I have another incredibly talented beadwork artist to share with you this week. Peggy Dembicer is an experienced mixed-media fine artist with a body of work that includes elaborate tapestry and paper weaving. But what really attracted my attention was her large-scale loomed beadwork. (Thank you to My Owl Barn, of all places, for helping me discover it.)

This wonderful vintage chip bag design is beadwork stitched entirely on a loom. It consists of 12,412 seed beads and took about 45 hours to design and weave. Its dimensions, unframed, are 7 by 10 inches. I love it!

Another of Peggy's loom designs is a tribute to Tim Burton's Mad Hatter character. Here's some detail:

The beads in each row, of course, had to be picked up one by one, in a very specific order based on Peggy's design. Look how the subtle variations in colors blend together to create the image. It's really a fine art painting done with beads.

I find Peggy's work amazingly inspiring, and I'd like to thank her for allowing me to share it here on About. Please take a few minutes to learn more about her work elsewhere on the net.

More Dembicer beadwork on Flickr:

• Homage to Michael Jackson - loomwork

• Sgt. Peggy's Lonely Hearts Club Band - loomwork

• Le Reve Reversed - bead embroidery

• Dear Antler - peyote stitch

Videos:

• The making of Dear Antler

• The making of Mad Hatter

• The making of the Michael Jackson portrait

You can also visit her entire online gallery to see Peggy's mixed media work.

Which piece is your favorite?

• Learn more about beading on a loom.

Images courtesy of Peggy Dembicer

Tune in to JTV on February 5th or 6th from 10am to noon to see an interview with Barbara Carleton of Bejeweled Software Co., maker of the popular Jewelry Designer Manager. Along with talking about her pricing and tracking software, Barbara will present Beaded Phoenix's helpful reference poster kit designed by Rosanne Andreas.

• You can watch JTV live online or on cable TV.

In the meantime, learn more about both products by reading Tammy's great reviews of the poster kit and the software.

Congratulations to Rosanne and Barbara for getting their products onto the show!

If you own the poster or the software, please take a minute to share your thoughts. Have you found them useful in your work?

Last week I decided that I wanted to whip up a bead embroidery heart tutorial for Valentine's Day. My obstacle, however, was that I didn't have any red colored backing material on hand.

Some beaders recommend the newer backings that are pre-colored, especially Nicoles's BeadBacking. I'm definitely planning to order some (and I'll let you know how that goes) -- but, for this project I needed red backing like now.

I did have some white Lacy's Stiff Stuff on hand, and happily it's dye-able. Unhappily, I had no red fabric dye, either. I rummaged through some cabinets and what I did have was red food coloring. Certain fabrics can be dyed with food coloring. The trouble is, synthetics typically cannot -- with the possible exception of nylon.

Is Stiff Stuff made of nylon? I thought it unlikely, but I experimented, just in case.

In order to dye fabrics with food coloring you need to set them first with an acid, such as vinegar. For my experiment I soaked a scrap of Stiff Stuff in a vinegar and water solution, and then added dark red food coloring and heated the whole thing up. I let it simmer awhile, and then cooled it down off the burner.

The result? A very lively pink! Like this:

Out of curiosity, I decided to check whether this result was any different from simply pouring food coloring onto the Stiff Stuff and rinsing it off -- leaving out all of those vinegar and heating steps. The result was definitely less intense:

Conclusion: Food coloring is not a good alternative to Rit for dying Stiff Stuff, unless you're looking for a very light hue.

My next move was to get out and find some Rit. (Fortunately, there is one store in town that still carries it.) I gloved up, mentally prepared myself for the mess, and went about the Rit dying process, which is:

1. Boil 2 cups of water on the stove.
2. Gradually, little by little, add 1 teaspoon of Rit powder to the pot (if you pour the entire amount in at once, the dyed boiling water will erupt).
3. Drop the Stiff Stuff into the boiling water and dye solution, and allow it to soak for 60 seconds.
4. Remove the pot from the burner, and use tongs to carefully lift out the Stiff Stuff (try not to bend the Stiff Stuff, which creates permanent creases).
5. Rinse the Stiff Stuff under cold water, and pat it dry with paper towels.
6. Lay the Stiff Stuff out flat to air dry.

Here are the results, using Rit Scarlet Red:

Success!

Another way to color Stiff Stuff is to stain it with a permanent marker. Here's a scrap I colored with a red Sharpie:

Personally, I can't get behind the marker method. It leaves gaps of white (since it only colors the surface), and it raises the fibers on the Stiff Stuff which makes it fuzzy.

Some beaders avoid the backing color issue entirely by gluing a layer of ultrasuede to the top of their backing before they stitch any beads. (We'll cover that method in an upcoming tutorial.)

Which method do you prefer?

Do you use Lacy's Stiff for bead embroidery, or have you switched to one of the pre-colored options?

I remember when Liza Lou first exhibited her beaded kitchen in 1996.  Yes, an entire beaded kitchen. I'd never seen anything like it before, and I couldn't get over the intricacy, bright sparkling colors, and (of course) scale of it all.

I also remember Lou's second big release -- a beaded backyard, complete with beaded grass and a picnic table. But after that, I didn't hear much about her until this week. I was happy to discover that she's still going strong, and even has a current exhibit in Georgia.

(On a side note, it was interesting to learn in a recent article about the exhibit that Lou developed a painful case of tendonitis in her hands after completing the beaded kitchen. I battle repetitive motion injuries myself, and I've never come close to beading an entire room.)

Her latest work arguably shows a higher level of maturity than those initial, crazy-fun displays. It includes sheets and rolls of beadwoven "paper," edgy tapestries, a field of beaded wheat, and a shimmering, golden beaded spinning wheel.

Lou currently manages studios in California and South Africa, and she has a team of assistants to help her bring her designs to life. (Fortunately, because otherwise I'm afraid her hands would be paralyzed.) Although her work is often hailed for its uniqueness, it's also been heavily criticized.

Have you ever seen Lou's work in person?

What do you think about her approach?

Would you ever take on a large-scale beaded art project?