diana taylor makes ficklesticks for fancy necklaces, corsages and bracelets at stickballstudio in berkeley . bend , wrap, weave and wear!

Fabric and wire Jewelry for the tree, and a famous wreath-sort of

 Bodacious Matisse-y style stars with attitude. Great on the tree or as a pendant (shown here on a cord of black rubber tubing)  $12 ea.

Swirly Spiral Angels flitting about on ethereal tulle angel wings, hanging from a sprung paper clip. $15. 8" tall. They also make a great pin. 

 

One of my white floral wire and fancy beaded snowflakes. All different all $11. This is what the wire looks like naked!! 

 

 

 

My priceless cutting room scraps  in those wonderful jewel tones and wild patterns, immortalized in glass balls from Michael's with a bit of glitter skittering about inside.  $4.50 ea. $48/doz. These are actual ficklesticks trimmings and pieces too short to really use for much else.

 

 Yay! I love these skinny little santas. They can dangle insouciantly from your Christmas tree or join hands for a charming garland. Bendable, poseable, they come bearing not gifts, but smiles. Assorted patchwork body of  reds, greens, turquoises, fuschias and oranges, mostly red caps, a soft wooly beard. $17.10" in height. They make cute holiday pins, too.

 
My gorgeous loopy wreath made famous by Quilting Arts Gifts Magazine! Now actually for sale at Gallery 26 in Little Rock. Beautiful assortment of teals, chartreuses, pine and olive greens with big fat holly berries.  

Next up are these charming red, fuschia and orange patchwork candy canes, twirled into a real sweet treat  for the tree. Hanging from coordinating sprung paper clips, one of my regular jewelry motifs. $7.00 ea $84/doz. Also weaqrable as a pendant or pin. 

Fabric Necklaces Bib-Style Extravaganzas

OK, I resisted long enough. I decided to SEW some of my bits together for some pretty stunning BIB STYLE necklaces.

 

 

 

 I usually prefer to attach my jewelry bits together with paperclips, rubber tubing, pony tail holders and ribbons. Sewing can be so, well, TIME Consuming. Not everyone loves my attachments, and I had seen some pretty fetching rosettes made into bibs online in a couple of ETSY stores. They were pretty sweet, but monochromatic, mostly.

I think too many colors and too much color saturation is just about right. Oh, and be sure to mix in some stripes, and polka dots...And metallics and silks.

These are not meant as real bibs, of course, but as alluring neck ornamentation extraordinaire. I used former bangle bracelets, motifs from other necklaces including daisies, and orphan earrings and lots of new medallions in the creation of these tasty ones. Their adjustable, but stationary neckbands hold them in place deliciously and artfully. $145 and Bracelets are available too.

                                                                            Check out the metallics and silks.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Ms Ficklesticks collaborate again...

I started with the circles of Ficklesticks, wove in the crossing sticks and then stitched on the medallions, which are my regular motifs for my fabric jewelry.

Even I didn't know where I was going with this. I looped aned wove a sort of fence together and then stitched the circular "flowers" onto it.

 

 

IT'S ART

Yay, I always wanted to be an artist.

Frank Lloyd Wright's influence is clearly evident in these Wall Circles and Fences, n'est-ce pas? I can't imagine another medium that would be able to create these really pretty fantastic looped and rolled fabrications. Glass, wood, ceramic and even metal would have to be further embellished with paint to achieve the effects of the  fabrics in use here. Thank goodness for the wire inside that keeps it all together (and a little sewing!)

Notice also how the saturated colors are further energized by stripes and dots and other prints.  Even Kaffe Fassettcan be spotted if you look carefully.  Metallic fabrics and silk dupioni add to the textural interest.

 

 

Bouncy Balloons Necklace, Candy Store Necklace, Echinacea, Ball and Paperclips, Loop de Loo

Loop de Loo Necklace. Yeah you saw it right.

It is made from Ficklesticks and ponytail holders.

It looks great with EVERYTHING.. The back neck cord makes it adjustable and opens and closes for wearing.

$46+$5 shipping. All bright and wonderful fabrics, no two exactly alike, but all very similar. 

 

 

Ball and Paperclips Necklace kind of lets you forget you are in the office today. Hook your ID badge to it, or your readers. Fabric and wire makes up the twisted balls. $42 + $5 shipping. Bodacious jewel toned fabrics and colored paperclips.

  

 

 

 

Daisy Necklace

daisy, daisy give me your answer, do

$21 + $5 shipping. All different, but usually jewel tones with black and white accents, sometimes a bit of a metallic fabric , too. The sculpte Ficklesticks daisies hang from an elastic black neck cord. They look great with everything.

 

Bouncy Balloons Necklace, just posted to Etsy this  morning, too Must admit that I got the idea for using balloons from my Granddaughter, Maddie. She is a balloon animal maven. She once made more money at a street fair selling balloon animals (she was about 6) than I did selling my "art". It is listed at $62+$5 shipping. Available by paypal. One of a kind, but I can make more.

Echinacea Necklace just Bloomed on Etsy this Morning

Gorgeous! It hangs magically and mysteriosly around your neck with a practically invisible string

 

The magenta and purple 'coneflower'  is about 5" in diameter, necklace 31" in all. $54+$5 shipping. Call 415-690-0090 or email me to order. Pay by paypal if you like, check or card.

Candy Store Necklace just listed on Etsy this morning too uses 'black licorice and hard candy. Actually black rubber tubing and my fabulous Ficklesticks medallions $38+$5 shipping. This one is like wearing a mobile around your neck!

You can adjust it at the back, and wear it with practically anything. Or better yet, learn to make your own ficklesticks in my book, Fast, Fun and Easy Fabric Ficklesticks, C&T Publishing. Come buy one at the next two shows I will be at: Trinity Valley in Ft. Worth and Red River Revel Quilt show in Shreveport.

Fabric Jewelry with Balloons, Paperclips, Rubber Tubing, Wire

Interweave Press, new best friend, CLOTH PAPER SCISSORS, MIU, Long Beach et al

At last. I am back blogging like a good little crafty entrepreneur. If I could tell you all how many times in the last 4 months someone told me to get on Etsy, start a blog, promote myself on Facebook or Twitter! Like they think I am some kind of grandma that never heard of any of it. Well, actually I do all of the above except twitter.  What WORKS is going to quilt festivals, doing demos and workshops and getting magazine articles published about Ficklesticks, because that drives people to my website, and cash into my register. DUH!  Interweave Press is my new best friend! They published an article about my Fickle Flowers in April's Cloth Paper Scissors magazine and another in Studios this month. As soon as the mags hit the stands, my web traffic revs up. I LOVE THOSE GUYS! I have managed to get booth space right around Make It University in Long Beach July 24-27, and I may be teaching one or more mini workshops there, too.YAY. 

Round about Little Rock ARK, people are starting to check out the Fickles! I am selling my work in the new Arkansas Studies Institute Gallery which features Arkansas artists. Found out I sold a necklace to an old advertising buddy from way back who didn't realize I was the artist! WEIRD. I am also starting to sell a bit of work at the Farmers Market in North Little Rock, the only farmers market that requires its farmers to actually grow the stuff they sell, and offer organics. It seems like a miniature Berkeley CA!   I will be showing kids how to make things with Ficklesticks at the Laman Library on July 14, and doing another demo at Ellie's Bead shop in North Little Rock on July 17 during Gallery Walk. I AM STILL trying to get into the Hot Springs Quilt Festival mid July. I will let you know about that one.

Just back from a big trip to Baltimore, DC, my hometown of Lafayette IN, and Lawrence, Kansas. Thanks to Carly at Webfabrics in Purcellville, VA (near DC) I had a couple of fun demos. I also got to see an extraordinary exhibit of Amish Quilts at the Textile Museum in DC and the Quilt Extravaganza in Chantilly.  In Baltimore, I visited Hampden, and the Visionary Art Museum, both of which made me feel pretty normal after all. In Lafayette, we pilgrimaged Arni's Pizza (where they still cut it in squares) and the Frozen Custard. AH, just like I remember it when we cruised the place in my Rambler in the 60s. In Lawrence, we sprawled at the condo and I visited Sarah's, where I got a few snippets of some Kaffe Fassette.

ENCORE CAREERS?Soda Jerk to Ms Ficklesticks? Stuffed pigs anyone? The boat is sailing AWAY

I am pretty sure that my life has been a series of encore careers. If any of these jobs could actually be called CAREERS. Some of these jobs I wasn't even very good at.

• Soda Jerk Goodnight's Drug Store
• Cashier at Kresge's
• Collection Agent for Sears
• ID checker at Military chow hall in Spain
• Crafter
• Owner of Granny's Fan
• Waitress at Juanita's
• Telemarketer for Leisure Arts
• Ad salesperson for alt weekly Spectrum
• Sales Mgr for Little Rock Free Press
• Ad Exec for Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• Real Estate Agent
• Insurance Agent
• owner of Stickball

My first job was working a soda fountain in a drug store. Yeah, I was a soda-jerk. After that I went to work in a discount retailer and forerunner to K-Mart- Kresge's. I operated one of those old fashioned cash registers where you had to type in all the prices, including memorizing all the weekend specials. Yikes. Lucky thing I was young then. Then on to ollections for Sears. Good times.

Stay-at-home mom actually was my longest running job. Although in those 12 years,  and with four kids to referee, I started a little company called Granny's Fan. I designed soft sculpture items made from rescued quilts, embroidery work and doilies, and sold the one-of-a-kind angels and farm animals, cats and pillows to the likes of Macy's, Bloomingdale's and FAO Schwartz. If you had a couple of good ideas back in the 80's you could make some headway going to market and taking orders, hiring showrooms and road reps to sell your wares. Only the stores ever contacted me directly, not the general public. It was always sort of like a big secret where the stores got their stuff.

Then China opened up. The Internet came of age.

I started Stickball. I invented lots of cool stuff. Cactus with a Frank Lloyd Wright inspiration, giant stuffed fruits, groovy stick people, Retro wire-armed dolls, jewelry, weavings and the rest of the Ficklesticks empire. I wrote a book and got it published and I've written a few magazine articles. I have secured booth space at juried craft festivals and quilt festivals. I am on wholesalecrafts.com. I have my own website. I've tried selling on etsy. I teach workshops and talk to guilds. With all this effort, I am pretty sure I only have about one foot in the boat, and maybe it is about to sail off without me.

I am sort of at a loss. If someone wants a stuffed pig, all they have to do is google it, visit etsy or ebay, find a cheap one from China, or download a free pattern somewhere. They don't even have to visit a real store. This is all find and dancy, but I want them to FIND ME! HELP I JUST FELL OFF THE BOAT I THINK! Throw me an oar

Houston, Kaffe Fassett and World Traveling Ficklesticks

It was all I hoped it would be and MORE! So many visual delights, so much creative energy. It was overwhelming. 

We  did great! And by we, I mean Ms Ficklesticks and my most able assistant Ms Freep. We did a most excellent job of spreading the gospel of Ficklesticks. We sold boxes of books, kaboodles of supplies and armloads of bracelets, necklaces and pins. Magazines want articles written, guilds and shops want Ficklesticks shows and workshops. Perhaps there will even be a spot for me on The Quilt Show in the not-too-distant future!

Kaffe Fassett visited and proclaimed Ms Ficklesticks a kindred spirit. Bits of his fantastic fabrics are recognizable in my work, as small as they are! It is difficult for me to take full advantage of his really luscious and magnificent larger flowers and such, due to the teenyness of ficklesticks, but I do incorporate his smaller prints and especially his unexpectedly-hued polka dots, using them to beautiful effect, I think. One of these days I will make another quilt, and use some of those larger blooms, making it an all day every day Kaffe Fassett quilt.

Liza Prior Lucy (his quilt maker) bought one of my most fabulous necklaces. I love it when my babies go to good homes!

Jewelry and books have by now reached South America, Australia, Europe and Japan. Missionaries are spreading the gospel!

We created (on the spot and between customers), a "Where's the Pumpkin Toss" tiara for an annual tiara competition, a prize-winning quilter wore it and took home an honorable mention!

The quilts were amazing, of course!  I was surprised to see even a small Burning Man wall quilt. Five or six years ago, I actually brought a quilt to Burning Man in a frame and quilted it by hand under our shade structure in the heat of the day when most Burners are lolling about like fat lizards. A marshall from the Bureau of Land Management patrolling our "street", ( looking no doubt for illicit drug use or sex in public) squealed on her brakes and jumped out of her 4 wheel drive vehicle to take a gander at my quilt, proclaiming "why, now THAT is something I never thought I would  see at Burning Man!" A much more common sight indeed would be a scantily clad, dust-covered, fire-twirling, cool neon wrappped twenty-something, navigating in near total darkness on a unicycle between the thunderdome and center camp. Visit burningman.com to see exactly what I mean.

I am officially moved back to Little Rock. Mr. Cakes, my new husband, is very patient with me and my messes. I am getting anxious to get my workspace set up in our new (remodeled older) home which should be ready in about 3 weeks.

Off to Alabama later this week, and Front Porch Quilts in Ozark AL, and my parents in Dothan.

There were a passel of political quilts that I loved, some gorgeous abstracts, and

I taught two bracelet workshops at the back of the quilt hall

Des Moines is des plus pour mme fickelsticks

Ficklesticks: The Full Monty, was a great success in Des Moines!  Thanks to all of the quilters who came from Omaha, Illinois, Alaska, Nebraska, Kansas City and all over Iowa, and swooped into my booth, in wave after wave. I was on a corner just before the Iowa Quilts room, situated in a spot that would be hard to miss. Lucky for me, it was a last minute cancelation. I am so grateful I was able to get picked for it!  

Although some of my jewelry is pretty big and bright, I sold a a bunch of it at the show! One customer wore one of my favorite new necklaces, -the "Swirly Girl"- all over the show and then out to dinner in Des Moines and was asked at every turn about the piece. One of the vendors from Indiana wore a new "Ponytail"  necklace in her booth and directed quilters over to me.  Another exhibitor, who volunteers as a clown in a children's cancer ward, bought a giant woven flower necklace and an outrageous Ficklesticks Zoot Suit Necktie for wearing there! The International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln, NE, left with several bracelets and corsages and necklaces for their new gift shop. I think that will be a great spot for my patchwork fabric and wire jewelry. I am anxious to see how they do with it. I even sold a heart pin my "swirly girl" cutomer created while she was standing there. I guess I owe her $10!  I think I will make some more before Houston!

I sold about 100 of my book-Fast Fun and Easy Fabric Ficklesticks, about 80 pounds of my 36" white, cloth-covered florist wire (running out on the morning of the last day!), buckets of turners, needlenose pliers and kits. 

I am busily making more jewelry over the next two days in my new husband's living room in the old house in Little Rock. I am a little lower on inventory than I wanted to be going into Houston! At least my sewing machine and car are here now, after having driven across country through California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and finally Arkansas. WHEW. I return to CA on Wednesday to pack my ABF U-Pack modules, including my sewing stuff which will go into storage for a while.  I will leave Berkeley on the 25th, fly back to Little Rock and then drive down to the Houston show, returning to Little Rock in time for Mr. Cakes's birthday on November 3.  Presumably our new (old) house will be ready to move in soon! Otherwise, I may have to buy some more FABRIC while my stash languishes in storage! I am giving some thoughts to some wall quilts with ficklesticks, an idea that has been rolling around in my head for a while...That would be just TERRIBLE (not).

Ms Ficklesticks

Nine Eleven wedding

Ms Fickelsticks has been busy teaching Ficklesticks making, planning a move, securing booth space in various quilt festivals, picking out a house and GETTING MARRIED. Mr. Cakes was so incredibly eager to get married! He picked me up at the airport in the pouring down rain from Hurrican Ike (which pounded Arkansas for a couple more days!) and marched me straight to city hall for the marriage license.  Being chief of vital records for Arkansas, he naturally had a couple of questions for the person supplying the document!OMG we had only 60 days to complete the task. Forget December. How about next week?

So wearing paisley, on September 11, before Gustav headed our way, we married on the sunny back deck of Vino's-- our favorite watering hole and Arkansas's first micro brewery. Fifty friends and family watched Mr Cakes without hesitation or blunder and me choked up and sniveling make our twenty-years-in-the- coming vows. Retired justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court and member of the LIttle Rock Wind Symphony, David Newbern,  married us and although we had requested "here comes the bride" on the tuba, he thought we were joking.  So, instead the crowd hummed da da da da as I marched out to the deck with my former neighbor, Wayne Simpson. He performed the dual role of father of the bride and maid of honor. Though often silly, he is the finest voicer of organ pipes there is, and a  true and loyal friend.  (visit nicholsandsimpson.com). Best man was Mary Cameron, another fine attorney, and friend of both the bride and groom, pitch-hitting for Ms Ficklesticks for symphony dates and such while I was in CA. She is also the person who warned Mr Cakes 18 years ago that I might just leave him if he didn't straighten up. Which, of course I did when I moved to California 5 years ago. Flower girl was Dotty Oliver, the publisher of Arkansas Free Press, my former boss, and a flower child if ever there was one. Paul Shell and others took special pride in knowing that the nudging they did was finally paying off. Pizza and Vino's' famous India Pale Ale and other brews were enjoyed by all. A very charming wedding it was indeed. I did wear one Ficklesticks necklace.

I left for California on Saturday. I resigned from my job at Stonemountain and Daughter within the week. Funny, I don't feel married yet.