As I fringed two new woven scarves earlier today, I was thinking about beaded embellishments that I've added to some knit and woven items in the past. Occasionally I will do this to jazz up a piece. Here are a few samples...These first two pieces are knit purses I did a few years ago, as part of a guild project to make purses or bags for a display at the annual CNCH conference (Conference of Northern California Handweavers). The orange bag is silk, the blue is wool, and both are handspun by me, of course.
The beaded fringe below is on a shawl I made out of silk hankies -- the piece is hand dyed, handspun, handwoven in a twill block pattern, and hand beaded. I've just entered this piece in the Dallas Handweavers Guild show opening in April, so if you're in the Dallas area, stop by and see it (the whole shawl, not just the fringe!).
This last piece is a beautiful shawl I knit from a beloved moorit romney fleece about 10 years ago. It was a pattern that I'd had since the early 1970s that I once knit for my grandmother out of commercial knitting worsted -- and I'd always wanted to use that pattern again on a shawl for myself. Rather than putting on traditional hanging fringe, which I don't always care for anyway on knitted items, I embedded beads along the garter stitch borders.
I really enjoy looking for unusual ways to use up some of the beautiful beads I've collected over the years since I made beaded jewelry. I wish I had more time to embellish even more things with beads. They sure look better that way than they do in their little plastic baggies!
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