Bead Hoarders Blog Party - The Reveal!

All beaders have those beads that they just can't let go of, and that they just can't bring themselves to make something with. Beader's block? Fear of not creating something that lives up to the beauty of the bead? Just the dragon-like tendency to amass a collection of shiny things? Whatever it is, we all have those hoarded beads in our collections, just waiting to be pulled out and used.

Lori Anderson to the rescue! She created another one of her legendary bead swaps, but this time the only rule was to send a bead we'd hoarded, along with a story of why it's important to us.

My fabulous partner Kathy Lindemer sent me a gorgeous handmade ceramic donut by Diana Ptaszynski of Suburban Girl Studios. Kathy said she loves Suburban Girl beads because they often have a nautical feel, and the blues and greens that she uses are colors Kathy enjoys using in her jewelry. They are pretty delicious colors, aren't they? Along with the ceramic bead was a lovely length of blue satin cording and a clasp that Kathy made herself.  If you'd like to see the whole package, go here.

How did I know this was a perfect hoarded bead for me? Because it was a perfect match for some seed beads that I'd been hoarding...blue transparent green-lined lovelies that I hadn't found the right way to use, until now. They were absolutely the perfect match for the shades of green and blue on the donut.

I wanted to stay pretty minimal with my design, to focus attention on Kathy's bead. A herringbone rope with superduos, miniduos, and tiny crystals, undulating from small to large and back again, echoing the large to small decoration Diana used on the donut. 

A lariat style allows the focal bead to stay front and center, and the fringe has one, two, or three tiny crystals at the ends both to add sparkle and, again, echo the larger/smaller dimples on the donut.

But wait, there's more! I couldn't pass up using Kathy's clasp and that luscious blue cording. Again, a simple design to focus on the lovely components used - this time I used a pendant I made with seed beads and two-holed triangles. Easy peasy, just right for spring (if it ever gets here and stays here!)

Thanks for visiting, and huge thanks to Kathy for sharing such a beautiful bead with me. I hope I did it proud for you.

Now, go treat yourself to the eye candy created by others in this swap party. The full list is HERE. Enjoy!

Well, THAT Was Unexpected!

You know how you can start out thinking you're going to accomplish one thing, and the end result is something COMPLETELY different?

Like when you tell yourself you're going to have the healthy kale salad for lunch, but end up getting swept away by the temptation of a juicy burger and fries, followed by a scoop of luscious ice cream? (Or is that just me?)

Or when you run into the store for one thing and walk out with six bags of stuff? (Remind me to tell you someday about the time I ran into Target for a bottle of glue for a child's school project and came out with $200 of stuff.  And forgot the glue.)

Above is part of a selection of beads I pulled out a couple of weeks ago, intending them to be the freeform portion of a bead bezeled cabochon necklace. But when I started on the freeform, it just wasn't working.  So the cabochon is sitting on the worktable, still awaiting its mate.

And here's what the beads ended up as:

It certainly isn't freeform peyote, and the cabochon is nowhere to be seen.  But it is slinky and colorful and great fun to wear.

So sometimes unexpected is good -- and the necklace is much better for my waistline than a scoop of ice cream!

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

And I Was So Excited, I Forgot To Title This Post

Got a nice cool beverage and a comfy place to surf the net?  Then settle in for a fun blog hop - A Time To Stitch!   The challenge as set out by Christine and Therese, the fearless creators of the hop, was to make a piece in peyote or herringbone.

As I mentioned in my last post, life for the past two months has been at a crazed level of busy.  Like "turned up to 11" crazy.  What better time to take on one more thing, right?  But I'm a seedy gal (or "seed bead afficionado" so my mama doesn't faint if she reads this), so I couldn't resist.

Because I can't pass a challenge without adding more difficulty to it.  You know, like the Olympic triple flip dive off the high board doesn't really count unless you add a backward twist in pike position? Yep, that's me. So I made one peyote piece, one herringbone piece, and one that combines both.

Settle into that comfy place, grab the beverage, and enjoy!  (And you can click on each picture for a bigger version)

Here's the peyote bracelet - simple, but with a twist of texture.  Perfect to fiddle with when you're stuck in a boring meeting...

For the herringbone piece, I pulled out some beautiful lapis/malachite heishi that I'd been hoarding for years and years, just waiting for the right project -- this seemed like the right time to break 'em out.

I mean, seriously, LOOK at the gorgeous naturally
combined blues and greens in these babies!

And now for the extra credit, and because I entered the challenge hoping that I'd find a way to keep working up until the very last second, a piece that transitions from peyote to herringbone and back.  I'd never done this, never saw any instructions on it, but figured "how hard could it be?"  Let me tell you, it was kinda tricky, but it was fun to puzzle out.  The resulting woven portion doesn't have a lot of bend, so it didn't work out as the center of the necklace, but it makes for a great asymmetrical feature on a long necklace.

The order of the beads stayed the same from the Cellini spiral into the herringbone,
with the exception of the light blue size 8s, which caused the herringbone
to take on a life of its own and turn into a wildly fugly monster.
It was BAD.  So it was GONE.

A few rows of herringbone in one size (silver 15s) to transition between sections.

Thanks, Christine and Therese for giving me another reason to play with the tiny beads!  And go check out the other seedy folks who participated: 

Therese Frank and Christine Altmiller

Katherine Gale

Emma Andrews

Karin Slaton

Kim Bender

Lola Surwillo

Amy Severino

Bobbie Rafferty  (you are here!)

Sally Russick

Tanya Goodwin

Paula Kramer

Sarah

Karen Williams

Shannon Hicks

Andra Weber

Beth

DW

Marla Gibson

Lisa Stukel

Mandy Duffy

Cynthia Machata

Shirley Moore