My First Silk Purse

This week, I wanted to share with you my first silk purse that I learned to make in a class by a fantastic Albuquerque artist, Cindy Chavez. Cindy's motto for the class is "there aren't any rules" - and that's difficult for a beadweaver like me to grasp. Well, I gave it my best shot and here it is. I must admit, it's amazing!

Cindy asks us to choose two colors for our silk (one for the outside, one for the liner) and then she orders the fabric from us from her favorite silk merchant. From there, all we needed to bring to class were the beads and bead mixes we wanted to use on our purse. I chose Czech glass bead accents for the binding and pintucks. For the focal bead, I purchased a beautiful wave jasper domed cabachon from My Gem Garden (an awesome eBay store that I recently discovered). I used bead embroidery to secure the cab to the purse flap, and embellished with more Czech glass and pressed glass leaves. She provided the needles, stiff foundation fabric, pattern template, and coordinating thread for our project - and off we went! I can't believe this started as a flat pile of fabrics!

















I think I'm going to give this to our son's sweetheart (who just graduated with her nursing degree and recently passed her board exams - let's hear some snaps for Angela!).

If you get a chance, click on Cindy's student creations link to see what YOU can create. Cindy sells kits for her beautiful embroidered cuffs. You can see her work in various publications, such as Belle Armoire Jewelry. Look for her again this fall when her designs are featured in Haute Handbags.