Click on an image to view the pattern information.

Cindy Fleming by Sigrid Wynne-Evans     © August 2006   Cindy Fleming has an amazing sense of color. She obviously likes to play with colors, and the results are wonderful. Don't miss "Spirals" (item 9860) for a colorful, yet sophisticated pattern. Her "Easter Egg" Pattern (item 5984) is just too cute! I really love her designs in that piece. And on the patriotic side, "1776 Flag" (item 8574) is one of the nicest beaded flags I've seen.   Cindy tells her own story very well. I will let her take over! I was born in Colorado City, Texas and grew up in El Paso. I attended the University of Texas El Paso as a music major but had to quit my senior year. I married Bill Fleming in 1972 and began a life that has involved a great many major moves. I've lived in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado (several towns there), spent a few months in North Carolina and several years in Washington State. We're now living in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area and had plans to move back to El Paso sometime this year, however we're not moving to El Paso as hoped. Bill couldn't find a job there, so I moved to where he's working; College Station, Texas.

I'm making my bead job my "day job" even though it doesn't support me---YET (maybe some day......). Bill's work supports us and he's willing to let the bead business grow into something more over time. I have to admit that I've had lots of jobs over the years but beadwork is my passion and my love.

I first got interested in beadwork in 1998 when my daughter Elizabeth began learning loomwork. She was determined that she was going to learn something Mom didn't know and I promised I wouldn't learn loomwork. So I purchased Carol Wilcox Wells first book "Creative Beadweaving" and began to learn off loom stitches. Elizabeth likes to say that she got me started in beadwork--she did! My first project was my own pattern, one I worked out as I learned tubular peyote. I still have that first bag and it ain't too lousy for a first try! I didn't move past peyote for years because I had so many ideas for patterns and designs that I didn't have time to even look at anyone else's patterns. Eventually I began exploring past the first chapter in that first book and learned every stitch in it. I always say that Carol Wilcox Wells was my first teacher (she was!). I've taken several classes in basic stringing since each one has taught me something new. I've learned wire wrapping (not my strong suit), some chain maille, and other wire work. I'm now certified as a PMC (Precious Metal Clay) instructor and am planning on learning fused glass soon. I really haven't found any aspect of beading that I don't love. I just need about a 30 hour day to cram it all in! And yes, I finally learned loomwork! (Don't tell Elizabeth, though!)

I began a contest piece just four months after I started beading. Our local shop was having a contest. The theme was Puget Sound/Pacific Northwest. I thought about a wall hanging with different scenes that were of the area. Then I thought about an umbrella. Then I thought about combining the two. (There are days I don't know what I'm getting myself into!) I bought a working doll umbrella that is about 14 inches long and removed the fabric. I covered the entire thing with woven on beads in peyote stitch, working out my own increase method as I did so. Then I wove 8 scenes in between the spokes. This project took a lot of experimentation because I really didn't know how to do what I was trying to do. But then, neither did anyone else! I look back at it now and think that the designs are too simplistic and need work. The work isn't as well finished as I would like today, but I won the local contest. A local lampwork artist was doing a trunk show in the shop during that time and encouraged me to enter the piece in the Bead and Button show in Portland in 1999. I did and although I didn't place, I was a finalist. When I compare my work to some of the other finalists that year, I'm awed that they even considered it. I do look at the umbrella once in awhile and toy with the idea of "fixing" it so that the flaws don't bother me. But those moments only last a moment. I have about 400 hours in that thing and I'm not about to seriously think about taking it apart! I'll just live with the flaws and remember how much I learned.

Sampling of Cindy's Designs:
Click on an image to view the pattern information.
 
         
 
            

Amy Kupser (another of our B-P designers) used to live in Poulsbo, Washington, where I began beading and I met her early in my beading adventure. She encouraged me to join Bead-Patterns.com when she saw my designs. She believed that I had potential and has been very generous with her advice over the years. Susan and Bernard Adams, the managers of 'Imagine That' (the local bead shop), have also been some of my strongest supporters. They are always there for advice, bead talk of all kinds, and are always encouraging everyone they come in contact with at the shop.

I think that the things I like most about designing is seeing that pattern grow from paper to beads as I bead it up and designing for beginners has always been a favorite thing for me. I really love to see a beginner take a technique or design and make it his or her own. I've always enjoyed teaching beginners cause I love that moment when the internal light bulb goes off and you see the student catch fire for the beadwork.

I think that my biggest influences as I design are the Art Deco and Art Nouveau periods. I love especially the Art Deco designs and a number of my designs are based on design elements and styles from that period. Also the Arts and Crafts period of design is a favorite of mine. I love the clean lines and simple designs that are classic and stand the test of time. I often try to design something with only three or four colors, thinking of the beader who doesn't yet have a stash of hundreds of colors of beads like some of us. I think that my favorite design so far is the Spirals set. I like the colors, the simplicity of the design, and the fact that it really doesn't fall into any one set style. I study other cultures and design styles with the idea of learning more about what I do. I have recently begun to make a serious study of color theory as well. I never set out to copy anything I see; I just let those influences work on my own designing. I find that many of the things I would think about designing have "already been done" by other designers on our website and most likely have been done far better than I would do 'em. I love flowers for example, but my goodness, some of the flowers designs here are too wonderful for words. So, I work in my strong area and let someone else do that other stuff, although I am trying to branch out more. I have a design in mind for a flower that's pretty different and I just need to spend the time on the design to get it right.

Sampling of Cindy's Designs:
Click on an image to view the pattern information.
 
      
 
      

I have a dedicated place for my laptop computer since I have two printers hooked up to it for when I'm working on designs and printing the patterns or books. A lot of the design work is computer related in this day and age and I've learned several design programs but finally settled on one particular one. I also had to learn computer graphics for my books. I'm a beader not a computer geek! That was hard for me since I had no one to help with that aspect of the designer's job.

My bead workspace is where I happened to be when I start beading. I work most often on a TV tray in my living room when I'm beading, although I have beaded at the kitchen table, off my lap in the car and while traveling on an airplane. I have a bad habit of sitting down and beading for hours and hours without looking up or standing up--something I always tell students NOT to do! So I put on a movie or documentary that I'm interested in watching. That way I look up once in awhile and change my focus. I frequently don't put everything within reach so I have to get up and move around. My house is becoming more and more taken over by beads and beadwork--it's everywhere except the bathrooms. I have 8 six foot tall bookcases in my bedroom that are full of beads and 6 in the living room that are beginning to fill up and there's 2 in the hall that are being taken over by beads. Someone suggested that I need a separate house for just beads. I must be obsessive cause that idea didn't sound all that unreasonable. I'm never as organized as I would like to be and I'm always looking for more efficient ways to get organized. Sigh. But I'm too busy beading to really do it right.

Sampling of Cindy's Designs:
Click on an image to view the pattern information.
 
         
 
         

Within the next five years, I would like to see my list of potential designs get shorter by having those ideas actually translated to finished work. Of course, I have about 10 years of work in my notebooks of potential designs--if I don't get any more ideas. I have three books out now, self published, and have several more lined up to do. I am in the process of changing the way I do my business so that it fits better into our lives. I think right now that's my biggest personal challenge--working out the business as it relates to the rest of our lives. I know that it's something all artists deal with as they make design work their 'day job' so I'm always interested in how other people make it work.

Bill and I share our house with two cats and our three grown children stay here sometimes as their lives go through transitions--usually one at a time. We have 2 granddaughters; Cally, who lives in Wyoming--way too far from Texas, and my second granddaughter was born March 30 in Nuevo Laredo so she's got dual citizenship. Our Texas son's wife is finally here (USA) from Mexico. Almost two years since they married and she is just recently received her visa to the US. Long distance marriages are hard (I've had one for years--me living one place, him working elsewhere and commuting every weekend or every other weekend) but this two countries thing is a real bummer!

I have three books done--Spring Riot Herringbone Necklace, Dayna Chain Extravaganza (written with Dayna Gustafson), Easy Beader Volume I. I had an article published in Bead Unique in the fall of 2005--Herringbone Ruffle Bracelet. My husband and I are trying to conquer the world of websites.

Bead-Patterns.com makes it so easy for the designers. When you branch out, you have all new challenges!

I have a Bead Shop opening in Bryan, Texas at the end of July (2006). Beads of...Bryan. It's going to be a bit small at first but we know it's going to grow fairly quickly.
 
Beads of...Bryan     -     3737 E. 29th     -     Bryan, TX 77802

Sampling of Cindy's Designs:
Click on an image to view the pattern information.