Make It Yourself – Beaded Alphabet
Recently I purchased an entire set of “Make It Yourself” books — 20 volumes of neat 70s projects, including knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery, rugs, crafts, and of course…..macrame. These were published by Columbia House in 1973 and each volume came with it’s own folder of full-sized patterns — all the other patterns are in the books. My set has all of the patterns and an index — it’s so great. This cute beaded alphabet is from volume 14.
My sister and I each made a beaded hippie purse out of a car shammy and tons of seed beads. I thought it was difficult because the shammy kept stretching so the rows were hard to keep even. She and I made so many projects out of Woman’s Day and Family Circle magazines when I first moved to Seattle in 1970. My favorites were these styrofoam heads we covered in paper mache, molded to create facial features and painted — I think they were supposed to be wig holders, but I used mine to hold my giant headphones. Although it was not planned, my head ended up looking a lot like Bette Davis. Here’s a photo of Bette on top of my first television — a black and white tube “portable” from the Goodwill that I painted and wallpapered.
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jan wrote,
Martha, I love that alphabet! I have always admired Native beadwork and this is kind of a mod twist on traditional! I think I may have to ‘monogram’ something!
Your TV is really cute. I can just picture your Bette with giant headphones!
Link | November 4th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Ann wrote,
That’s a COOL TV! And Bette is neat too! What kind of music did she prefer?
I like this alphabet and the instructions they give are make it look easy. They would make a GREAT monogram for a book bag! If I got pink, orange, and purple beads, my third grader is THERE!
Link | November 5th, 2009 at 6:26 am
Becky wrote,
I saw this and thought of Jan’s campfire girl dress. She had to sew all the beads she earned on in some sort of decorative pattern.
Love the ‘bette davis’ head. That would come in handy for modeling knitted hats!
Link | November 5th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Bunny wrote,
sweet!
Link | November 5th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Cheryl wrote,
Thank you for sharing this! I want to give it a try right now…to bad there are presents to be made and this will need to wait
Link | December 4th, 2009 at 4:45 pm