felted beaded gifts

Amy's friend Kristen gave her this fabulous felt purse. To the uninitiated, it is a fascinating composition of felt balls. Yet, if you examine it closely, as I am want to do, you see that it is, in fact, peyote stitched felt beads. Turn the photo 90 degree... see it? They are pulled so closely that they smush a little, but I love the effect. Its first and last rows are seamlessly joined, as you would with any beads. The ring is flatttened and one edge is sewn together while and the other edge is where the zipper closure is sewn in place. It has a refined finish, being fully lined.
When I wrote this Japanese felt book:





in addition to the projects made from "scratch" using fleece and either traditional wet felting or needle felting techniques, I was asked to include projects made from manufactured felt ropes, balls and prefelt sheets. One of those projects is the felt trivet that appears top right on the cover (and inside as well). Treating the felt balls provided as beads, since anywhere on them is a hole, I used circular peyote stitch to create the trivet.





Fran included a clear plastic "crystal" in the bow on her giftwrap. I just HAD to bead a setting for it. Hope you get the scale of the crystal by shooting it next to a key. When I shared this enormous bit of bling at the studio class, don't you know, Amy had one from her gift right there in her bag. So I talked her through whipping up the same setting for hers. Interesting detail though. We noticed when shooting them side-by-side that the beads she used look like small silver beads (without the pesky seam of real metal beads) and the beads I used, look rounder, sort of yellow and kind of plasticky compared to Amy's. The mystery is that both are labeled PF Toho Platinum gold. Hmm. What accounts for the difference? Incorrect label? Was one the earlier PF version before they reformulated? Hmm.





Jane was given aSisters' Originals beaded necklace for Christmas. Wonder which sister made it. I'll have to ask when we have our next Bead Blast in February. Lovely. By the way, Jane, my step-mother, shopped at craft fairs with me last December and bought that beaded ring of Annette Mackrel's at the Delameter gift show in Rhinebeck that I posted at the time.
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