I decide to whip up a new medicine bag - a present, which requires seed bead decoration of the kind you see on beaded moccasins and such. In the past I did my own seed bead trimming but when I wanted bead rosette,I'd just buy them. But feeling my new-year oats, I decided I'd make my own rosettes this go-round. "After all", I decided, "how hard difficult could that be?"
Infamous last words, I assure you.
So falsely emboldened, I set about teaching myself to sew seed bead rosettes. My first try was a shriveled little mustard blot I abandoned nearly at the onset. My second try was lopsided and let's face it - miserable.
The colorful rosette above is not a star, but an Edelweiss flower. It looks a tad off in the photo but actually, when smoothed out & de-bucked, the tiny seed beads lie all squared up and even. When done, I cut the felt around the rosette and sewed it onto a deerskin suede leather medicine bag I made for a friend. The finished bag has tassels of red abalone shell & quartz beads hung at the bottom of pipestem bone.
Here is the Edelweiss bag and its mate, with a Raven rosette. Both bags have peyote bead tubes on the end of their straps. That was fun re-learning peyote beading. The bags have red abalone tassels at their bottoms and seed bead decorations along their tops.
Hum.. seems the project Muse is alive and well after all.
