A Pile O' Earrings

Imagine...a weekend with no obligations, free access to all the past seasons of Game of Thrones, and a collection of twins, tilas, rizos, and other fun shaped beads that you've been wanting to play with....What might happen?

Well, if you're anything like me, you'll end up with a pile o' earrings.

This is just a part of what came off the worktable.

In all, I made over thirty pairs of earrings. And I caught up to date on Game of Thrones. Win/win!

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

Made Possible By Advil

Y'all, yesterday was one of those days.  What I thought was a mild headache when I woke up turned into something that felt like a small herd of elephants had taken up residence in my skull.

So even though I had planned on spending the day in close and meaningful communication with my beads, I spent it instead piled up on the bed, eagerly awaiting the next dose of Advil.

By the evening, I was able to move both body and head without muttering words that would have made my grandmother blush.  And of course, there's really no better therapy to feel better than to do something you love...so here's what came from my therapeutic beading last night.  Nothing terribly complex, but they made me happy -- I hope they bring a smile to you, too!

Better beading through pharmeceuticals, that's what it was...

Tilas Times Two (Say That A Few Times Fast!)

More results from my experiments with tila beads, again in bracelets.

This first one came from playing with creating the diamond shape.  I only had enough of the tiny crystals to make the section you see, which was too short to make a bracelet for anyone over the age of ten.  In another testament to the value of hoarding collecting beads, I found some larger firepolished beads that matched, to make it just long enough.  They really are the same color, but they have a slight AB finish, so it throws off the appearance in the photo.

The clasp is the first time I've fabricated a toggle, but it turned out better than it had any right to.

The second bracelet was a continuation of the courtship of the tila and the twin hole beads. 

I just noticed the honking long piece of fireline that's hanging out on one edge when I was uploading the pictures.  Dammit.  Time to get a stronger pair of reading glasses if I couldn't see that thing waving around without blowing it up to super size on the computer screen!

Tilas and Twins and Thursdays - Oh, My!

What do you get when you give a beader some new (to her) styles of beads and sequester her in the woods for a week?

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like the setup for a bad joke.

Somewhat like last summer's muffin tin challenge, before a week's vacation in the mountains, I packed a limited selection of beads, pushing myself to find different ways to use the same basic materials.  On Thursday of the week, I played with tilas and twin beads, and came up with several different things that made me happy, but the final product that I'm most pleased with is this bracelet:

The clasp was a particular challenge -- I could have made the toggle out of bronze seed beads, but hadn't packed enough (insert favorite mild oath here), so I did a "what if" with the twin beads, which seems to have worked out okay.

So what did you last create out of materials that were new to you?