My friend Marcia DeCoster recently posted an image of a
beautiful necklace she recently designed named Vienna. Along with her and several other beaders we’ve
been playing around with design ideas for CRAW, Cubic Right Angle Weave. The stitch really lends itself well to formal
as well as fanciful geometric shapes with a soft feminine feel. These shapes are something I feel beads work
really well with and as such the finished beadwork has such an appealing look
to so many.
While I was working on Arya, a simple necklace where I
changed the size of the beads as well as a slight change in the direction the
beads take, I got several additional ideas on how that curved shape could be
used.
This is one of the ideas I jotted
down in my sketch book.
Now take a look at Marcia’s Vienna.
Along with Marcia, I am seeing that while this stitch is being “played” with, several of us will most likely bump into each other design-wise during this process. Hopefully we can all appreciate that and do it with respect for one another.
I have to admit I had mixed emotions when I first saw the
post of Vienna. My very first reaction
was...Oh, look! How beautiful is
that. Then a few seconds later I
thought...Hey, wait a minute! I flipped
through my journal and found my sketch. Then my next thought was....How cool! I'm proud of me for even having a trace of
Marcia's design sensibilities. Then I
got a little bummed because it is such a great balanced design with a lovely
art deco feel. Then I just laughed and
sent Marcia a picture of the page. I
pretty much knew, knowing her now for several years, that she would not only
see the similarities in design, but appreciate how it can happen, and probably
does happen much more frequently than any of us realize.
Then she so sweetly encouraged me to consider putting it into beads. I’ve declined for a few reasons. One is that now that I have seen Vienna I don’t want my minds-eye to morph my original thought to have any more similarities. The other reason is that this sketch was actually buried pretty deep under a good 20 or more pages of additional designs that I can choose from to transfer into beads.
Then she so sweetly encouraged me to consider putting it into beads. I’ve declined for a few reasons. One is that now that I have seen Vienna I don’t want my minds-eye to morph my original thought to have any more similarities. The other reason is that this sketch was actually buried pretty deep under a good 20 or more pages of additional designs that I can choose from to transfer into beads.
Now I just need to find the time to get some of that beading
done!
