Small Things

About ten or eleven years ago, I had just begun to discover and play around with the sparkling fibers for needlepoint that would make wonderful "jewel" effects. At the same time, I found a great source of pictures of antique jewelry featuring bugs of all kinds. Soooo, loving bugs and butterflies, "jeweled" bugs evolved from that, but, as usual, I ended up with a drawer/closet shelf/box full of the things I had no idea what to do with. Vikki used to like to go through these items and snag a few to take home to experiment with in her fabulous finishing. This picture is of a small, sparkling and saucy looking evening bag she made with a little rectangle of black canvas featuring a jeweled butterfly - and, of course, beads on the openwork background. She added the fringe she made with faceted black beads on the bottom for added personality. I am loving this thing, and wish I had a party to go to - wearing a little black dress, of course. (I don't think this would be as effective as it was 40 years ago.) Anyway, I tired after several years of producing these things for the commercial needlepoint market, and put away the patterns and pictures. Lately, however, as I have had such great response from the laces, trims, and ribbons I have done, I am thinking I could also offer the butterflies and bugs (and even a spider or two) as "e-patterns" on my web page that people could do for themselves and bypass the expense of the painted canvas - and also my labor. E-patterns are a new thing to me, and I think they are great - the expense is cut to a minimum, as it is a do-it-yourself project, eliminating the high price of painted canvas, and also the additional cost of the shipping, etc. They are delivered by e-mail in PDF form so can simply be printed out at home. If you spill coffee on one, you can print out another one. It's time, I think, to go dig in the boxes and the back of the filing cabinet again to see what else I can find - maybe even a trip to Vikki's house.