Luna's Baublebilities

Here are a few quick photos of things I've been working on recently


I got these wonderful bead caps a month or so ago and they just didn't work for any of the beads I have in stock.  Too shallow for my briolettes, too wide for any of my rounds, too small for some of the bigger beads I have . . .   But they make great tassel tops!

I've got another project in the works with coral beads and flaming red silk thread but that will have to wait a few more days.   Hand dyeing the silk thread was fun, too and I was a bit dismayed to discover how much thread I needed to use to make a fat enough tassel for thislittle bead cap.



And here are some alchemy scarves I did up as a custom wholesale order.  My customer wanted autumn colors so I dyed up some flaming warms, some thistley & plummy purples and some vibrant skies.  I'll be ironing and edging these later today and have them ready to ship tomorrow.  I've really been enjoying making this custom order, experimenting with new colors and combinations to capture some of the colors of autumn.  I'll post finished photos later this week so you can see the color shifts a little better, the wrinkling and crinkling  disguises the depth of color in each scarf.

Full moon scarfWhat a dreadful time we've had of it the last few weeks!  Back in October, I posted in my shops that I would be running a special - free shiping on orders over $30.00 - to make up for inconvenience caused by poky deliveries this fall.  I thought that my deliveries would be poky because of working so much over at the Beorningstead.

No sooner had I put up the free shipping offer than Maxx came down with h1n1.  Then I came down with it.  Then we both got better.   (HA!)    Then I developed an earache from purgatory, my head exploded and I've been unfit to drive or think or hear or talk or anything for a week and a half!  The worst part of it is that I've been so sick that I haven't even been able to work at projects - I'm just too darn dizzy.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to thread a beading needle wen the room won't stop tilting?

Anyway, I'm back to the doctor's today.  She says that the ear infection is a common complication of h1n1, I'm just worried about that fact that it didn't respond well to a course of antibiotics.

I did have a little productive time between the fever flu and the alien in my ear.  I finally finished off the scarves I had painted during summer fest.  They are set, highlighted and up in my Etsy shop right now.  I can't wait to get into my new studio where I will have a counter top just for painting silk scarves!

I also have been working on a custom order velvet scarf for a friend with a VERY lucky wife.  It is an incredible scarlet velvet with gold seed bead mesh with rich crimson goth roundelles at the bottom of each end.   I had lots of fun earlier this fall dyeing up a selection of velvets for him to choose from.  I'm only a little sad that he chose the scarlet.  I still have some purple and an incredible mallard teal to work with.

One of these days, I'll put up a tutorial for netted fringe.  It is one of my favorite things to do - it is a very simple and meditative process and usually goes pretty smoothly as long as one is careful not to get tangles in one's thread.  Ten inches of fringe usually takes me about 2 hours but the velvet is a bit trickier than a flat silk scarf would be, as the initial fringe stitch also acts as the finishing hem for the open ends of the scarf.   That requires a bit of extra time and care with pinning the edges and trying to take up the same amount of fabric on each side of the scarf with each stitch.  The first edge of this scarf took me about 3.5 hours.

You can see in this photo that I wasn't paying close enough attention to the spacing of my stitches on one side of the velvet.  This will have to come out as it makes the velvet drape poorly.  I'm very glad I caught it before I got too far along the edge!

If you love the scarf, I do have another one in sapphire blue over in my shop or I could order up some more velvet and make you any color you want!

I have a fun handmade gift project I hope to post in the next few days as well as show off the necklace I made with a beautiful Mary Harding pendant during the Beading party at the arts council.

This is the second part in my series of blog posts about planning a custom order satin or velvet devore scarf from either my Etsy or ArtFire shop.  Pattern options are found HERE.  I have a series of colorways that are well established in my studio and fairly easy to reproduce consistently. Customers may either choose from these colorways or suggest their own color combinations.

Custom color suggestions can be as vague as "I want something that has a lot of pink and purple" or as specific as listing a Pantone color or DMC embroidery floss color number you would like me to aim for.  The most sucessful colorways are made up of 3 or 4 analogous colors, which means that they remain in one quadrant of the colorwheel.  The color scheme designer is a good tool for playing with color schemes if you are not sure where to start or you can visit COLOURlovers and generate a color sceme and send me a link to the colors so that I have a strong sense of what color tones you are seeking.  Complimentary colorways can sometimes be successful if I use a blending color, like Ivory or Grey.

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Here are my established colorways with photos:  (remember that with any colorway, Satin scarves will end up paler than Velvet.)  Colorway titles and descriptions are below the photos.










Oread - a sunny sea inspired colorway with blues, purples and aquamarine.






 Cebola Church - inspired by a Georgia O'Keeffe painting, this scarf has Sage Greens, Ivory and Dusty Yellow













Iced Poppies - Cherry Charcoal, Pale Pink and Firey red




Pink Hills - another Georgia inspired colorway with Palomino Yellow,Ivory and  Coral













Helmsman - a stormy sea palette of Deep Ocean Blue, Storm Grey and Aquamarine

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I'm also working on some new colorways that still need good photographs and experimentation but are producing some good results:

Bacchus is a colorway that includes burgundy, red wine and purple.  (You can see it on velvet in the opening photo of this post.)

Maenad is also very purpley but leans further blue, starting from indigo and going through purple to reach orchid.

Watermelon Tourmaline is a colorway based on pale, gemmy tomes of amethyst, citrine and peridot.  It is pretty soft on satin but a bit bold on velvet.

Peacock is a colorway that includes a deep indigo, orchid and lots of rich brown.  It works beautifully on the swirl velvet pattern as a peacock eye pattern.    Photos coming soon!







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I've been making custom order scarves for friends and family for a while now and thought it was probably time for me to start offering them in my online shops.  This post is a reference page for anyone who wants to oder a custom satin or velvet devore scarf from me.  Want to buy one?  Click in either my Artfire shop or my LunasBaublebilities Etsy shop.

Below you will see photos of the devore designs that I have available and HERE you can see a sampling of the color palettes that I've developed.  Of course, you are welcome to submit your own color choices if you have something in mind that you don't see here.  You should send me a message if want me to create a custom color palette for you, I'll work with what you like to create a scarf whose colors blend beautifully.  The satin scarves tend to lean toward a paler color load while the velvet scarves soak up the dye like crazy and result in a very vibrant and intense color load.

Satin Devore Scarves - these scarves are rayon satin on a silk backgroubnd.  An etching acid has been silk screened on the fabric to eat away the rayon and leave the silk.  The shiny pattern is where the rayon was left on the silk.  Most of these (except Edwardian Floral) have a beautiful 6" long fringe at both ends.  All patterns are available without fringe if you prefer but that will take extra time to produce.  15 x 60- inches long.  Beautiful and luxurious!

Nouveau  Pattern  (fringed)




                                                                              Underwater Pattern (fringed)













Bamboo Pattern (fringed)








                                                            

         Edwardian Floral (no fringe!)













Velvet Scarves - These are 12 x 60 inches with 3 inches of fringe on each end - 66 inches of luxurious glamour!  Made of silk/rayon velvet,the same process is used to produce the designs as on the satin devore scarves.  These scarves are warm enough to cozy up with on a chilly autumn day and cool enough to wear through a day at the office. 


Jacobean Pattern










Swirls Pattern


















Blossom Pattern


































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