Melting Lakes and A New Bracelet

The weather around here has been absolutely glorious for the past few days.  Temperatures warm enough to go out with fewer than ten layers of clothes on. Actual, honest to goodness sunshine. Ground visible where before there were waist-high piles of snow.  Spring is truly on its way.

So I went out for a stroll yesterday down to a little park on Lake Michigan that's near my place. It's always a little colder next to the lake than it is a few blocks away, so there was snow on the sand, and large shards of ice being pushed up to the shoreline by the waves of the thawing lake.

Those are thin sheets of ice, each about the size of a poster board, piling up on the
shoreline as the lake melts
and the waves push the surface ice to land

The sky was blue, the ice on the water was sparkling, and people were enjoying the promise of spring.

A week or so, when the snow was still deep on the ground, I finished this bracelet, and to me it just screams "spring!!!!" It's a pattern that came from just sitting and playing with the beads.  With the recent thaw, it seems right to show it now.

You'll see it's kind of the next step in the patterns I developed here as part of one of the Time To Stitch challenges.  I was having ninety-three kinds of fits trying to figure out an appropriate clasp, but I found the cute little citrine colored mushroom-shaped beads, and ta da!

Here's a little video I shot on my phone at the lake.  Ignore the sounds of the people who were behind me and enjoy the gentle sound of the waves under the surface of the ice, whispering the promise of warmer days. (That is, if the video works -- it's behaving very strangely for me....)

She Who Should Have Been Shared Earlier

This little darling existed in an unfinished state for a while, but she finally got herself together.  Or rather, I finally got myself together to finish her and take pictures!

When I moved in October, she traveled in her incompleteness in a UFO box. When I started getting settled in, she was the first thing I reached for to work on.  The ocean jasper cab is one of my favorites -- but then, I'm a sucker for that gemstone anyway.

The challenge I set myself on this piece was to attach the neck strap to the pendant without weaving a bail or loop.  I incorporated the edging of the pendant into the tubular herringbone of the neck strap as I wove it, and I'm very happy with the result.  (Of course, I forgot to take a picture from an angle where you can actually see what I'm talking about....) Each time I used an edging bead in the strap, I did the whole round in that kind of butterscotch color.  You can kind of see the variegation in the part of the strap that is visible, showing that every other round is where a pendant edging bead was used as an attachment.  The result is particularly nice when wearing the necklace, because the clasp can't come squirreling down to the front of the necklace, and the pendant always hangs the way it should.

The picasso glass daggers were a serendipity -- I bought them "just because", and only by chance did I put them near this piece on the worktable.  They matched so beautifully, it was meant to be.

I ought to have shared her here before, but better late than never (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)

Triple The Fun - A Time To Stitch Challenge Reveal

Therese and Christine have done it again! This time, a challenge to take a basic bracelet pattern and switch it up for three variations, changing base color, bead size, etc.

I took my jumping off point from one of the pieces I made for the latest Bead Soup Challenge, specifically the lower section of the neck strand of this necklace:

Essentially, it's a herringbone with twin beads, embellished on the side with Czech bricks and triangle beads. Although I doubt I invented it, it was a stitch I developed during the BSBP process, and I was really happy to have an excuse to explore it some more.

Thing is, I didn't have any more bricks (kind of a tila chopped in half) in my stash. (Note to self #1, put bricks on the beady shopping list).  So I chose to use tilas, thinking the translation would be easy.

Not so.  The size was just off enough to make it weird.  Some things I tried were way of in proportion and just flopped around like a beached fish.  Others were just ugly.  So, in the spirit of challenge, I punted (friends, this is the closest I will ever, EVER get to performing a football-related action, aside from those associated with being a rabid spectator).

Here's variation number one: herringbone center with twin beads, edged with tilas and daggers.  I love it.

Variation number two, this time with the tilas turned 90 degrees from the first bracelet, and with drops added, mainly because I didn't have enough of those fabulous red polka dot daggers to do the whole length. (Note to self #2: add sexy red polka dot daggers to beady shopping list, too).  I love this one, too, although it's a little more cha-cha flashy than the first.  It would be perfect to wear to an Alabama football game...

Variation #3 is the most buttoned down, but it's still blingy with the silver twins -- this time a herringbone with twins, tilas, and narrow daggers. While I fabricated the clasps on all three, this is the only one that I made a beaded toggle clasp for.  I wore this one at an art show today, and I can testify that it feels slinky and grand.

All three together, progressing in order of creation from bottom to top:

Thanks, Therese and Christine, for pushing my creativity once again!  Here's the list of everyone participating.

Hosts:

Therese

Christine

Participants

Kim

Maryanne

Lola

Dagi

Shirley

Alenka

LiliKrist

Amy

Crystie

Sally

Cynthia

Bobbie  (you are here)

Karin

LizE

Becky Pancake

Karin G.

Ana

Wendy

Mary H.

Jasvanti

Daggers and Spikes

No, I'm not planning the costume I'll be wearing for the season premiere of Game of Thrones...

I'm celebrating the wonders that were contained in a tiny package that arrived from The Best Bead, all the way from the Czech Republic.

Aren't they fantastic?  I've been wanting to try out the new spike beads, and couldn't find any around here.  What did we do before the internet?!?

So in between drooling over the eye candy in the first BSBP reveal this weekend, and freaking out over finishing my pieces for the second reveal, I'll be fondling these little lovelies and plotting what they might become....

Theme and Variations

What do I do with a three-day weekend?  Well, this weekend, I....

Rearranged the front hall coat closet so that it holds all of my display setup (including tent!), and I never again have to haul everything up and down the stairs before and after a show.  My aching back and arms rejoice in anticipation! (Plus, I feel that all those hours playing Tetris have been justified, as fitting all that crap in a tiny space was a feat of creative placement, so double win!)

Prepped and inventoried a bunch o' stuff for this weekend's show.  Not great fun, but satisfying.

Drove to Cincinnati for a quick visit with the son.  Fun and satisfying, and since it involved dinner, delicious.

Finally finished hopping through the third reveal of the 6th Bead Soup Blog Hop.  Fun, satisfying, delicious, and inspirational.

Cheered like a wild woman for the Crimson Tide.  A football season obsession inevitability...

And spent several hours exploring a single pattern with different bead combinations. Played with lots of different daggers, leaf shapes and drops, trying not to repeat any combinations that I may have used in the past.

So here are some of the variations on the theme (please excuse the fact that they do not yet have their ear wires -- the delicate and easily offended may be put off by the soon-to-be-complete earrings' relative nakedness...)

So what did you do with your long weekend?

What I Did On My Summer Mini-Vacation

A long weekend gave me a chance to spend time with family, reconnect with old friends, and play a little bit with some beads.

 I had packed a selection of seeds, drops, and daggers, intending to figure out how to make some flowers inspired by some I'd seen on Malin de Koning's blog.  Due to an unfortunate problem (namely, the fact that my brain decided to take a holiday and leave me unable to interpret printed instructions - aaarghhhhh!!!), my flowers are not Malin's pattern, but my own mashup creation.  

This will be a pendant, perhaps on a lovely length of cobalt blue sari silk

These made the cutest earrings, which I wore to a party Saturday

They were such fun, I found myself drawn to the local bead store like a moth to a flame, like a mosquito to my bare legs, like my son to the aroma of bacon.  So I came home from my mini vacation with a new pattern, some fun little flowers (more were made that didn't get photographed), and lots and lots of new daggers and drops to play with.  Now that's a good vacation!

I'm so in love with the gorgeous transparent green in the smaller flowers.

Packing Daggers!!

When you pack for a long weekend out of town, what do you pack? Bathing suit?  Shorts?  Hiking boots?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.


I'm packing daggers.  

Isn't the green in these picasso glass daggers just delicious?

And drops.  And seeds.  And Fireline and sharp needles. (Insert mildly crazed beader laughter here)

Not entirely sure what these might become, but I'm gonna play this weekend!

Seriously, what do you pack for a long weekend away from home?