Beaded Hatband, 08.16

Create

Aug 20

I always find inspiration when I get out of town and have the time to see things and explore, and the Southwest is one of my favorite places to find this inspiration. On my recent vacation, I loved looking at the Native American vendor’s beadwork but my brain would always say “Lets do that.”, so rather than buying a piece I ended up buying the stuff to make it when I got back home. Granted if this is only a one-off piece it would have been cheaper to just buy it there, but I always get more out of it when I DIY, so this will be a quick post about that.

On one stop I bought a new hat, actually my first Stetson, and my first shaped wool hat other than the traditional German Alpine hat my folks bought me when we went to Germany when I was 12 or 13.

I did look through almost every vendor booth along the way for a hat band while I was in the four-corners region. Lots of necklaces, bracelets and earrings, but no hat bands. So that settled it – I’ll DIY.

One trip to a local bead shop (actually a jewelry/lapidary supply) up in Westminster got me headed in the right direction, which was actually to Michaels. Hey, they sell more than dust collectors and odd fabric patterns!

So, after a bad start due to not reading any instructions, I spent 30 minutes on YouTube and started over on my first bead loom project.

What’s next??? I can see applying this process to a landscape photograph, perhaps along the same lines as my geometric anza painting. I look forward to seeing where this exploration leads.

Update - as I'm reposting this into a new blog platform I'm adding a few more pieces that I've explored since that first piece.