My Froggy of Friendship

    

     Now that Spring is here, it is time to show you my latest bead embroidery effort.  It is special to me because when I look at it, I think of the friends who were involved in it's making.  A few years ago, my friend Stephney Hornblow gave me a stuffed, toy frog left from a challenge among her beading circle in Barton-under-Needwood, England.  Stephney had opened a seam in each animal toy, removed the sand inside, and replaced it with a lighter stuffing; then each group member chose an animal and covered it with beads.

Froggy with no beads

     As soon as I saw the frog among my choices of toy animals, I knew what I wanted to do.  Years ago, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden had done a topiary frog and I was reminded of that botanical creation when my friend Suzanne and I ran across a succulent topiary cat as we were walking to the studio of our friend Stephanie Tomalin.  So I immediately thought of doing a succulent frog in beads when I was offered my choice of animals.

Succulent cat in progress

     In 2016, I had fun shopping for shaped beads that reminded me of the leaves of succulent plants while visiting the booths of my friend Beki Haley of Whim Beads, Betcey Ventrella of  Beyond Beadery, and Leslie Pope of Twisted Sistah Beads and Fibers. 

     Professional and family commitments kept me from starting on the frog until last year, but I finally had a chance to start the embroidery- 3 times.  The oft-forgotten truth of doing something new is that it might require many tries until you are happy with the results.  When I got to the point where I wasn't sure what I had, I was grateful that my friends Nikia Angel of Bead Gypsies and Judith Schwab of Bodacious Beads independently gave me encouragement.  It's always nice to have others let you know that you are on the right track!
      I started the embroidery with the most important part: the "succulents" on the back of the frog; the next step was to fill in around each "plant."

The start of the "succulents"

        I started sewing lines of beads to mimic the wire structure of a topiary but it didn't work, so I sewed a line of green beads along the seam of the toy between top and bottom to lend some definition.

Outlining the shape with beads

     After that, I figured out smaller groups of "plants" for the limbs and then the "greenery" for the feet.

Smaller plants on limbs and filling in the moss

     My plan had been to do a taller "plant" to fill in between the "succulents," but longer "leaves" obscured the fun groups of beads, so the shorter "plant" won out.

Filling in the head

     For the bottom of the topiary frog, I played with varying the length of the fringe for the "moss" to give it more interest, but I couldn't resist a "volunteer plant" because you know that real plants love to keep spreading.

The "moss" on the bottom of the frog

     To top it off, Don took a photo of the frog socks for sale at the New York Botanical Garden's shop because they complemented my new frog so well.

Now Froggy sits front and center in the china cabinet to remind me of the positive force of beadwork in my life.

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR BEADS? WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

The smoky beads in question

    
      Getting ready for the Bead and Button show reminded me that I had a post to write about how to remove the smell of cigarette smoke from glass beads.  It all started when I was packing some new beads that I wanted to take to Bead Fest Spring the weekend before the show.  I opened the sealed plastic package on some brand new Czech beads and recoiled at the smoke smell coming from the bag.  Yikes, I can't use these as is!  A web search revealed some suggestions, so here are the results of my experimentation:

Airing out the offending beads:  great method if you have a year or two.

Placing in baking soda:

     I placed baking soda in a container, added the beads, covered the beads with baking soda, and left it overnight.  Sniffing the beads left me confused: was the smell any fainter?  I really couldn't tell.


Washing the beads:  Then I got smart and asked our own bead guru, Beki Haley of Whim Beads, who suggested that I wash them.  Following her suggestions, I put some water (maybe 3-4 cups or around 800 milliliters) in a small bowl with some unscented dish-washing liquid and a small amount of ammonia.  Sorry, I don't remember amounts but it wasn't a lot of either.

     Now the important part: I removed the string from the beads because it had also absorbed the smoke smell.  Heck, it probably soaked up more smoke than the glass beads.  Then the loose glass beads went into the bowl and let soak for a while; 10 minutes did it for my beads.  I did swish them around a bit.

Beads soaking in dish-washing liquid and ammonia

 

 

After that, I drained the beads and rinsed them in clean water.

 

 

 

The last step was to simply leave my smoke-free beads on a paper towel to dry.

 

     This method won't work on beads that are damaged by water, but it sure worked well on glass beads.  I also read a suggestion that you put the beads in with a dryer sheet but many people wouldn't like to receive beads smelling of fragrance either.  Spraying the beads with Fabreeze, as someone else suggested, would only mask the odor.
     Then end of the story was that my wholesaler knew about the smoke problem from other customers and was returning the shipment to the manufacturer.  He sent me replacement beads but I was able to take my squeaky-clean beads to Bead Fest Spring in the meantime.