My First Tapestry!

Today's re-listing: Tumbling Candy Cane Bracelet

Today we're going to talk about my very first Beaded Tapestry, made way back in 2001 or 2002.

It was a pretty ambitious piece back then--and actually still would be today, too.

That's roughly how I role, though; I start with somethings small and simple until I master the technique, and then the next thing I make is some sort of bizarre masterpiece. It worked that way with me learning to walk, too; I didn't/wouldn't and then one day I just started.  I like to think that's also why no one can remember my first word, but that probably has more to do with me being the second child.


I actually made it in two panels; you can see the seam going down the middle if you look hard...actually, you don't have to look very hard, especially towards the bottom of the piece, where there were some other troubles that made the beads hard to go through for the millionth time.

I also didn't leave any float-space around the edges, but it looked bad when I finished, so I sewed matching white bugle beads along the edges to give it that nice white boundary that I wanted.  I would've been better off adding another three rows of beads in whatever painstaking manner I managed, but I didn't know any better at the time.

The fringe I have mixed feelings about; I love it...but I don't really think it matches the dragon all that well. I think I wanted it to be more dense, but the exact reason for my feelings of discord have vanished over the years, and I don't think it looks that bad anymore.  Guess that's what hiding in the attic for three years will get you; my favorable regard. I'd recommend a better attic than my parent's, though. Just for the record.

I only have four tapestries with fringe right now because I've found that most of them don't need it--or that it looks really awful on them.

The pattern itself I adapted out of a dragon clip-art image (what's the copyright legality of that, I wonder? well, I'm not trying to sell it, so...hopefully no one will try to sue). I did the same thing for my second dragon, but with a different piece of clip-art.

I thought it was a neat pattern, but I didn't realize exactly how boring the vast empty spaces would be to bead, and making it in two panels just dragged out the pain.


I think I wanted the dragon to be blue but couldn't find the proper beads, so I defaulted to purple, although it's possible I tried to start with green, since my local bead store has something against decent greens and always has.
 
I'm not sure the beads I did pick out were the best colors for the project, but I'm never going to make it again, so I'd best be happy with it.