Bead Embroidered Necklace - Making Progress

Bead embroidery is one of my loves - it's easy to incorporate it into smaller pieces like here and here and here.

But now and then it's time to take a deep breath and dive into something a little more extreme. Something that will take some serious time and planning. Something that will give you a good excuse to stay indoors when the weather outside is colder than Antarctica. (I wish I was exaggerating.)

So here is my latest big project, shown through a series of progress shots. It's not finished yet, but stay tuned!

Gathering the potential material

The gemstone pieces were the inspiration for the piece.
Everything else grew from them.

This is the first time I've actually sketched out the plan for a piece before diving in.
I've been doing this for twenty years. I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner.

Transferred to the backing and gemstones glued in place.

 

A little progress

Here's today's starting place

The needle's threaded and I'm ready to get moving today - stay tuned for the next progress update!

Rediscovering My Voice

Y'all. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, my plans to blog more regularly over the past year has resulted in a lovely six-lane parkway to The Bad Place (extra points if you start calling me Eleanor). 

The creative urge? It has been colder than Lake Michigan during the polar vortex for the past sixteen months or so. But I finally picked up the beads and the needle and have jumped back into it. And it feels GOOD.

To start, I tackled a few UFOs, and repaired a few things that went awry in the past. Here's a Cellini spiral that lived as a lonely, spiky tube for a long time. It is a generous 3" long, so it didn't need much to finish, nor did it need any embellishment. I strung it simply on some onyx rounds and added one of my fabricated clasps in copper.

This next necklace is a repair - the lampwork bead, crackle quartz and smoky quartz were in another necklace. Until the necklace was dropped at a show and a couple of the raised clear drops on the lampwork broke off. (Insert silent scream here.) 

The missing drops were along one end, so I made a peyote cap to hide the injury. I added a beaded bead and some silver filigree beads. Fitting the peyote over the injured section was extremely fiddly, but I am persistent (read: stubborn). 

Friends, it feels really good to be back at it. I'm a happier person when I have my creative time - I'm sure everyone reading this experiences the same thing. So I am committing to being better about listening to the muse, and I hope (hope, hope) to keep up with the blog as well. 

Serious Sparkle

Ah, crystals.

They're gorgeous, but I don't use them in my beading too often. That may have to change.

At my day job (you know, the one that lets me pay for the necessities of life - mortgage, food, beads...) we recently had a big fundraising event. Black tie, evening gowns, the whole nine yards. And everyone in my department was involved, so we all had to glam it up for the night.

Knowing that I make jewelry, some colleagues asked if I had any pieces that would work with their dresses. Of course, I took this as an invitation not only to pull out the fancier pieces in my inventory, but also to spend a few evenings making some flashy new things.

Here are some of the new pieces that came out of that flurry. Some got worn to the gala, others stayed home, but they're all a reminder to me to embrace the flashy side every now and then. Today, I'm sharing the necklaces and a bracelet - tomorrow, I'll share the earrings.

There were a lot of midnight blue and navy gowns at this event - a nice change from basic black.

Did someone say, "statement necklace"?

A different view of the same necklace, to show the flashes of color in the faceted ovals. Gorgeous!

This bracelet reminds me of tuxedo pants, with the dark stripe running down the side seam.

This was a lot of fun, and a good creative challenge, since I didn't know what everyone's dresses would look like. I had to make pieces that would be versatile enough to work with lots of different colors, working completely without specific direction other than "formal." Do you make jewelry for special occasions?

Taming the Monster

Every now and then, I start a project that becomes, for lack of a better word, a monster.

You know, one of those interesting "what if" ideas that quickly devours your work table.

My latest one has been sitting around in its UFO state for a really long time.  Mocking me.  Taunting me.  Causing me to mutter under my breath like the crazy lady in the neighborhood.  Oh wait, I am the crazy lady in the neighborhood.  Anyway, I was starting to measure the length of time this thing was taking me to complete it in geological terms -- paleozoic, mesozoic, necklacezoic....

You may have seen it at this point:

or at this point:

ANYWAY, I had gotten to a point in the monster's development where it was time to add the neckstrap.  I wanted to do something that would echo the swirl of turquoise that winds around the glass discs in the focal.

Tried one idea.  Ugly.  Tried another idea.  Fugly.  Tried yet another idea. Not bad, but not quite substantial enough to stand up to the boldness of the centerpiece.

Finally, finally, finally, I came up with something I feel good about.  What do you think?

The photo's overexposed, but you get the idea --
this is not for the shy woman!

So happy to have tamed the monster!