Habitual Habitat of the Amy

I kept reading advice columns for how to bring sales to your etsy shop, and one thing they all said is to get a blog.

I can't say this blog has boosted my etsy sales, but it has given me yet another outlet for talking about myself, and that can't be bad--can it?

The direct link to the Etsy shop is HERE

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Blue Geometric Beaded Tapestry







I guess this is as good a time as any to talk about beading itself.

I leaned the square stitch back in college as part of a weaving class, and I pretty much feel in love with it right off.  I spent some time making small things; an amulet bag, a tiny teddy bear, a really simple checkerboard square.  I very quickly realized it's potential for awesomeness and made a very ambitious dragon tapestry which remains one of the largest beaded tapestries I've made.

After that I made a smaller dragon tapestry, and then in my senior year of college I made a bunch of tapestries that were destined to be my part of the senior show; there was a world map, a viking longboat, the typical Egyptian couple, a Celtic knot of dragons, a firebird, some fairies, an Asian dragon...and a few other things that I seem to have forgotten. Oh! there was a really neat lion-and-the-unicorn triptych.

After graduation I ended up at a boring job where I was allowed to do other things when not actively taking a call.  I used much of that time to make more beaded tapestries, including a second world map (I'd make a third if I didn't already have two; I love that pattern), a second smaller dragon, a merman, this blue geometric tapestry, a red geometric tapestry that's the inverse of the blue, a belt, a 'beadmail bikini', and my masterpiece Lord of the Rings tapestry which is 160-odd beads on one side and 180-odd on the other. It took me a month and I worked on it both at work and away from work, and at the end of it my thumb was feeling pretty funny.

So I took a break from beading, and over the next three or so years I made a yellow rose (which I gave to a roommate) and an American flag which my mom occasionally tries to steal.  I also started an eye, but gave up about a third of the way through.

Then came last winter.  I'd been working seasonal outdoor education, and it left me at loose ends over the winters (and summers).  I was bored and fell to watching TV online last January.  I desperately wanted something to do with my hands while watching (other than bite my nails), but I couldn't think of anything.

I need to go on a tangent here for a moment; I used to have these glow-in-the-dark gimp (plastic shoestring/lanyard) bracelets on my wrist as a memento of camping days not as long gone as they should have been.  I was really quite attached to them, but unlike diamonds, gimp does not last forever (not on wrists, at least), and the last of these bracelets broke off of my wrist last fall, leaving me feeling naked and undecorated.

While I was sitting there watching internet TV and wishing I had something better to do with my life, it suddenly struck me that I could bead myself a bracelet and finish it directly onto my wrist, which I did shortly thereafter.

Having broken the long dry spell of beading, I was hooked once again.


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