I have been wanting black niobium for a very long time, and Ralph was kind enough to make up a batch for me and get it out to me within a week. Awesome, Ralph! It's a wish come true.

These babies are five inches long, so have a long neck or improve your posture, dears.

More of those painted pottery beads with sweet etched patterns in them. These are made with, from bottom to top, tropical seeds, bone spacers, Indonesian bead, antique Kuchi spacers, Indonesian bead, stacked bead caps and ta-daaa! tecktites, the glass fragments that result from meteor strikes when the fragments of earth are melted and fall back as glass; knobbly glass beads topped with bead caps, and again ta-daa!, antique crescent shaped black mourning beads worked into findings to suspend the whole shebang, hanging from some of Ralph's black niobium again.

I call them "The Bead Markets of Earth."  Because, of course you must know that Space Gypsies always park their caravans on the dark side of the moon before shuttling down to earth for the best bead trading in the known universe.  They're 3-3/4 inches long, and I think yummy as all get-out.

Time for a break from making. Because the workroom looks like the Clingons sacked it, so I got some cleaning up to do.

Tarim Desert Inspiration

Inspired by the Tarim mummies, the vestige of a mysterious people who lived a nomadic life in the Tarim Desert, along the Silk Road. The desert is also called the Taklimakan, and the area is now home to the Uyghur people.

The ancient Tarim textiles are especially interesting, with some of the oldest known examples of felting and braiding. A study of their artifacts reveals so much that is enlightening about human history: they bridged the dawn time when livestock were kept for textiles rather than slaughter only, showing modern people just how important is the cloth on your back, especially in a high altitude, alternately freezing and baking desert. There's evidence that the development of felt and braiding are rooted in a nomadic lifestyle, since furniture for weaving would not be required, and trampling hooves in a coral would have created the first felt, which was then taken up and put into boots, and with much gratitude. Flash of inspiration!  Don't eat the sheep!

After that, selective breeding selectively produced the long haired goats and sheep we know today.  Imagine ur-sheep with short coats which would explain felting long preceding spinning and weaving.  Well, I diverge, but that's inspiration.  Among these people, finely worked textiles were a sign of wealth, and they were sumptuous, indeed.  And inspiration for this evocative, sumptuous neckpiece, that can be worn in several ways, since the hand dyed kumihimo braid that is its foundation is 40 inches long (oh hours and hours of braiding).

Fascinating beads, too:  contemporary Indonesian glass head (looks very old, though), painted pottery, woven fiber, found shell fragment, ostrich shell, wood fired pottery, recycled African glass and an antique trade bead.  Just listed in my Etsy shop.  I think it would be glorious tied over a hip scarf with all those tassels flying about on a dancer in motion.

My Place in Heaven Is Assured

I cleaned out the fridge!  After removing all the science projects, it looks spick and span, or ship shape and Bristol fashion, but the pickin's are slim. You have to admire the reflection of that can of Crisco, don't you?

The project really took off when I realized that with such a sunny, dry day as today, I could take all the shelves and trays and bins out on the deck and take the pressure washer to them.  It just blew away all the gunk.

Now I am feeling virtuous, but I need to get out to the grocery store.

Abbie, of course need do nothing to earn her place Up There.  I'm her project and she is pretty good at redeeming humans -- they start to wonder what did they do to deserve such a sweet friend, and then start trying to live up to it.  That's what earns her place.  Works for me!