My Gift to Redsnake05
May. 8th, 2019 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elrhiarhodan posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
homemade2homemadeThis was my first time participating in any kind of craft exchange and it was a lot of fun. I was able to challenge myself to create something I would hope a relative stranger would love and perhaps hone my skills. This morning, I heard from redsnake05 that she received my creation and she likes it!
The following is an excerpt from my note to Red, explaining the creative process:
The centerpiece, the dark rose flower, is a Czech glass button. It is not vintage, but had been made from a vintage mold. I purchased it at a show in Tucson, Arizona about four or five years ago. While I have buttons from this mold in other colors, this is the only one I've ever seen in this color. The woman I bought it from had told me that she herself had never seen this colorway before – and she's Czech and buys her wares directly from the manufacturers in the Czech Republic. So this is something unique.
I use molded buttons like this in many different projects, but I generally like to use buttons with wire shanks, which can be snipped off and mounted flush to the backing material. This button has a molded shank, which means that I have to create an armature underneath the button to give me the flat surface. I used several layers of fabric, but to my dismay, when the piece was nearly complete, I found that the button was slightly wonky – it might have gotten pressed down too much during the making – and I had to pry it loose, add more layers to even it out, and then very carefully re-glue it.
The button is bezeled to the base with a variety of Japanese seed beads, which are prized for their evenness (Czech beads are not subject to such strict quality controls), using the peyote stitch.
The border around the button is a combination of somewhat old-stock rhinestone montees and newer molded Czech glass flowers. The carpet of seed beads are custom mixes I'd made from my own stash of pinks and greens. This style of bead embroidery had been a first for me, and something of an experiment. I'd never used the moss stitch before and as I was working it, I beaded with extremely high tension (which is typical for me). The result was that the underlayment, a type of hard felt, began to cup, an effect I really liked.
(You can see how it's beginning to dome in these in progress pictures)
The shape provided additional challenges and I had to improvise a number of finishing techniques, things which will likely bore you, even though you are a crafter, but things I am very proud of. I do have to say that even as I reached the final stages, the piece had flirted with failure and I was scrambling to create a backup. But everything pulled together, and while the end result didn't match what had been initially planned, I do hope it is something that you will enjoy.
redsnake05 that she received my creation and she likes it!The following is an excerpt from my note to Red, explaining the creative process:
The centerpiece, the dark rose flower, is a Czech glass button. It is not vintage, but had been made from a vintage mold. I purchased it at a show in Tucson, Arizona about four or five years ago. While I have buttons from this mold in other colors, this is the only one I've ever seen in this color. The woman I bought it from had told me that she herself had never seen this colorway before – and she's Czech and buys her wares directly from the manufacturers in the Czech Republic. So this is something unique.
I use molded buttons like this in many different projects, but I generally like to use buttons with wire shanks, which can be snipped off and mounted flush to the backing material. This button has a molded shank, which means that I have to create an armature underneath the button to give me the flat surface. I used several layers of fabric, but to my dismay, when the piece was nearly complete, I found that the button was slightly wonky – it might have gotten pressed down too much during the making – and I had to pry it loose, add more layers to even it out, and then very carefully re-glue it.
The button is bezeled to the base with a variety of Japanese seed beads, which are prized for their evenness (Czech beads are not subject to such strict quality controls), using the peyote stitch.
The border around the button is a combination of somewhat old-stock rhinestone montees and newer molded Czech glass flowers. The carpet of seed beads are custom mixes I'd made from my own stash of pinks and greens. This style of bead embroidery had been a first for me, and something of an experiment. I'd never used the moss stitch before and as I was working it, I beaded with extremely high tension (which is typical for me). The result was that the underlayment, a type of hard felt, began to cup, an effect I really liked.
(You can see how it's beginning to dome in these in progress pictures)
The shape provided additional challenges and I had to improvise a number of finishing techniques, things which will likely bore you, even though you are a crafter, but things I am very proud of. I do have to say that even as I reached the final stages, the piece had flirted with failure and I was scrambling to create a backup. But everything pulled together, and while the end result didn't match what had been initially planned, I do hope it is something that you will enjoy.
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Date: 2019-05-08 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-08 02:58 pm (UTC)Thank you! They are some of my favorites, too!
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Date: 2019-05-08 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-08 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-08 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-08 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-08 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-08 07:43 pm (UTC)Thank you. It’s the type of work I love.
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Date: 2019-05-09 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-16 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-09 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-16 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-10 02:45 pm (UTC)♥
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Date: 2019-05-16 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-16 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-16 06:19 pm (UTC)Thank you so much! It was a joy to create.
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Date: 2019-05-31 08:02 pm (UTC)And I LOVE the button it's based around. How big is it?
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Date: 2019-05-31 08:37 pm (UTC)Thank you so much!
It's about 4.5" in diameter and 2.5 inches high.
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Date: 2019-05-31 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-31 08:54 pm (UTC)Thank you!
All those textures
Date: 2019-06-04 10:04 pm (UTC)