Monday 7 February 2011

How I got the bug.....

I've always been interested in making things.  Never made jam though....

Sewing is my main addiction (after belly dance of course) but I never really had the time to indulge in much in my twenties, as I had a pretty full on full time and extra hours kind of job.

After doing some travelling I came back to the UK, found myself in the library and picked up a book called Creative Bead Embroidery.  I was immediately hooked.  I don't have pictures of the very first things I made unfortunately, and would often make things for other people as gifts so there's lots of stuff hopefully still out there that I made.  I hope they didn't get thrown away....

And then we move on and I found belly dance around 8 years ago.  Here's a pic of the first bedlah (bra and belt set) I made, that is still in my collection:


Pretty clumsy but ok.....

Then when I went on maternity leave I found that I had some time on my hands and I made this:





I absolutely adore ammonites and their internal, fossilized structures.  Beautiful organic creations created by time and pressure.

My next forays into textile art included melting and burning fabrics before adding embellishment and embroidery:


And now?  Well, with two small children to look after I get very little time to experiment.  So now I'm trying to combine a number of addictions; as a designer and maker of costume items primarily for tribal and fusion belly dancers I've expanded my range to beautifully decorated cuffs which can also be worn by women who love to look beautiful, not just dancers who perform....



At the top is another ammonite inspired piece, below is a section of embroidery I did 13 years ago, bravely cut up and transformed into a piece of wearable art.  I'm pretty interested to see where this goes....I'll keep you posted.....

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