ToDo/NewDo: Gillian Lamb (UK) Finished Bead Projects

Completed Bead Projects

Gillian Lamb, Surrey, England

Recently Gillian caught up with her UFO’s from her bead teaching days. 

She says:

Very often there was not time to complete the samples I made for use in class.

The grey necklace uses cubic right angle weave and seed beads of different sizes, decorated with faux pearls.

All the small pink brooch needed to finish it was a pin on the back.

I feel so good to have completed both projects after so many years.

Grey necklace (above) and pink brooch (below)

The lovely beaded bumble bee below was a test of my dexterity after two hand operations last year. It is mainly made from delica cylinder beads, size 15/0 seed beads and peyote stitch.

A major feat after two hand operations!

I am gradually working through all my UFO’s and of course adding into the mix a new project or two. Rule 1 ..... finish the project. 

A little bit on Gillian

Gillian lives in Surrey, England and is officially retired, but she says there is always something to work on, be it a craft, the garden, or in the kitchen cooking. She started hand knitting at her grandmothers knee, knitted her wedding dress and got drawn into machine knitting and ultimately published a few patterns in magazines.

Gillian was lured into beadwork thanks to Stitch Painter software by Cochenille Design Studio. She taught in the UK and Japan, her beadwork book was translated into Japanese.

She says that now in her life she is spoilt for choice: so many crafts that she enjoys. She is trying to get better with her sewing and not be afraid of her machines.

Creativity vs. Corona Virus: Get Involved

As many of you know, I own and run Cochenille Design Studio, a company that develops software and design aids for the textile design world. I am a practitioner of many creative arts ranging from sewing, knitting, pattern making, cooking, mosaic, beading, photography, art, and many other things. Having grown up on a farm in rural Ontario, Canada with a mother and grandmothers who were creators gave a sound education in the home and creative arts. Having trained for and taught as a Professor of Fashion for most of my professional career also further nurtured things along.

Today in this world, we definitely live in uncertain times. For my business, we have had two trade shows canceled, which is no surprise given travel and other restrictions. We have also canceled our Italy retreats this June, and are still pending the decision for the France retreat (although I think that has now been taken out of our hands).

Here, at Cochenille, we’ve decided to try and make the best of our new daily life by using our at-home time to be creative. It is after all, National Crafts month.

So, we are asking our Cochenille audience and readers of this blog to join in and share with us on this creative challenge.

We are calling this challenge –ToDo/NewDo

• The To Do portion is to finish a project that is sitting in your ‘need to do’ pile. This could be a partially-complete project, alterations, or similar
• The New Do portion is to create a new project using any craft technique, from scratch.

Here is a link to a page on our website, where you can download this ToDo/NewDo list to use.

Join us in this creative solidarity. We hope to make it global. Send me (Susan) a photo of your project along with your info, and a brief description of the project.

I will share and post these for others to see. These do not need to be Garment Designer or Stitch Painter projects. Just jump in and finish up those UFO’s (unfinished objects), or start something new from scratch! In fact, your projects could be things like organizing your sewing room, yarn stash, or other.  Your project doesn't have to be fiber arts; it could be woodworking, home arts, a new recipe, etc. The idea is to use our time creatively and to share with each other.

We will be using this blog as the hosting site. This morning I posted a To Do.... now complete. Check it out.
So, I say Tag!! your turn

I will will post the images sent by those of you willing to be involved on this same blog. Please send them to susan@cochenille.com

Feel free to join the mail list of the blog so you can be notified when an entry is posted. Also feel free to invite friends to join in the ToDo/NewDo Challenge.

Be safe, and be well.

Our very best to all our audience.
Susan Lazear
Cochenille Design Studio

Upcoming Stitch Painter Project

From a photo taken of an optical design at the Louvre's Decorative Art Museum. I want to see if I can retain the illusion. It looks linear and basically simple, but is it?



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Paris

Sunset to Palette.. using Stitch Painter

This evening we had the most beautiful sunset here in the San Diego area. I took my camera out to the backyard and shot a few images. You see one of them here.

Did you know that you can use Stitch Painter to help you create palettes for your projects? Using the Full Color Import module and Stitch Painter, you can bring a picture into the program and perform a color reduction and gridding process. Whether you ever use the gridded image is irrelevant... what you want is the palette.



The sunset image was reduced to 8 colors and you see the palette here. Now you can choose your yarns or fabrics for a project based on the colors you pulled from the amazing evening that just occured.

If you want to know more about Stitch Painter, check it out on our website
www.cochenille.com/stitch.html