Fiber Arts Friday ~ Cabachon Jewelry

Cabachons.......Mmmmmmm I just love Cabachons!

Once I had pretty much mastered pin weaving shawl pins, shown in an earlier post, I decided to move on to creating shawl pins with my new love, cabachons.

This time I found inspirational books at our local JoAnn Fabrics store.  My favorite for basic instruction is Beading with Cabochons.  This book is clearly written with excellent photos as well as illustrations and step by step directions. 

Here is a pic of my first 3 projects using the techniques in Beading with Cabochons.

Then I found The Art of Bead Embroidery. This book opened my eyes to design and what could be done once I understood the basics.

What a difference....

For the pin on the left, I used a Dalmatian Jasper cabochon and for the pins on the right I used Lapis Lazuli cabs.  Size 15 seed beads fill in the back grounds.

                                                                                                  

My husband and I attend the Wheatland Music Festival every year. Unfortunately it rained pretty much all day on Saturday so I spent the day under the easy up designing and creating this shawl pin I named "Happy Wheatland".  It's a little funky, but that's what Wheatland is all about.

I did get my wash cloth/towels completed.  This is the first time I've used cotton and boy was that an experience.  Of course I hadn't used my loom for about a year so I had some major tension issues from my not so good warping job. 

The wash cloth on the left is just plain weave and it turned out the best. In fact, it actually turned out to be about the size I thought it would be when I started this project.

I'm part of a weaving study group that meets once a month and we are trying new techniques from The Weavers Idea Book.  In the cloth on the right, I was using the loop method to add texture.  This cloth came out smaller than the plain weave once it was washed and dried. 

Because I did such a bad job of warping, I decided I just needed to get to the end of the warp so I decided to make little hand towels.

For the towel on the left I used the clasped weave technique.  I don't know what I did wrong because even holding the towel closely, you can hardly see I used green, peach, and tan.  For the towel on the right I used a pick up stick and tried my hand at a 3/l weft float.  Again you can hardly see the end result.  But the goal was to learn different techniques and I did accomplished that.  I also hem stitched all the ends so I have that technique learned as well.

Although I was very disappointed in the fact that you couldn't really see the colors I wove with, I do love the feel of the finished pieces.  I look at this as good practice and a learning experience.

Yesterday I warped my loom for a scarf using yarn from our alpacas and a brushed mohair.  Yes I know, the bruched mohair is sticky but I only used a small amount and I think it adds a nice touch with my suri yarn. 

,I'm weaving 1" of plain weave, inserting a 1 1/2" spacer, weaving 1" and so on.  We'll see how it goes.

It going to be a lot of hemstitching so I should get that technique down pat.  In the picture, the top spacer has been removed leaving just 1 1/2" of warp and the second spacer is still inserted.  I've just gotten started and already want to see the finished project!

So with that being said it's off to the loom for me.  Of course I will have to read everyone's Fiber Art's Friday blogs first.  My wonderful husband has decided I can take Friday's off from chores so I can blog and check out all your blogs. What a guy!

Happy Fiber Art's Friday!