Beading with Karen

 I enjoy using beads to highlight fabrics or other kinds of embellishments.  Used ColorCatchers that I painted and cut out in leaf shapes were tacked to this little bag with beads.

I was going for a fall/grape kind of feel with this, although the beads are way too small to look like grapes.

This was a piece of fabric from my very first foray into marbling.  I call this little piece "Heart Like a Wheel" and it's a work in progress.  I get it out and add more beads every so often.

I particularly like the look of beads "marching" across the fabric.



"Winkin', Blinkin', and Nod Set Sail" was created for a nursery rhyme challenge.  I beaded the entire sky inside the first border with tiny sparkly seed beads.

And I hunted for weeks for tiny silver fish for the net, but couldn't find any.  I wound up using wee silver bugle beads to fasten the net (painted cheesecloth) -- I think it's probably fortuitous that I couldn't find any fish because I think the beads look better anyway.

Texture to "Finish" a Piece

I made this little art quilt from paint, Mul-tex, thread and batting.  But it was missing something.  It has texture from the gel medium and the threads, but it's still a little blah.


Enter Extreme Texture Technique!  I took some of my hand-dyed cheesecloth and wadded it up and draped it across the bottom.  Then I used my walking foot and a zigzag stitch to stitch it down.

I left some of it hanging over the binding.  Much better!