Edited by Dver, a.k.a. Sarah Kate Istra Winter, Small Gods: An Anthology of Everyday Animism is projected to be an annual zine “featuring art, poetry, and essays describing our relationship with, and giving praise to, the smallest of gods — those … Continue reading →

First, welcome to a bunch of new subscribers! Subscriptions are free, and you receive an email whenever I publish something On a computer or tablet, you will see the sign-up box in the right-hand sidebar. On a smartphone, you have … Continue reading →

The New York Post had two articles recently on apparent animal sacrifice in the Jamaica Bay area of Long Island (politically in both Brooklyn and Queens). “Animal Sacrifices on the Rise in Queens with Chickens, Pigs being Tortured in ‘Twisted’ … Continue reading →

Register here for the live cast I am not a Pagan teacher, Witchcraft influencer, or anything like that. Usually i see myself as the person approaching a panelist at an American Academy of Religion session, saying, “Would you consider turning … Continue reading →

Let the velvet-voiced Dr. Puca explains how the festival of Samhain gained its present form — and remember, Samhain is a season, a -“tide.”

Do you remember that one fanfic that kept you reading until dawn for the very first time? Or the fan art or video that led you to dig out all the works its creator shared? Have you ever tried to look into the stories of the authors who wrote fics before you were even born? You can find all this and more on Fanlore - the wiki for fanworks, fan creators, and fannish history!

Fanlore is a project run by the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) with the goal of providing fans a place to record and share their histories, experiences and traditions. Fanlore records both the history and current state of our fan communities – fan works, fan activities, fan terminology, individual fans and fannish-related events. You can read about what fandoms were like in the olden days and document memorable events in your own fandoms, all on Fanlore! Check out the wiki’s New User Portal or join the Fanlore Discord server to connect with other editors and users.

We would not be able to preserve these cherished pieces of fandom history without the generous donations of our fellow fans and volunteers who work tirelessly behind the scenes to keep all our projects running. As always, we have some shiny new donation gifts!

You can choose to display your love for fandom with some of our new thank-you gifts. For a US$40 donation, we have a new sticker set featuring popular AO3 tags. You can show off a bumper sticker saying "my other car is a ship" for a donation of US$50. For a donation of US$75 or more, you could carry home your groceries with a white and red shopping bag or you can announce your love for AO3 with our rainbow kudos pin.

You can also set up a recurring donation and save towards the gift of your choice. Select the gift you want, and if the total for that donation doesn't reach the amount needed for the gift you selected, future donations will be applied to the gift you’re saving for. Those of you in the U.S. might also be able to double your contribution via employer matching: contact your HR department to find out if this is an option for you.

A donation of US$10 or more will also allow you to become a member of the OTW. OTW members can vote for the Board of Directors – the OTW’s governing board. Donating now and checking the “I wish to be a member” box will make you eligible to vote in the 2025 OTW Board Election.

We hope that many of you will take this opportunity to donate and become a member to support projects like Fanlore, Open Doors, Legal Advocacy, Transformative Works and Cultures, and the Archive of Our Own. Your contributions help keep our projects successful for new and long-time fans alike!

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with Isis C, who volunteers as a wrangler and Support liaison for the Tag Wrangling Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

My volunteer work fits into three closely-related bins. As a tag wrangler, I connect users' character, relationship, and freeform tags to our canonical tags, and I make new canonical tags as needed. I wrangle about 70 fandoms, mostly historical and SFF book and TV fandoms, with a few video games and RPF fandoms thrown in there.

As a tag wrangling supervisor, I do all sorts of administrative and management tasks related to wrangling. For example, I help manage all phases of wrangler recruitment and training: I evaluate applications, send out acceptances, monitor training progress, and set up training schedules. Sometimes I mentor new wranglers or new supervisors, and there are always random administrative tasks to do.

As a Tag Wrangling/Support Liaison, I ferry user requests for tags to be canonized or re-wrangled to the wranglers of those fandoms, and I answer user questions about wrangling guidelines and processes. (If you ask Support why a search on Trans Danny Fenton returns a few Hawaii Five-O works, or how to find works with a particular AU Sans when they are all merged to Sans (Undertale), I'm probably the person who will answer.) There’s a lot about wrangling that isn’t obvious until you see it from the inside, but I like answering user questions because if users understand the process better, they’re more likely to tag in ways that will accomplish what they want.

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

I have a very flexible schedule and a lot of free time, and I'm online a ridiculous amount of that free time! I find wrangling very relaxing, especially when it's easy - synning misspelled character names to the canonical tags, making relationship tags for characters that already have character tags, and other things that don't need research or a lot of thought - so I like to wrangle for a while before tackling real life things I don't like doing, like taxes or phoning for appointments or vacuuming, or even before writing fic or doing other things that require more brainpower.

Supervisor tasks require a bit more attention, so I like to do them when I have enough free time that I can concentrate on them. Of course I always warm up with a little easy wrangling!

Most of the Support tasks I take on require coordination with other wranglers, and Support requires communication with users to be beta-read by another volunteer before sending out, so I tend to do these in batches as well when I have a block of time. We have a lot of older wrangling-related tickets that have not yet been handled because there was too much work and not enough liaisons, so whenever I feel particularly motivated I try to answer the people who have probably given up on getting answers.

What made you decide to volunteer?

I'm old :-) and have been in mainstream science fiction and fantasy fandom for a very long time, although I didn't get into fanfiction-type fandom until 2002. (Which I realize is probably before many of the people reading this were born!) I get super enthusiastic about my hobbies and like to help organize things, so for example in 2002 and 2003, when fandom was mostly on mailing lists and fandom-specific forum sites, I coordinated an effort to help get fandom going on LiveJournal by collecting invite codes, which were required at the time, and distributing them to fanfiction writers and fanartists. I used to edit various fandom newsletter communities, back when that was a thing, too. Anyway, a fandom friend who was a wrangler encouraged me to apply during a recruitment, and that was all it took! When I became a supervisor, one of the tasks I enjoyed the most was helping out with support tickets, so when I got the chance to be a Support Liaison I immediately said yes please!

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

As I mentioned, I'm old, and I started out on mailing lists where tags were fandom, characters, and pairing, and that was it. I never managed to get into Tumblr, which I suspect is where the use of descriptive tags started. Often I look at freeform tags that reference memes, or Gen Z slang, or newer terms for sexual identity, and I am completely baffled! Fortunately, the wrangler chat is a wonderful research source, and other wranglers are always kind about helping this little old lady across the street decipher tags.

What fannish things do you like to do?

I write and read fic, although not so much these days as way back when. (But I still get a smile on my face when my old works get kudos or comments!) I used to vid a little, too, but even though I haven't participated in Festivids for many years, I still enjoy watching the vids people create for small fandoms, and recommending the ones I love best. I also really like to beta read fic, because that way I can help good stories become great stories.

But my most intensive fannish involvement these days is being a fanwork exchange moderator. I moderated a number of small single-fandom exchanges pre-AO3, and wow, AO3 makes it so much easier. I love small fandoms, and I participated in Yuletide nearly from the beginning, so I was super excited to be invited to become part of the moderation team some years back. I also co-mod the current incarnation of the Worldbuilding Exchange, and sometimes I help out with other exchanges.

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Now that our volunteer has said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

The AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is a partnership between the Open Doors committee and fan-run preservation project Zinedom through which fanfiction and fanart originally published in print fanzines is imported to the Archive of Our Own. Fanworks can be imported to AO3 with the consent of either the creators of the works or the publisher of the fanzine in which the fanworks were published.

Today, Open Doors is pleased to announce a list of collections that it has created since September 2023 to house fanworks imported through the FSHP. A collection has been created for each fanzine from which one or more fanworks have been imported, but these collections do not contain every work from each of these zines, and many so far only include one work each in cases where Open Doors only has permission to import that particular work. For full transparency, Open Doors plans to continue to announce collections as they are created that may or may not grow with additional fanworks as additional permissions are obtained from more creators in the future.

As of August 2024, Open Doors has created the following collections to represent fanzines from which it has imported works:

• A Portfolio of Poetry and Portraits
• Amazing Grace
• Astray in the Wilderness
• Beyond Dreams
• Broken Images
• California K/S
• Contact
• CrosSignals
• Daring Attempt
• Enter-comm
• First Time
• Gateway
• Guardian
• Happy Tails
• IDIC
• In the Wilderness
• KaleidoScope
• KisMet
• KSX
• Legacy
• Legends
• Naked Times
• Nightvisions
• Nome
• On the Edge
• One Shot
• Partners
• Potpourri
• Pushin' the Odds
• Quantum Chain
• Scattered Stars
• Sehlat's Roar
• Southern Star
• Spock's Arthropods
• Strange Justice
• The Complete Rack
• The K/S Press
• The Rack & All the King's Horses All the King's Men
• Three Eleven
• Universe Beyond
• Whalesong
• Within the Mirror

For answers to frequently asked questions, please see the FSHP page on the Open Doors website. If you'd like to give Open Doors permission to import any of your fanworks that have been previously published in print fanzines, or if you have any other FSHP-related queries, please contact the Open Doors Committee.

We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of any fanzines in which they may have been published on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

Thanks for your interest in preserving fannish history for future generations of readers!

- The Open Doors team

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days, on 18 November. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer's personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today's post is with LPCollins, who volunteers as a Dutch translator and beta reader for the Translation Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

I am part of the Translation committee, more specifically as a translator and beta reader for the Dutch team. (Hallo, iedereen!) I have also recently found my way into the Tag Wrangling committee, but that is all still very new and shiny, so I’ll be focussing on my role in Translation for this post. That role pretty much means that I help with the translation of the AO3 FAQs and tutorials, news posts, email templates and the occasional tag or user ticket that arrives in Dutch, a rare treat when speakers of your language are very accustomed to using English in online spaces. I am very proud of the role that our committee gets to play in diversifying the OTW and slowly but surely making it more accessible for users world-wide. Compared to the userbase speaking Chinese, Spanish or Russian, Dutch may seem like a very tiny, not-so-important piece of that puzzle, but doesn’t that only make it cooler that we can support such languages too?

What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?

One of my absolute favorite things about the Translation committee is that you get to schedule the work according to your own needs. I am a chaos demon with fluctuating energy levels, so I’m not sure about having a “typical week” and that’s perfectly fine with Translation.

Basically, at some point one of our lovely volunteer managers will send me an assignment, either a document that needs to be translated from scratch or a translation from one of my teammates that I need to beta read. Assignments always have a deadline too, shorter ones for urgent news posts and longer ones for longer documents. Depending on the length of the document, what I need to do with it, my mood and the alignment of the stars, I might do it right away, or spread it out over a week, or just do it on the day of the deadline. Then I let our staff know that I’m done and they send me a new task and so on. There have been weeks when I didn’t complete a single task and there have been days when I completed two, and it just works for me.

What made you decide to volunteer?

Look, I seem to be living in a world where all the paid jobs aren’t very interesting and all the interesting jobs aren’t very paid. (Will take recommendations for other worlds.) Point is, I am always drawn to ways to help organizations that I care about with a hands-on approach. Before I joined the OTW, I was a volunteer for IMAlive’s crisis support chat (big shout-out to Random Acts for providing my training), which I loved doing but unfortunately became too time-consuming when I needed to start working on my master’s thesis. Since I had been spending a lot of time on AO3 for years at that point, the OTW was an easy next target for when I did have some spare time again.

I also have a degree in Dutch and English linguistics and literature, so translator was definitely one of the most appealing OTW positions from the get-go. I distinctly remember waiting for a chance to apply, checking every Translation recruitment post that popped up on AO3 to see if they needed someone for Team Dutch yet, as the committee always recruits for specific languages. As soon as Dutch was listed in one of the posts, I didn’t hesitate about applying, and I was lucky enough to be welcomed to the team. Already two years have passed since then and I haven’t regretted it for a single second.

What has been your biggest challenge doing work for the OTW?

Not gonna lie, I have witnessed some big internal discussions since joining the OTW, both about real-world events and about our own processes. I feel like those have been fought over enough, though, so I’ll share a challenge that’s more specific for Team Dutch.

In case you don’t know, Dutch is an official language in three countries: the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname. Unfortunately, Suriname isn’t currently represented in our team, but we do have both Belgian and Dutch folks, and despite our countries being right next to each other, there are actually some differences between Belgian Dutch and Dutch… Dutch. (Just ask how we end our emails.) They definitely aren’t big enough to separate the languages, but we do try to walk that middle ground in our translations and make sure that everything sounds good for everyone. So sometimes I will be beta reading a document and change something that just sounds way too Dutch to me and sometimes one of my teammates will point out that they would never use my suggested turn of phrase in the Netherlands. As a linguist, I find this very interesting, but it is also quite challenging to avoid colloquialisms when you’re not even always aware of them!

What fannish things do you like to do?

First and foremost, I’m a fanfic writer. Always have been (even before I knew that there was a word for it) and always will be. As a writer, I also have an atrocious habit and it goes something like this: start a very long fic, pour out new chapters religiously for months and months, stumble upon a different fandom, come up with a fic idea for said new fandom that “surely won’t take long and that I just need to get out of my system so that I can return to the existing WIP in peace” aaaaand repeat. Dear reader, if you happen to be following one of my stories, I am so, so sorry, I swear I will finish it one day.

The love of my life is Supernatural and I will always come back to it, but I’m also very good at falling very hard for other fandoms on the side, ranging from The Boys to Danny Phantom to the latest Neil Gaiman-related show to Helluva Boss to anything that Richard Speight, Jr. worked on. One of my favorite things to do is hyperfixate on something new, then grab my friends by the shoulders and shake them until they agree to watch it too so that I can yell at them about it.

Of course I read fanfics too, mostly in short bursts when I’m looking for a very specific type of fic. For my wallet’s sake, I limit the number of Supernatural conventions I can go to to one per year. I perpetually have a Discord tab open to stay in touch with fellow fans, will occasionally scour YouTube for fanvids and spend the rest of my fandom time on the best social media site ever, Tumblr. (Kidding, not kidding.)

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Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in the comments. Or if you'd like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

As followers may recall, I started hand stitching hexies for a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt in March, 2012... three years ago. Watching my friend, Christy, basting sweet, reproduction fabrics around paper forms, making little stacks of 3/4-inch hexagons, I just couldn't resist! These Beadlust posts show the various steps to making the quilt top and the start of  hand-quilting in more detail than this post.

Although I'm still hand-quilting, the end is in sight now. I'm hoping to finish in time for our County Fair in August.

In this post, I thought it might interest you to look at how much time it takes to complete each of the steps in hand piecing and quilting a 3/4" hexie quilt, and the total number of hours involved. I'm basing time estimates for all of the repetitive steps on how long it takes me to do a large number in one sitting, after having practiced... in other words, at my best speed.

Step 1 - Planning the Quilt and Getting Fabrics - time: 20 hours

I decided to make a version of the traditional 1930's Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that is less common than the one with a path or ring around each of the flowers. I chose this design. Note the green hexie leaves, which form a vertical-horizontal grid.


The final size is 72 x 92 inches, a comfortable size for a twin bed, a total of 4,694 hexies. I wanted to use as many different fabrics in this quilt as possible.

• flowers = 280 different print fabrics with any background color except green or white.
• leaves = 150 different print fabrics in green
• flower centers (repeats OK) = 25 different solids
• double border = 1 print + 1 solid

Although I had collected 30's reproduction fabrics for a few years, I certainly needed more. From a selection of fabrics given to me, fabrics purchased in an eBay auction, and my stash, I found enough to make each of the flowers unique. Although there were not enough greens to make the leaves unique, I had about 60 different green prints, such that each is not repeated more than 3 times in the quilt. So, in the end the quilt includes more than 360 unique fabrics!

Step 2 - Wash and Iron all of the Fabrics - time: 15 hours

Yikes! A few of the fabrics I wanted to use were already washed; most were not. Knowing it should be consistent, and worrying that the reds might bleed, I decided to pre-wash and iron all of the fabrics. Doing this step in stages, as I acquired fabrics, I'm not really sure how long it took, perhaps quite a bit more than the above estimate.

Step 3 - Cutting and Trimming all of the Hexies - time: 28 hours

For each of the  4,694 hexies, I cut a 2" square of fabric, and trimmed off the four corners. Of course, I cut and trimmed in multiples, except for a few that I fussy cut individually. Again, since I did this step in stages, the above time estimate is a bit rough.

Step 4 - Basting the Fabric to the Paper Hexie Forms - time: 235 hours

Once I learned that using YLI quilting thread for basting makes it go much faster than using regular sewing thread, I was able to baste 20 hexies per hour.

Step 5 - Stitching Hexies Together to Make Flowers - time: 105 hours

Averaging 2.5 complete flowers per hour, it took me about two and a half 40-hour-work-weeks to whip-stitch all 238 full and 42 partial flowers. There are 14-17 whip-stitches per 3/4 inch seam.

Step 6 - Stitching a White Hexie Ring Around 130 of the Flowers - time: 130 hours

On average, it takes me 1 hour to whip-stitch 12 white hexies around each flower.

Step 7 - Layout Flowers for Quilt Top; Note Position on Each - time: 4 hours

I didn't fuss too much about the layout, spreading out the flowers randomly, making sure the red ones were evenly spaced, and that no areas were overly dominated by one color. Assigning each row a letter and each position within the row a number, I marked each flower on the back (writing on the center paper piece).

Step 7a - Half Flowers and Double Border All Around - time 90 hours

This is an update, added Feb. 2018. (I can't believe I forgot this important step when writing the original time line.) To make 42 partial flowers to fill in the gaps around the edges of the top, I cut fabrics, basted hexies, joined petals, and then stitched the partials into the gaps. To make the outer border, I made 522 individual hexies, stitched them into rows, and then stitched the rows onto the top.

Step 8 - Sew Flowers into Small Groups - time: 90 hours

To assemble the quilt top, I grouped 8-12 flowers, and whip-stitched them into a solid piece. There were 30 pieces, which took about 3 hours each to complete.

Step 9 - Sew Small Groups Together to Complete Quilt Top - time: 123 hours

I first sewed the small groups into rows, then stitched the rows together. As the sections got larger, the stitching took longer, making it difficult to estimate the time with total accuracy. I did a couple of time tests at different stages of the process in order to figure the above total. I completed this step on March 1st, 2013, one year after basting the first hexie.

Step 10 - Iron/Starch Top, Remove Papers and Basting Stitches - time: 33 hours

Removing all the basting stitches and papers took a lot longer than I would have guessed. But when I look at the pile of basting threads, it begins to make sense.

Step 11 - Assemble Quilt Layers, and Baste - time: 12 hours

Christy and Lunnette helped me layout the back, batting, and top on the floor; then baste in a 4 inch grid. I think we pinned it first, then basted, then removed the pins. On our knees for most of the time, it sure was wonderful to have their help!

Step 10 - Quilt and Embroider the Flower Centers - time: 70 hours

Choosing a floss in a similar color to each flower center, I embroidered a flower. Intentionally, some of the stitches act as quilting stitches, while others slip between the layers and don't show on the back. Around the edges of the quilt, it took about 15 minutes per flower center. Toward the middle of the quilt, it took about 20 minutes per flower center.

Step 11 - Quilt Flower Petals - time: 106 hours

Quilting around the petals of each flower requires turning the quilt 270 degrees for each petal, which is why it takes at least 20 minutes per flower, longer toward the middle of the quilt when the whole weight of the quilt must be constantly shifted. There are 238 whole and 42 partial flowers. I'm figuring an average of 25 minutes per whole and 10 minutes per partial flower.

Step 12 - Quilt Around White Rings - time: 65 hours

Like quilting the flower petals, quilting around the outside edge of each of the 130 white rings requires turning the whole quilt as I work, which adds a lot to the time it takes. I believe quilting the entire top in a diagonal grid of straight lines would take about half the time it takes to follow the curved, zig-zagging path of the hexie flowers, leaves, and rings.

Step 13 - Quilt Around Each of the Leaves - time: 79 hours

Not only does this step require turning the quilt as I stitch 360 degrees around each leaf, it also requires knotting and burying the tail at the start and finish of each leaf. Also I'm changing color of thread to more or less match the fabric color for each set of 4 leaves. Around the edge, it takes about 9 minutes per leaf; toward the center 11 minutes per leaf. There are 474 leaves total, at an average of 10 minutes/leaf.

Step 14 - Assemble Hexies for the Border Facing - time: 37 hours

To face the double (print + blue) border on the back of the quilt requires 522 hexies. To sew them together, forming the border strips, takes about 1 hour per 14 hexies.

Step 15 - Trim Backing and Batting; Blind-stitch Facing to Border - time: 13 hours

There are 264 hexies around the outside edge of the quilt top. Since I have not done this step yet, the time estimate (blind-stitching 20 hexies together per hour) is somewhat rough.

Step 16 - Remove Paper Pieces and Basting from Border and Facing - time: 10 hours

Again, since I have not done this step yet, the time estimate is based on the time it took to remove paper pieces and basting threads from the quilt top.

Step 17 - Blind-stitch Facing to Quilt Back - time: 13 hours

Step 18 - Quilt Around Print Fabric Border - time: 13 hours

Step 19 - Blanket Stitch Around Outside Edge of Quilt - time: 10 hours

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Total Time to Complete Hand-Piecing the Quilt Top: 873 hours

This is equivalent to nearly 20 weeks or 5 months on a 40 hours/week job. It took me a year. Mostly the time flew by as I basted and hand-stitched the little hexies together. Always there was a new print to enjoy, a new stack mounting in size to admire, a growing quilt top to thrill me.

Total Time to Complete Hand-Quilting: 428 hours

Since this job isn't completed yet, the time is only a rough estimate, based on the times it took to do some of the already completed steps. In all, hand quilting will take the equivalent to 10 or 11 weeks of full-time work. I find the quilting rather very boring. After taking a break for more than a year, I started working on it again and hope to be finished by August this year. Audio books are the answer to the tedium for me.

Total Time, Start to Finish: 1,301 hours

With Steps15-19 still to complete, the total is a rough estimate. Still, it is obvious that making a quilt like this, start to finish, requires more than 1,300 hours or the equivalent of over 8 months of full time work. If I were to be paid only minimum wages (2015, Seattle, WA - $11/hr.), the cost of the quilt would be $14,311 + about $500 in materials, or a total of $14,800.  Good thing I intend to keep and use it myself!

UPDATE, July 4, 2016

By June, 2015, I completely finished one corner, an area big enough to photograph so I could submit an entry form to the 2015 La Conner Quilt Festival, sponsored by the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum. On August 7th, 2015, I received notice that it was juried into the show. Wow! That sent me into high gear for sure. After working non-stop, 7 days a week, and an average of 10 hours per day, I inserted my needle into that quilt for the last/final time on Aug. 24th, 2015, just days before delivering it to the museum. It took me 3 years and 3 months, start to finish!


I was surprised, honored, and incredibly pleased to find out it won the Curator's Award of Excellence, one of the top awards, which then qualified it to be shown at the museum for the month following the Festival. Note, the finished size is 71 x 93 inches, and there are 4,700 individual hexagons in it.


Big work for both hands, but sooooo satisfying!


In fact it was so satisfying that I've started another hexie quilt... Can you believe it? So far, I've made 733 hexie flowers for it! Although they are the same size hexies, there are no reproduction fabrics and the arrangement will be anything but traditional. Don't know why I love the hexagon shape so much... but it's certain that I do.

A week of finishing!!! Oh my, it feels good to finish things, doesn't it?!

Last October, I started the applique process, stitching chick bodies and wings cut from felled wool onto the wool background fabric. Seven months later, 16 chicks, embroidered with threads and beads, run free! Please click the picture to enlarge it, so you can enjoy the fanciful details.

If you are new to this process, you can see the various steps and pictures of the chicks on these posts. Of course, they are inspired by Sue Spargo's exhibit at the La Conner Quilt Museum, by her book, Creative Stitching, and by taking a one-day class from her to get me going. Along the way, other books, embroideries, and drawings also inspired me.


As you might guess, most of the chicks have at least a few beads. Here is one with the main motif embroidered with beads.


And, here is one with just a few beads, the center of the "flowers," and one with no beads at all.

Also note that I've quilted the piece with Danish Flower Thread in a shade which closely matches the background color.

At first, I thought it would be pleasing to embellish the areas between the chicks with flowers, vines, and leaves using three close shades of the background color. Here is an example.


It looks OK when you look at just four chicks with the flower/vine motif in the center. But when I had finished 6 of the areas (sorry no photo), some of them with larger spaces and larger vines/leaves, it looked too busy. It took away from the chicks. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to look at the chicks or the flowers. So I picked out the vines and leaves, leaving just the flowers, which weren't such a distraction.


After sewing on the binding, the chicks seemed to need a little warming around them. So I added a line of stem stitch in variegated pearl-cotton in a magenta color. It pleases me!


Oh, and one more thing... This is a quilt, designed to hang on the wall, with lots of details to enjoy as you view it up close. But what happens to wool felt when it is out in the open? MOTH DAMAGE and DUST are the enemies. My solution? Find, buy, or have somebody make a wall-mounted display case, with a hinged door. Hang the quilt inside the case, which remains closed except when somebody wants to take a closer look. The above, found on the internet, is close to what I have in mind, with a white background of course.


What's next in chick-land? Well, my dear niece just got married... Here is the start of her wedding gift... I'll post a finished photo soon.

It sure was a lovely surprise one day last fall when a representative from the Bead&Button Show called to ask if I would be interested in sending my beaded quilts for exhibition at the 2015 show in Milwaukee, WI.

Would I be interested? Of course I would!!! But since I'm more of a beader and don't have that many beaded quilts, I suggested they also contact my brother, Thom Atkins, who has made a mind-boggling number of beaded quilts in the last 10 years or so.

Brother-sister exhibition... how fun is that! You can see all 22 quilts in the Artisan Area of the Exhibition Hall if you're attending the show, May 27 - June 8. For those who can't make it, here are my quilts, the ones in the show. When you click on the first picture, you can see a slide show with full-size pictures.

It's really special how,in recent years, quilters are interested in beads, and beaders are playing with quilting, both finding ways to expand their creativity! And it's super fun to show with my bro!

If you're a Beadlust reader, you know I worked for three years (more than 1,300 hours) to hand piece, hand embroider, and hand quilt Mama's Garden, with 4,700 3/4-inch hexies, a true labor of love. A big push this spring got it finished in time to enter into the International Quilt Festival in La Conner, WA. Hooray, hooray, the judges accepted it into the show!!!!

This coming weekend, October 2-4, all you quilting enthusiasts will find it rewarding to make the effort and get to La Conner (WA) for the Festival, where you will see an excellent selection of quilts and fiber arts, plus a variety of interesting vendors! Here is the information. Head first for Maple Hall, a huge 2-story building, filled with quilts, at the corner of 1st Street (the main drag) and Douglas Street! Bring your camera, because photos are allowed (at least in the past they were).

What do you think? After all those hours, would it be crazy to even THINK about making another hexie quilt, another one with 3/4-inch hexies? Well, then I guess I'm crazy, because the irresistible call of the hexie hooked me again. And why not re-use the same paper pieces?

This one will not be traditional, and will definitely NOT be hand quilted. It will be hand pieced, using small left-over fabrics (I refuse to call them scraps), cotton prints (but not batiks). I have no idea how I will arrange them, how big it will be, or anything else about how this new project will develop.

The first step was to cut out sets of  2" x 2" squares (6 per set) to make flower petals. So far, I've cut about 130 sets. Here are 80 of them, ready to baste onto the 3/4" paper hexie pieces.

From very small pieces, I cut single 2"  x 2" squares to make flower centers. These I've already basted to the paper hexie pieces.

After basting some of the petals and centers, I started choosing centers for the petal sets. This part is fun! I enjoy "auditioning" various centers until one of them seems right. I'm avoiding high value contrast between petals and centers, because I might want to do a color study with them (no borders).

When the urge gets really strong, I allow myself to start stitching the hexies together to make flowers.

This quilt will probably have about 650 flowers! I've cut 130 so far, each different. I cut flower petals from all of my small pieces, every one. My preference is to have all 650 flowers different.

Sooooooo, if YOU have some small fabric pieces you'd be willing to donate, I'd love to have part of you in my quilt. This is what I need:

I'm making 3/4" hexies, which means each of the six sides measures 3/4 of an inch. For these I need to cut 2" squares. (At the end of this post there is a table showing the size of fabric squares that corresponds to each of the standard sizes of hexie paper pieces.) To make each hexie flower, I need 6 squares for the petals and 1 square for the center. This is how I cut them.

The first thing I do, is sort my scraps into piles by size. The easiest to work with are strips. These I iron, sort by approximate width, and stack 6 strips high, aligning the top and right side edges. Then I cut each stack of 6 strips to exactly 2" wide by slightly more than 14" long. From each one of the strips, I will get one set of petals and one center. After cutting 5 stacks of strips (a total of 30 different fabrics), line them up next to each other as shown above, and cross-cut 2" squares through all of the strip piles at once.


Now, pick up the piles of 2" squares, and place them in stacks, alternating the orientation as shown above.


Next, use dressmaker's shears to trim the corners off of each of the piles. Each pile has 6 fabrics, so you are trimming 6 at a time. Re-stack them as shown above. Note that there are only 6 piles in each row. The 7th pile in each stack, I have set aside to use for centers. These I keep separate from the petal sets, selecting a center for each petal set later in the flower-making process.


The final step is to separate each of the piles into 6 separate piles, one for each of the fabrics. You will end up with 30 singles piles, or petal sets, each with 6 of the same cut and corner-trimmed fabric, enough to make 30 hexie flowers.

Certainly there are other, and even possibly more efficient ways to cut fabrics for hexies, but this way works well for me. Some quilters recommend using the squares without trimming the corners. I tried it that way, but went back to corner-trimming because I like not having the extra bulk toward the centers of each hexie. I'm especially glad I trimmed the corners on my Grandmother's Flower Garden hexie quilt, because it was that much less to stitch through in the hand-quilting process.

Sometimes, the fabric scraps are not strips, or would more effectively be cut as a chunk rather than strip. Basically it's the same process. I stack 6 different fabrics, aligning the top and right hand edges. From this stack, I cut a 4 x 6 inch block, and then cut that in half to make two 2 x 6 inch strips. I align the strips the same way as the 14" strips above, cross-cutting several at one time, and finish the same way as described above.

Fabric Cutting Guide for Different Sizes of Hexies

1/4" hexie  --- cut 1" squares
1/2" hexie  --- cut 1-1/2" squares
3/4" hexie  --- cut 2" squares
1" hexie ------ cut 2-1/2" squares
1-1/4" hexie - cut 3" squares
1-1/2" hexie - cut 3-1/2" squares
2" hexie ------ cut 4-1/2" squares
3" hexie ------ cut 6-1/2" squares
4" hexie ------ cut 8-1/2" squares
6" hexie ------ cut 12-1/2" squares

A very handy, and more complete cutting guide is available from Paper Pieces, which is where I get my pieces. Nope, I don't cut my own; too boring, and I really like the precision of die-cut paper pieces!

For a lot more helpful tips on making a hexie quilt, please see these posts:

Grandma's Flower Garden - 3/4 Inch Hexie Quilt - Time Study

Hand Quilting a Hexie Quilt

Hexie Quilt - Embroidery Quilting in Flower Centers

Hexie Quilt - Paper Pieces are GONE + Tips

Hexie Quilt - To Fix or Not to Fix

Hexie Quilt Top - Almost Finished

Hexies Galore - Grandma's Flower Garden

Grandma's Flower Garden Quilt - I'm Doin' It!

Oh dear, I'm sorry to have neglected posting here for so long. Although many suitable topics and photos have passed through my mind and camera, there just hasn't seemed to be a nice chunk of time available for putting it all together. Today is the day to begin again!

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson of Willow City, ND (detail of border)

For the past two months, it's been all about quilts and quilting for me, with beading taking a bit of a back seat for a while. My quilt and travel buddy, Lunnette, and I flew to Ontario, California for The Road to California, which is a ginormous quilt show with more than 1,000 quilts on exhibition and over 200 vendors. We gawked (and spent all of our allotted budget) for 3 whole days, barely noticing our fatigue and sore footies.

There are several intriguing subjects to cover, inspired by our experiences there. Today's post is about traditional applique and machine quilting.

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson of Willow City, ND photo credit (for this photo only): Road 2 CA

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson, detail showing back

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson, detail of center

Inspired by Alice, by Marilyn Lidstrom Larson, detail of center quilting

Inspired by Alice, shown in the photos above, won the first prize of $1,000 in the Traditional, Wall, Applique category of the main (judged) exhibit! Take a moment to study the pictures, click on them to enlarge them, notice the way the applique and machine quilting compliment each other. Also think about what this might have looked like if the maker, Marilyn Lidstrom Larson, had hand-quilted her work the way Alice, her grandmother (and inspiration for the central portion of the quilt), would have done. I love this quilt, totally love it, and believe it deserved the award it received.

At the same time, it saddens me that in all the juried/judged shows I've seen (and entered) recently, there is no category specifically for hand sewn quilts... quilts which are hand-pieced, hand-appliqued, hand-embroidered, and/or hand-embellished, and finished with hand-quilting. Nope, hand-sewn quilts are judged right along with machine-sewn quilts. In my observation, machine-quilted pieces are the ones that win almost all the prizes, even in the traditional categories. Why is that? Is hand-quilting considered passe, a thing of our grandmothers' time? Is it because machine-quilting has more pizzazz in the viewers' and makers' eyes? Is it because the machine manufacturers are huge financial supporters of these shows and providers of much of the prize money? Is it because the machine manufacturers run the training programs for judges?

OK, let's look into this subject a bit more. Later, I'll tackle the subject of the influence of the machine manufacturers. For now let's consider this question:

Does machine-quilting enhance quilts that are otherwise hand-sewn?

I started cutting scraps of fabric to make hexie flowers on September 1, 2015. After 9 months of labor, I have just finished stitching the 733rd flower!  I'll do the math for you... That's 5,131 hexies. They are small ones, 3/4 inch per side. The finished flowers measure just under 4" in diameter.


To give you an idea, this is what 44 hexie flowers look like. In case you don't know, for each hexie, the fabric is cut, and then basted over a paper, hexagon-shaped form. The hexies are then hand-stitched together to make the flowers. It takes about 1 hour to make one hexie flower, start-to-finish; thus 44 hours to make the batch above. Click the photo to see better detail of this process, which is called English paper piecing.


And here are all 733 hexie flowers! Each flower is a different fabric. Although a few of the flower petal fabrics were also used for flower centers, I'm certain that there are over 1,000 different fabrics used in these flowers.

What's next? Well, I'm going to build a design wall using sound-proofing foam-board covered with a king-sized flannel sheet. I haven't quite figured out how to make it yet.

When the design wall is ready, I'll get out my hexie flowers and start to "paint" with them. Who knows what will emerge? Not me. I only have a vague idea that I might want to try "painting" an abstract view of our island shoreline.

When the "painting" process is finished, I'll stitch the flowers together in small groups, and then stitch the groups together. The result, hopefully in my lifetime, will be a queen-sized, non-traditional style, hexie quilt!

Thanks to everybody who shared scraps of fabric for me to use!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

For those interested, here is a link to a "time study" and photos of my previous hexie quilt, Mama's Garden!

This fabric is called Kékfestö in Hungarian, a word that roughly translates as blue-dyed or blue-dying. Producing these fabrics is a cottage industry in Hungary, which dates back several centuries. The dye is indigo; the cloth is cotton; and the long, arduous process results in a type of batik fabric. The photo above shows a small fold of each of the fabrics I bought at the blue-dyed studio shown below. (As always, please click on the photos if you'd like to see more detail.)

When in Hungary in October, 2016, my quilting/travel friend (Lunnette) and I, as guests of my Hungarian bead sister, Anna Fehér, had the very exciting experience of visiting the hand-dying studio of Miklós Kovács in the little village of Tiszakécske, SE of Budapest. The studio, located behind his home, includes two rooms, one for printing the raw cloth with a wax resist, and the second for dying the printed cloth with indigo. In front of the building, you can see rods above the deck, which are used for hanging the fabric to dry after it is dyed, and a wagon loaded with printed cloth ready to be dyed.

Meet Mr. Miklós Kovács, now in his 80s! Charming and animated, he is explaining his traditional, hand-dying process to Anna. Blue-dying has been the Kovács family's livelihood since 1878, each new generation being trained by the previous Master. It is strictly a family affair. Miklós, his wife, Margit, and their two daughters, Gabriella and Mária, currently produce about 10,000 meters of Kékfestö (blue-dyed) fabric every year. When Mr. and Mrs. Kovács retire, the business will pass to their daughters. This post shows how they turn plain white cloth into beautiful fabrics with white motifs on an indigo background.

First, they need thousands of meters of fine-quality, tightly-woven, raw cotton cloth, which is rinsed to remove impurities, then carefully ironed and rolled onto wooden rods which fit onto the printing machine. This pile of untreated cotton cloth, manufactured in Turkey, is the remainder of a big shipment purchased at the start of the year.

Next they need a print block or plate. These are made with wire pins of various diameters, which are pounded into blocks of dense wood. Here you see the many plate choices available in the Kovács studio, each yielding a different motif on the fabric. The length of each print block is the same as the width of the fabric; the width is the width of the pattern repeat, generally designed to be about 4.5 inches..

This is the end of one of the print blocks, showing how the design is formed by setting metal pins of different diameters into the wooden block.

And here is the fabric (after dying it with indigo, and removing the wax resist), which was printed with the block in the photo above it. Naturally, a half-meter of this one came home with me!

This is the machine which is used to print the motif on the raw cotton cloth with a wax resist. Mr. Kovács keeps his printing machine, built in Germany 120 years ago, in good running condition with machinist skills he learned alongside his father.

You can see the sprocket, lower right, which is adjusted to advance the fabric through the machine in increments exactly the length of the pattern repeat. For most motifs, the fabric advances 4 to 5 inches after each time the print block is applied to the fabric, thus revealing the next short stretch of un-printed cloth.

Here you can see many meters of raw cotton cloth, suspended on a metal rod at the back of the printing press. There is a leader of waste cloth stitched to the end of the roll which has been fed through the rollers of the machine to get the process started.

At the front of the printing machine, a worker swipes a tray with wax resist, which is tinted green so that it will be visible on the printed cloth. The printing block touches down on the waxed tray, picks up a coating of was, and then presses firmly against the fabric.

After being imprinted with wax resist, the fabric is wound up and down through a drying rack located behind the printing machine.

When it is dry, the printed fabric is folded and stacked until there is a sufficient quantity to begin the dying process. You can see that some of the raw cloth in this pile was pre-dyed pink, blue, or beige. After over-dying with indigo and removing the resist, the motif on these pieces will be pink, blue or beige with an indigo background, rather than the much more common white motif with an indigo background.

This close-up photo shows how the fabric looks after the wax resist (tinted green so that is shows on white cloth) is dry. This is the motif being printed while we were there. Liking the design a lot, I was very pleased to find finished fabric in this pattern available to purchase.

And this is how the cloth will look after it is dyed with indigo, the wax resist removed, and the fabric washed and ironed. As you might have already guessed, a half-meter of this one came home with me!

As we watch the cloth passing slowly through the rollers of the printing machine, Lunnette holds a scrap of dyed fabric which was tied to the machine, indicating the motif currently being printed.

At last, we get to the dye pot!  Here on the burner, a concentrated indigo dye formula is being readied to pour into the dye vat.

Don't forget to wear those heavy rubber gloves, or the skin on your hands will be tinged with blue for a long time.
Mr. Kovács gave a long, animated talk (all in Hungarian, which I only slightly comprehend) about the whole process of blue dying. You've already seen how the cloth is printed with wax resist. The next step is to dye the background.

The cloth is dyed in a vat with the indigo dye-bath at 85 degrees C., then washed to remove the wax and rinsed to remove the excess dye. After rinsing, the cloth is looped over racks to dry outdoors, which completes the dying process. Sadly, he did no dying while we were there, so I don't have pictures or first-hand experience with precisely how it is done to share with you.

However the fabric is not yet ready to use. It must be starched, dried, and then pressed using both steam and steel rollers with heavy pressure, in order to create the traditionally desirable shiny finish on the cloth. Finally, the fabric is folded onto bolts for distribution to shops and end-users.

We learned how they hand-print motifs on cloth using a template, such that after dying, the fabric can be cut out and hemmed as a finished table cloth. You can see the templates hanging on the wall. The desired template is placed over the fabric, and a pencil used to mark the registration points for lining up the printing block. Fabrics which have already been printed are stacked in front of the templates. After being dyed, this fabric will be made into table cloths and runners of various sizes.

This is a section of cloth which as been marked with a template, and hand-stamped with wax resist. After dying with indigo and removing the wax, it will be made into a rectangular table cloth with a lovely double border all the way around.

Mrs. Kovács demonstrates for us how she lines up the print block with the penciled registration marks, and then lowers it onto the fabric. With the stamp resting on the cloth, she lightly pounds it with her fist to set the wax into the fabric. It was obvious to us that carefully making each wax impression all the way around the cloth takes a lot of time and concentration. As you an see below, the results of her hand-printing are stunning!.

Here is an example of a hand-stamped, indigo-dyed fabric made into a round table cloth. Obviously, it came home with me, and is perfect for my kitchen table!  This fabric is quite wide, and takes a great deal of space and time to print. Yet, the prices were very reasonable!

After spending several hours in the studio, we were invited to the house for a shopping bonanza! Fortunately, hoping ahead of time that we would be visiting a Kékfestö studio when we got to Hungary, we had saved our allowances for some months, and were prepared to shop for future quilting and sewing projects. The prices, ranging $10 to $15 per meter depending on the width, seemed very reasonable considering the quality of the fabric, and the extreme amount of work that goes into producing it.

In addition to yardage, both of us bought a table cloth and an apron. Mine is shown above.

What a totally delightful experience we had! Mr. and Mrs. Kovács are as friendly and nice as can be!  If you ever get to Hungary, you can find their fabrics and finished products in the picturesque town of Szentendre, just a short drive or train ride north of Budapest on the Danube River. Here is a website link.

To end our visit at the Kovács studio, here is a tribute photo of the elder Mr. Kovács, who during his boyhood in the 1920's was immersed in the world of his family's blue-dying business, and who continued producing Kékfestö indigo-dyed fabrics for his entire life, while training his own son to continue the trade.

Like his father, the younger Mr. Kovács has trained his daughters to continue when he retires, although I'm sure he has many more years to go, probably well into his 90s..

My last two photos in this post are a little surprise for you. Before falling in love with beading and quilting, my main passion was Hungarian folk dancing. I danced in a performance group for 10 years (and later became one of the group's choreographers), performing at many events in the Seattle area, including Bumbershoot and the Folklife Festival. We also performed at the World's Fair when it was in Vancouver, British Columbia. I and several of the other dancers in the group made most of our costumes using Hungarian fabrics and original costumes as patterns.

It was folk music and dance that first called my heart and soul into Hungary, where I have since spent a cumulative total of well over a year of my life, spaced over 14 different visits so far.

So, here you go. This is me, wearing a costume I made with Kékfestö fabric for performing the dances of the Szatmár region, located in northeastern Hungary. This photo was taken in September, 1986 at the World's Fair in Vancouver, Canada, where we performed on two separate occasions.

And this is me on stage at a festival in Redmond, WA, happy as can be, Hungarian folk music, song and dance, filling me with joy!  Michael Kappleman and I are the second couple from the left.

So you see...  Kékfestö and I go back a long way. Next, I'll be quilting with it!

*****
My apologies to Hungarians for not using the correct accent mark for the last letter of the Hungarian word Kékfestö. I spent 4 hours trying to do it, but could not get Blogger to accept anything I tried.

I learned to create decorative painted papers from Paulus Berensohn, Albie Smith, Lynne Perrella, Anne Bagby, and others by taking wonderful workshops from them in the 1990s, and soon adapted their techniques to making books with beadwork inserted into the covers, like the one below. I use my painted papers on the book covers and for signature covers, which look great with this type of binding.

But after moving to the island where I've lived for 20 years now, I gradually got into quilting and textile arts, kept the beadwork going, and cut way back on painting. Until now!

Inspired, cajoled, and arm-twisted by one of the Textile Guild members, who wants to learn how to paint papers and make books like mine, I agreed to teach a workshop (2 days of painting and 2 days of bookmaking) for the guild members. Of course, since I hadn't painted for many years, I first had to get back into practice. Yay! What fun I've been having, painting in my shed (thankfully heated). The paper below is my favorite of about 20 painted in the last two weeks. The size is 18 x 24 inches. (Please click to see the details!)

And below are two more to go with it.  The paper above will be used for a book cover, even though it will be hard for me to cut it up. The two papers below will be cut (horizontally) into thirds, and used as signature covers. For those unfamiliar with bookmaking, a signature is a section of papers within a book. Each of the six signatures in my book will be covered with this decorative paper.


It's a fun, playful, and experimental process to paint like this, easier for me than it would be to paint figuratively (landscape, still life, or people). With this type of painting, I just mix matte medium with a color or two of acrylic paint, and apply it by rolling, stamping, stenciling in layers. I keep adding layers until I like it, at which point it's a finished paper. There is always at least part of each paper that pleases me enough to use it for bookmaking and paper arts.

These are the basic supplies and tools I use to paint the papers:

1.) Although acrylic paints and this method can be used to paint on almost any surface or paper, I usually paint on 80-90# drawing paper to make decorative papers.

2.) I prefer using a roller to apply background colors or glazes, rather than a brush. My favorite, purchased online from Dick Blick Art Supplies, is a 2.2"  dense foam roller.

3.) Assorted stamps and stencils. I carve a lot of my own stamps, as you will see below, but sometimes also use commercial stamps. Note that commercial rubber stamps with fine detail for stamping with inks do not work well with acrylics, as the paint clogs the fine lines, ruining the stamp.

4.) Assorted materials, such as a notched adhesive-spreader, coarse sea-sponge, webbed food packaging materials, and bubble wrap are useful to print, texture, and stencil.

5.) Acrylic paints. I use heavy-body paint (rather than fluid acrylics) of student-grade or better quality.

6.) Matte medium and glazing medium (slow drying) are added to extend the paint.

I know, maybe you're thinking I should do a video tutorial. OK. You set it up, and I'll do it. In the meantime, I'd rather be painting...  Here are three more recently painted papers for your viewing pleasure (I hope).



The one directly above is my attempt to emulate batik fabric from India. I had a bedspread back in the hippy 60s with a burgundy design on a mustard yellow background, the memory of which was the inspiration for this paper. I carved all of the stamps used to make it.

I love to carve my own stamps, and sometimes cut my own stencils as well. Let's take a look at that process. It's quite easy really, requiring only a block of Speedy-Carve (or other high-density rubber carving block), and a Speed-Ball Carving tool. Designs can be free cut, drawn right on the carving block, or transferred from a tracing. Here's a fairly decent tutorial on the stamp carving process.

Designs? Well, everywhere I look I see possibilities for carving more stamps! Recently, visiting a fabric store with my quilting buddies, I spied a fat quarter of batik fabric with a luscious design. Here is the fabric:

And here is the stamp I carved from a tracing I made of the central flower. The stamp is the same size as on the fabric, about 3" in diameter.

I also cut a stencil, which you can see below. A friend had a commercial stencil of these three leaves, which I really liked. After borrowing her stencil to use on one of my papers, I traced the painted image, and cut out my own stencil. The tool in this image is a Speed-Ball cutter, which I use to carve the rubber to make stamps.

You've already seen (way above) the whole sheet of paper I painted using just this stamp and stencil, but here's a detail. If you click to enlarge, you can see more about how I paint in layers, first the background colors, next the leaves, then a different color over-stencil on the leaves, and last the flowers.

If you like to play with paint, you might want to give it a try! Here are just a few more of my recently painted papers to tempt you...





I'll be teaching a 2-day bookmaking workshop in mid-May using papers like these to create three different books. There may still be a spot or two available in the class. If you are interested, you can contact me for more information.

You may want to visit my website to see more about my handmade books and painted papers. And there are several earlier posts here on Beadlust with pictures of books made with painted decorative papers and beading by my students, as well as other related topics. Here are a few of them:

1. Wedding book
2. Lisa's book (from a workshop I taught in Wisconsin); her fabulous website is here.
3. Susan's book (from a workshop I taught in Wisconsin)
4. painting papers for making Christmas cards
5. Using symbols in our art and symbols in acrylic painting  
6. Using these techniques to paint with dyes on fabric and more fabric paint/dye examples

Susan Anderson took my bookmaking/painting/beading workshop twice at the Coupeville Art Center. These are the papers for her first book, and if you click to enlarge, you can also see her finished book.

And, to close this post, here is a photo of some of the handmade books I've created over the years... most of them utilize decorative painted papers and bead embroidery.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end of this long post :)!

With very mixed feelings, sadness and joy all jumbled together, I closed my business with the state of Washington today, retroactive to December 31, 2016.

It's super great to think about never having to keep track of business miles, save receipts for every little business expense, do the tedious bookkeeping, take end-of-the-year inventory, or prepare everything for taxes.... Not ever again will I have to do any of those odious tasks!

Me, celebrating 41 years in business as Artist - Teacher - Author

On the other hand, my business has pretty much been my "identity" since 1975. That's 41 years - more than half of my life. What am I now? How will I respond when somebody asks, "What do you do?" Will I say, "Oh, I'm retired now?" Will I say, "I'm an artist?" It feels a little like I'm walking around 3/4 naked, the clothes of the past 41 years gone, the remaining artist clothes not enough to cover my nakedness.

But, we will not have any crying over spilled milk; the deed is done; the authorities officially notified. And, with respect, I thought it might be fun to share a few photos here, photos of the business me, and the story in more-or-less chronological order.

It all started when I met Liz Chenoweth, who is still my closest friend, and who at the time was studying metalsmithing at the University of Washington and I think working for a commercial jewelry manufacturing business in Seattle. I got the bug from her. After taking a short class in soldering sterling silver to make jewelry, I bought a workbench and all the tools, getting into it full-tilt-boogie! Liz helped me, teaching me all that she knew, and helping me to realize the design ideas I had.

Liz (on the right) and me in our metalsmithing shop, The Fort

I don't recall the exact date that I drove to the Department of Licensing to get my business license, but on that day, I named my business Atkins Creations, because I intended to make and sell sterling silver (and a little later, gold) jewelry. I bought a handsome, red, ledger book, and began the 41 year process of keeping track of all expenses and all income, mostly for tax purposes.

Sterling silver ring, commissioned by a male customer

New-beginnings.... in the spring of 1975, Liz and I decided to set up a metalsmithing shop in the spare bedroom in my little home in Ballard. Removing all other furniture, we put in side-by-side workbenches, and installed a polishing table/motor. We called our shop the Fort, because we were just like kids in the summer, when we couldn't wait to be in our "fort," our hideaway, our own special place. We both had day jobs, but we lived for spending time in the Fort. My job was 5 days on, followed by 5 days off, which was great because I could work with metal for 5 consecutive days at a time.

Jasper stone set in sterling silver, sterling clasp, leather cord - this is a man's necklace

We sold our work at some of the craft fairs of the time, but mostly we held "open studio" days at my home, slowly building a fairly decent client list. Eventually we made most of our money doing commissions. It was a marvelous, fun time in my life. That's for sure!

This is the display of my silver and gold creations at our second "open studio," 1977

Three years later, in 1978, I started a new "day job," one which quickly turned into something much more demanding of both my time and creative energies than had been my previous job. Soon, I could no longer continue making and selling jewelry at the previous pace. And, by the early 1980s my jewelry tools and supplies were lonely and dust covered. But, I didn't close the business officially.

Multiple strand necklace in style taught by Carol Berry

The hook was still set, because in 1987, I took a 2-day class from Carol Berry on making multiple-strand beaded necklaces. BEADS! In those two short days, I fell absolutely bonkers in love with beads, and within a few months, I was back in business again.

Multiple strand necklace I made as a "project" for Margie Deeb's book, The Beader's Color Palette

This time, I added the name Beads Indeed! to the official license, making it Atkins Creations - Beads Indeed!  Nice, huh?! Plus I quit my day job, deciding to support myself somehow with beads. Not easy. Especially for the first few years. Hard work and lots of rice for dinner. Since the selling part of making gold/silver jewelry was never fun for me, I decided to make my living this time by selling beads (just the "raw" beads, not made into jewelry) and teaching classes. If I sold a few pieces of beaded jewelry, that would be fine, but there would be no pressure to pay the bills by promoting my own creations. On the other hand, selling beads WAS fun; and buying beads to sell was even more fun!

 By 1988, I sold my metalsmithing equipment, and turned my garage into a studio/store for both selling beads and teaching beading workshops. For 10 years, that was my life, my identity... Beads Indeed!, open every Wednesday of the year, classes most weekends, open for your beading needs at any time by appointment.

It worked! I could have my cake (beading/beadwork) and eat it (selling beads and teaching classes) at the same time. You have to know that back then I did not in any way consider myself an artist. I knew I was a pretty good craftsman, making jewelry that would last and that looked great technically. But I did not think of myself as a creative person.

Generations, a small pouch, my first improvisational bead embroidery piece

The discovery (made mostly by Carol Berry, with some input by me) of "improvisational bead embroidery" in 1991 caused a shift, both in my sense of identity and my business. Gradually, stitching beads on fabric without a plan, letting a piece develop bit by bit without trying to control it, and thankfully with no intention of ever selling it, altered my perceptions about myself as a craftsman, turning me into an artist.

This was such a huge alteration of identity. It made me feel more sure of myself as a teacher, and gave me the confidence to promote my beading workshops far beyond the walls of my studio/shop. I traveled to many states, teaching at conferences, for bead shops and guilds, branching out to teach beading to quilters and fiber artists, eventually even teaching at art schools. All in all, Beads Indeed!, in Seattle turned into a pretty decent business. I could afford to eat out now and then, plus travel to far away places, like China, Germany, and Eastern Europe, on bead-buying trips.

Those 10 years, immersed in beads, with a growing sense of myself as an artist, gave me the confidence to begin writing books about beading, which in turn, provided another source of income, income I would need after moving from Seattle to San Juan Island, where I could no longer depend on selling beads to support myself because the population base was so small.

Marriage Bag, a small purse I made while deciding if I should marry Robert

That move, in 1998, was because I met Robert Demar, who a few years later became my husband. He already lived on San Juan Island, which was a plus for me, because I love it here, much more than living in a big city, even though Seattle is quite nice as cities go. After we married, I still traveled widely and fairly frequently to teach beading workshops, but I needed to fill the time when I was home and also needed to earn more money. The answer came easily... write books about beading! My first book, One Bead at a Time, was published in 2000, and was re-printed 3 times. Including two small booklets, there are currently nine books with my name as the author.

My first book, published in 2000

My most recent book, published in 2013

I guess my business identity, for the past 41 years, can be summarized as: "teacher-artist-author." But, in the last two years, it's been mostly "artist," with much less teaching and no further book writing. Business income has dwindled to a pittance, I'm 74 years old, and I don't enjoy the record-keeping. Even my accountant agreed. So today I pulled the plug on Atkins Creations - Beads Indeed!

Already there are new questions facing me, questions such as:

1. What shall I do with the remaining inventory of my book, Heart to Hands Bead Embroidery?
2. Shall I keep paying for my website (my domain name and web service), which includes my primary email address, and which badly needs to be updated?
3. Shall I continue teaching now and then, maintaining the necessary supplies to do so?
4. Can I immerse myself in creating things (quilts, art, bookmaking, beading, etc.), with no intention of doing anything with the things I create, not using them as examples when I teach, and not selling them?
5. And, of course, there's the question at the top of this post.... who am I now?

Home, one in a series of bead embroidery pieces about gratitude

Charles (Charlie) Tennyson has been appointed Princeton’s new director of Transportation and Parking Services following a national search to fill the position. He previously served for five years as deputy director of the department.

Alban Forcione, an internationally renowned scholar of 17th-century literature of “Golden Age” Spain, the Walter S. Carpenter Jr., Professor of Language, Literature and Civilization of Spain, Emeritus, and Princeton alumnus, died Sept. 14 at age 82.

Gilbert Harman, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, died at his home in Princeton on Nov. 13 after a long illness with Alzheimer’s. He was 83.

The new producing artistic director of the theater and music theater season at the arts center sat for an interview for our ‘What I think’ series.

Eric Franklin Wood, a world-renowned hydrologist who did groundbreaking work in drought prediction and served on the Princeton faculty for 43 years, died from cancer in Brooklyn, New York, on Nov. 3. He was 74.

Jacques R. Fresco, the emeritus Damon B. Pfeiffer Professor in the Life Sciences and an emeritus professor of molecular biology, died on Dec. 5. He served on Princeton's faculty for 53 years before retiring in July 2013.

Arden helped usher computers into widespread use and played a key role in establishing Princeton's Department of Computer Science.

Ronald Surtz, professor of Spanish and Portuguese languages and literatures, emeritus, died peacefully at home in Cranbury, New Jersey, on Nov. 14. He was 75.

Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, a Princeton alumna and current Hodder Fellow who's a composer, vocalist and scholar, has come full circle since the day she sat in a McCarter audience 10 years ago and made a wish to one day be up on that stage. 

Hale Freeman Trotter, an emeritus professor of mathematics, died at 91 at his home in Princeton, New Jersey.

Austin Newton, a founding member of the Department of Molecular Biology, established a new experimental system and mentored generations of undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He died May 13 in Princeton at age 85.

Daniel Osherson, Princeton’s Henry R. Luce Professor in Information Technology, Consciousness, and Culture, Emeritus, known for his  creative scientific explorations with collaborators in many disciplines, died at home on Sept. 4. 

As the James Webb Space Telescope delights stargazers with breathtaking images and groundbreaking discoveries, we connected with Princeton astrophysics luminaries Gillian “Jill” Knapp and Neta Bahcall, both contributors to a new book by women astronomers.

Simon Morrison, author of the new musical biography "Mirror in the Sky,” is a professor of music and Slavic languages and literatures, and a sought-after lecturer in the humanities.

The book joins others by Princeton faculty on The New Yorker list of the year’s best. Jarrett gives a talk at Labyrinth Books on Thursday, Nov. 3.

Hisashi Kobayashi, whose steady leadership as dean guided Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science through a rapid expansion of programs and facilities in the late 1980s and early 1990s, died on March 9. He was 84.

“His mathematical legacy is enormous,” said John D’Angelo *76. “Joe was among the most friendly, popular and influential mathematicians of his generation.”

Hubbard, the top-ranking information technology administrator at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will join the University in January.

Two full professors and four assistant professors have been newly appointed to the Princeton University faculty.

Lisk taught biology at Princeton for 30 years before transferring to emeritus status in 1990.

The Princeton University Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of 14 faculty members, including two full professors, two associate professors and 10 assistant professors.

The Princeton University Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of 22 faculty members, including five full professors, one associate professor and 16 assistant professors.

CSDP brings voices from across the political spectrum into conversation with Princeton social scientists and students. 

ⓒ keico has added a photo to the pool:

'roid week 2024, day 1

found old polaroids and i didn't even remember these existed.

tataata has added a photo to the pool:

The Program in Visual Arts presents an exhibition of recent work created by students in the fall course, "Painting I," taught by Pam Lins and Colleen Asper. Gallery Hours: Weekdays, 7 AM-8:30 PM; Weekends, 9 AM-8:30 PM.

Join the Study Abroad team at Princeton to learn about undergraduate summer study abroad opportunities!

Exhibition co-curated by Princeton professor Deana Lawson and Michael Famighetti, editor-in-chief of Aperture magazine. Featuring work by 23 artists who explore the poetics of photography, its instability, and its latent potential. Hurley Gallery open daily 10 AM - 8 PM. Gallery closed 11/28-12/1 for Thanksgiving; reopens 12/2-5.

The Program in Visual Arts presents an exhibition of recent work created by students in the fall course, "Painting I," taught by Pam Lins and Colleen Asper. Gallery Hours: Weekdays, 7 AM-8:30 PM; Weekends, 9 AM-8:30 PM.

The Program in Visual Arts presents an exhibition of recent work created by students in the fall course, "Painting I," taught by Pam Lins and Colleen Asper. Gallery Hours: Weekdays, 7 AM-8:30 PM; Weekends, 9 AM-8:30 PM.