Throwback Thursday - 2001 (Part 9)

These are the last of the tassels from my correspondence course. The first three are described as "Ethnic Tassels" and the final one is a "Unique Tassel for Fun."


Multiple Tassels on One Cord

These little two inch tassels are made of 6-strand embroidery floss. Because they are so small to work with, it was difficult to create six identical tassels. They are attached to a braided cord that I also made.

Tassel Head of Rolled Felt and Beaded Cord Skirt

Though I'm not very excited about the color choice of beads with this tassel body, I sure do like the overall look of this tassel. However, it was a very frustrating tassel to make, which had a direct correlation to how lopsided the tassel head is.

In making the twisted cord for the skirt, the instructions say to make sure those white beads are eight inches apart. That's no easy feat. One of my daughters helped me figure out a system. Then making the cord became tedious. When turning the cord into a tassel, I had to compensate at the head of the tassel for beads that hadn't landed exactly where they were meant to be, then hide the resultant mess under the wide collar.

The collar is made of a #5 perle coton. Then I added two rows of grape/purple seed beads to the top of the collar, and another row to the bottom. I think the proportion of wide collar with the seed beads is really pretty.

This tassel is about four-and-a-half inches long and made from a purpley-blue Wool Ease yarn.

Long Afghani Tassel

I thought I'd lose my mind before I got this tassel done! It took about nine hours to complete, and the techniques seemed so redundant that it was a completely frustrating experience. There were all kinds of problems:

• It was hard to hide the "knot" end of the cording in the tassel skirt as the skirt was being formed. It was difficult to tie all the skirts to the main cording.
  
• The winding of the cording with bright threads at the top of the tassel was hard because the long winding thread kept getting caught in the tassels.
  
• I broke a needle trying to get the winding thread tucked into the wound threads.
  
• The beading needle was so sharp that I kept poking myself and had to keep from getting blood on my work.
  .

Guess that's really putting blood, sweat and tears into my craft!

Overall, I think it is a weird-looking tassel and not at all worth the frustration it took to make it. Maybe it'd look better decorating a camel than on my Studio table. A web search for Afghani Tassels results with some gorgeous examples of what they can look like when made by experts.

This complex tassel contains seven two-inch tassels on a cord. The tassels are made of purpley-blue Wool Ease yarn.

Feathered Tassel

This was very quick and fun to make -- and a welcome ending to the tassel course. Especially after the frustration of the previous three tassels!

Here, the head and collar are combined in the form of the big wooden bead. Only the feathers stick out for the skirt. It looks like a miniature feather duster.

Just keep it away for kids and cats!

My next #throwbackthursday post has me returning to the cross-stitch and silk ribbon embroidery projects I completed in September 2001.