Beads For Brains: 365

7000 Bracelets for Hope

2012-02-25T00:01:00.000-05:00

Saturday, February 25, 2012

My submission this year

Today is reveal day for The Global Gene Project's 7000 Bracelets for Hope blog hop! This is my second time making a bracelet for this project and I am so happy to participate again. Last year I participated in Lori Anderson's hop for the same cause. That was my very first hop ever and still amazing to me since I had only been beading for about a month when I participated! With all the great folks I talked with last year both in the hop and the project, I'm beginning to think maybe we can change the world, one bead at a time.

Namasate.

Special thanks to Erin and Christine for taking the time to put this hop together! Big hugs to both you gals! Please take a moment to visit the blogs of all the participants to see all the lovely blue bracelets! They are:

Elysian Studios and One Kiss Creations

The Studio Sublime

Crafty Hope

The Gossiping Goddess

SilverRose Designs

Firefly Visions

Pink Chapeau Vintage Jewelry

Michelle Mach

Pine Ridge Treasures

Backstory Beads

Adventures in Creativity with Lorillijean

Carefree Jewelry by Lisa

Sue Beads

MiShel Designs

Created Treasures

Taralinda Muses

My Life Under The Bus

Elizabeth Creates

SilverNikNats

Erin Siegel Jewelry

Carolyn’s Creations

My Life…one bead at a time

Fresh Baked Designs

Songbeads

Sunshine Bliss

Lori Anderson

Rainy Days Designs

Pat Barden Jewelry

Tell Your Girlfriends

Therese's Treasures

Windrock Studio

Bead Lola Bead

Spice Box Designs

Antiquity Travelers

Vitamin C...A Daily Dose of Creativity

Beads and Bread

Sharyl's Jewelry and Reflections

Ahtee's Blog

Thoughtful-Notions

Beads for Brains:365

Wild Sally Road

All The Pretty Things

Skye's Creative Chaos

My Addictions...Handcrafted Jewelry by Patti

Lindy's Designs

Falling Into The Sky

Star Hitched Wagon

Mama's Got to Doodle

10KDgroup

Beaded Raven's Cuff

2012-01-13T05:43:00.000-05:00

Friday, January 13, 2012

Hi everyone! Hope your year has started out with a bang! Can't believe the Baltimore Ravens are in the football playoffs! In anticipation that the Ravens would go all the way to the Super Bowl this year I made a really cool beaded cuff and decided to put it up for sale. If you know any one that might be interested in it please forward to them and have them contact me at utoogigi@yahoo.com. Woohoo! Go Ravens!

SOLD! - Beaded Raven's Cuff

Day 327 - Diamond Chain Bracelet

2011-12-05T09:35:00.000-05:00

Monday, December 5, 2011

Diamond Stitch Bracelet

Today's project is a free pattern from the archives of Beading Daily, it's called the Diamond Chain Bracelet designed by Vanbeads. I have done a diamond stitch before, but not a diamond chain.

This little chain worked up very quickly, using 4mm bicones and 11/0 seed beads. It honestly didn't look like much from the picture that they have with the pattern, but switching bead colors really made a difference! As I was doing this one, I was thinking what a great basic stitch! You could go up or down, or sideways, just as you would with RAW. I think I am definitely going to experiment with this stitch especially with different size beads, hmmmm...it's got me thinking. :-)

Diamond Chain Bracelet, conquered!

Day 326 - Lilac

2011-12-04T21:49:00.001-05:00

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Those of us who get the free pattern updates from Beads Magic (awesome resource for patterns) could not have looked at today's necklace pattern without saying "what the heck?". The pattern is called Lilac and was posted by the admin so I'm not really sure who to give credit to for the design. Immediately when I saw this big fluffy necklace, I swear that is the only way to describe it, I thought of those frilly plastic leis you get at parties with a tropical theme.

Lilac
You can see I started out a mess, but
soon, with my tips, the tube
started to firm up and hold it's shape.

It's not quite my cup of tea, but I was really interested in how the heck it was made. The only instructions are two diagrams with a lot of numbers more or less going around in a circle like some crazed solar system. Literally when I first looked at the pattern, my mouth dropped open and I uttered some weird sound that sounded like "pah" in a somewhat surprised tone.

The diagram, designed to help the beader as much as possible, first shows you the number of beads to start with, the color of beads to string, and finally the thread path you should follow. There is a lot going on here! However, if you can take a minute to suck the "pah" back in your mouth, you'll see right away that the pattern is very simple. I dont' know if there is a name for the stitch or not, but it is a tubular stitch that works in repeats of three. You'll also notice that all the beads in the diagram are yellow except the beads the designer wants you to go through on each round which are orange. How hard can that be?

In the last row (teal) you can see the
three 3 bead stretches and the three 5 bead
petals. The purple beads showing are
from the previous row. The petals where done
around them.

Apparently pretty hard, or maybe I should say confusing. When you start the first 2 or 3 rows of this stitch it is a mess. Although whatever you are using for your orange beads are certainly apparent, it is very, very (did I say very) hard to figure out what row you are even on. It all looks the same. The start of my sample is a loose jumbled mess. Let me give you a couple of tips on this one.

First, if you can count to three, forget adding the different colored beads as markers to put your thread through. If you can't figure out what row you are on, they won't help anyway! My suggestion is in your swatch (we all do a test swatch right??), make each ROW a different color (I used three). This will help you immensely when you start the next row. Because it is a different color you will be able to see it right away. Just remember to pick up 3 beads and go through the center bead of the next 3 bead stretch. I am calling the 3 bead sections "stretches" and the 5 bead loops "petals". When stitching, the 3 bead stretch sections should be on the inside, while the 5 bead petals should be pushed to the outside. On each row there are 3 of each.

The second tip, until you get the pattern going is a mandel! It really is a tubular stitch and it will be much easier to see the round this way. After a few rows the work will start to hold it's shape and you can ditch the mandel. I'm assuming that the way the necklace gets fluffier in the middle, is that more beads are added to the 5 bead loops, and then gradually tapered back to the end.

If I made a bracelet with this I would probably set the with small like it starts out, but I might put a 3mm crystal where each orange bead would have gone. Now THAT would be cool!

Lilac, conquered!

Day 325 - Heirloom Netting

2011-12-03T19:03:00.000-05:00

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone got beads in their stockings!

Heirloom Netting

Today's lesson is from Bead & Button's Easy Does It Series - Seed Bead Chains. Nice little booklet, there are a few chain stitches I had not seen before, but for the most part the 11 projects in the book are pretty basic. A very nice beginner book I would think. One I had not tried is called Heirloom Netting. I'm not a huge fan of netted necklaces, but decided to give it a try.

Must have been the NOG...or maybe the totally disastrous couple of months I've had, but it took me a while to figure this out, although it's as plain as day once you finally get it. The samples in the book, show the stitch in all seed beads, in seed beads, crystals, and drops, and finally all seed beads, but different colors which brings out a cute little flower repeat you don't even know is there.

I just used what I had on my table which where 8/0 triangles and 11/0 seed beads. More than half way through I changed the colors of the 8/0 triangles hoping the pattern would show up better but it really didn't do much. This is a very dainty chain, but when crystals were added in the book sample as the "connector" beads and 3.4 mm drops were added as the fringe edges, the chain looked much more substantial.

At first when I finished my sample, I wasn't that enthusiastic about using it again, but then I started to look at those nice little alternating diamond shapes, just wondering what I could fit inside there. And could I forget the fringe edges and just make the netting wider, and what if......! hee hee.

Heirloom Netting, conquered!

Post Script: To all the friends who contacted me over the last few days, this one is for you! Namaste!

Day 324 - Wonder Dome Ring

2011-12-01T14:41:00.001-05:00

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Wonder Dome Ring

Still in the "Beadwork Creates Jewelry: 40 Beaded Projects" book, I decided to try the Wonder Dome Ring, designed by Susan J. Manchester. THIS, is a cute ring! Half of a dodecahedron is made, a faux prong is added to the sides, and the band is done in two drop peyote.

So cute, so easy! The pattern calls for 4mm bicones, but I used 4mm pearls instead . Either way it is a really nice ring!

Wonder Dome Ring, conquered!

Day 323 - Spiral Sync

2011-11-30T15:05:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

You may have noticed I missed a few days. :-)

Thank you to all who have stuck with me, all the emails and Facebook postings, and for those of you who know where my little hole in the ground is, the cards and gifts. I don't want to bore those of you who don't know me very well with the details of my absence, nor do I want to bore those of you who do know the details with the same old, same old. I will at the end of this grand adventure, write a summary of the year, warts and all. The 365th post as originally planned is scheduled for January 11, 2012. I want to make that date, for myself, and for you for sticking by me. The next couple of weeks I will write my regularly scheduled daily post and also one or more of the posts I missed from Nov 6th to Nov 29th. I apologize in advance for all the postings, hopefully I will be able to find some interesting stuff to keep you interested! Thanks so much! - Mandy

So, with that being said, let's move on, shall we?

Spiral Sync

Today's project comes from a book I checked out of the library a few weeks ago, in fact this free project is probably going to cost me about $5.50 in library fines. LOL. The book, "Beadwork Creates Jewelry: 40 Beaded Designs" edited by Jean Campbell (how sad you can buy this used right now on Amazon for $.35!), is one I think I've visited before, but because I usually can't remember anything, everything old looks new again.

To me this is an odd collection of "beadwork". I personally think of the word "beadwork" as a description of beadweaving, bead embroidery, loomwork, you know, something with a thread involved. Not all the projects in the book are worked with needle and thread, although most are. There are also some that are a hybrid of both weaving and stringing (ack!). The project I chose is the Spiral Sync designed by Dustin Wedekind, a variation of the traditional spiral stitch, supported by beading wire to accommodate the larger beads interspersed with the spirals. The book was published in 2007 and the beads in the project don't look any larger than those I've seen used in similar beadweaving patterns. The use of the beading wire is listed as support for the larger beads and prevent the bracelet from breaking due to wear and tear. That got me thinking, why would they do that?? The only thing I could think of was that perhaps Fireline or other bead thread like it were not as readily used as they are today? I don't know, just a thought.

The pattern calls for beading wire and crimp beads, both items I'm not all that familiar with, so I decided just to create the project as if it didn't call for those items. The pattern is basically segments of the spiral variation (more and different sized loops in the each segment of the spiral) between larger beads. That pattern doesn't specify the size of the larger beads, but they look to be no bigger than 8 or 9 mm at the max. Using a technique that I learned form Nancy Dale's Colorplay necklace, I modified it for the spiral stitch, added the larger beads and continued weaving the next spiral section on the other side of the bead.

Much easier I think.

Spiral Sync, conquered.

Day 302 - Chain With Charm

2011-11-09T21:26:00.000-05:00

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Once again from the March 2012 issue of Beadwork magazine, I tried my hand at one of the charms from the Chain With Charm bracelet designed by Roxanne Rogers.

I chose the medium size charm for my project today. There are also a small and a large versons. The charm was easy to make, a simple size 15/0 peyote bezel around the center pearl and three additional pearls with a ring of 15/0 seed beads around each, accented with a picot on each smaller pearl loop. It was easy, but a little time consuming. I think this bracelet is pretty, but at my current beading speed (bpm) it would take a long time to make it.

Not only are you making small, medium and large charms with 15/0 beads, the chain consists of separately beaded links woven out of 11/0 beads. And once you think you are finished there is a beaded toggle to make and attach!

Chain With Charm (medium charm), conquered!

Day 301 - Affinity Series Disc

2011-11-08T21:55:00.000-05:00

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Affinity Series Disc

Wow, can't believe it is February already. Although I didn't make my goal of 365 days straight of beading lessons due to some pretty intense life issues over the last several months, I am determined to at least finish 365 lessons! I want the days to stay in order on the blog, so I'm fudging the dates a little to keep things in line. Please forgive me if the time line looks confusing and if you've stuck with me this long, there isn't much farther to go. :-)

It feels so good to be back learning something new! Today's lesson is from the most recent issue of Beadwork magazine (March 2012) and is from Jean Power's Affinity Series bangle featured on the cover! The bangle is made up of small beaded discs that are woven together continuously. I wanted to try one of the discs to see what it would look like as maybe an earring. I love it!

The bangle is made up of approximately 22 of these discs consisting of 11/0 and 8/0 seed beads and 4mm fire polished rounds. This is the "small" version, Jean has also given bead substitutions if you want to make a medium or large variation. For me, I think that even the small version would be to chunky, but if that is your thing, then this pattern is for you.

The disc was easy to make using circular peyote and ladder stitch. The only thing I wasn't sure about was if the sides made up of the seed beads were supposed to puff out or if they were supposed to lay sort of flat. With only one disc, the sides were flat, but I believe once you start weaving the subsequent discs the centers will be connected and they will be "pulled" out.

Affinity Series Disc, conquered! woo hoo!

Day 300 - Crystal Visions Ring Band

2011-11-07T03:56:00.000-05:00

Monday, November 7, 2011

Crystal Visions Ring Band

Well, if I had been making my posts on time, I would have been able to celebrate my 300th post on the day it happened! Woo hoo!

Today I'm still in the book "Beadwork Creates Jewelry: 40 Beaded Designs" edited by Jean Campbell. The project is the Crystal Visions Ring Band designed by Susan J. Manchester. This is a simple crystal ring, and would be great for beginners! It delivers a lot of pop considering the amount of materials used. Plus it takes no time to whip up!

The ring is made with 4mm crystal bicones, although in the sample photos, it looks like they may have substituted some 6mm bicones in the center of some. The band is made with 11/0 seed beads, and is done in two drop peyote to give it a bumpy look.

Very fast, very fun!

Crystal Visions Ring Band, conquered!

Day 299 - Stardust Earrings

2011-11-06T19:12:00.000-05:00

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Inspired by Stardust Earrings

From the book "Beadwork Creates Jewelry: 40 Beaded Designs" edited by Jean Campbell, I chose the Stardust Earrings by designed Linda Richmond as the project for today.

These earrings are actually very pretty, they do look like stars or snowflakes when made properly. I started playing around and ended up with an "inspired by" design rather than the actual one in the book.

The beginning is the same, a round of ladder stitch to which you add a round of herringbone, to which you add 3mm fire polished beads and accent seed beads. The pattern then has you add another round of 3mm fire polish beads on top of the first ones and you are done. I ran out of the fire polished 3mm beads after the first round, so I instead added a picot in each place where I should have put another fire polished bead. I don't know why.

This made for an interesting sort-of flared kinda look over the first 3mms. Then I went around and added an accent bead in each side of the picot, also finding that the edges of the picots could actually be connected with the accent bead.

I thought is was starting to look pretty cool. Sorry about messing your design up Linda!

Stardust Earrings, conquered!

Day 298 - Copper Wheels

2011-11-05T05:31:00.000-04:00

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Copper Wheel

Moving along in Beadwork's Fabulous Peyote Stitch Jewelry wtih Crystal Accents e-book the, next chapter is on Tubular Peyote. I love tubular stitches you just go round and round and where you'll stop nobody knows! Oops I think that could be the story of my life lately.

This project called Copper Wheels was designed by Jean Powers from across the pond. The pattern is so easy and so gratifying. I used silver beads as opposed to copper ones in the same sizes. Then instead of using 4mm crystal balls for the edge, I used 4mm Swarovski crystals. So you are probably saying to your self "that doesn't look like a tube dummy!" Take a closer look, the ends of each size of the tube are wrapped up toward the zipping crystals. Cool or what?

I like this a lot!

Copper Wheels, conquered!

Day 297 - Fanciful Fold Bail

2011-11-04T17:30:00.000-04:00

Friday, November 4, 2011

Fanciful Fold Bail

Moving right along in Beadwork's Fabulous Peyote Stitch Jewelry With Crystal Accents e-book, I tried the Fanciful Fold Bail designed by MaryLou Holvenstot. This bail is so darned cute! I actually though it was much bigger from the photo in the book, but it turned out to be only about 3/4 of an inch long.

This bail is under the circular peyote section, because although it its square and folded into a triangle, it starts with the basic circular peyote 4 bead start. It didn't take very long to make, I think there are only 6 or 7 rows to complete the square. The square naturally wants to fold over, so just let it and connect around your pendant at the point. I had nothing in the way of a pendant to try this on, so I made a little circle of 4mm pearls.

Very fun!

Fanciful Fold Bail, conquered!

Day 296 - Elegantly Edged Bracelet

2011-11-03T05:16:00.000-04:00

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Two Drop Peyote with Crystal Accents

Working through Beadwork's new Fabulous Peyote Stitch Jewelry with Crystal Accents e-book, the next section is for multi-drop peyote stitch. The pattern for this peyote variation is the Elegantly Edged Bracelet designed by MaryLou Havenstot. I like this design, simple, but could be ohhhh, so elegant with the right bead choices.

The variation used for this bracelet is the two-drop peyote stitch, where a normal flat even-count peyote stitch is created by using two beads instead of one for each bead added. You could even do three-drop!

This swatch represents 85% of the bracelet, the other 15% makes up the beaded toggle, but you could always add a store bought one. Very easy to do and you could make the bracelet as thin or as wide as you'd like!

Elegantly Edged Bracelet, conquered.

Day 295 - A Charmed Life Tube Charm

2011-11-02T04:49:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Peyote Crystal Charm

Today I tried a project from BeadWork's new ebook called Fabulous Peyote Stitch with Crystal Accents. It's a nice little book and for $2.95 a bargain. It contains videos on how to do all the peyote variations and some cute but pretty easy patterns which incorporate crystals. Worth it? Eh...if you've been beading for a while you really aren't going to see anything new here, but this would be very nice for a beginner wanting to know all there is to know about stitching up the ole' gourd stitch!

I just started in the beginning of the book and tried one of the peyote tube charms from the A Charmed Life by Leslie Rogalski. Using flat even-count peyote, Leslie creates the now all to familiar peyote tubes, but takes it to a higher level by adding a headpin, two gold beads and two crystals, to make a little charm. In her necklace she attaches a bunch of these with some vintage charms to a chain. These would also make lovely earrings or key fobs.

(Note: Please ignore the fact that this post is dated 11/2/11, that the e-book came out on the Beading Daily email on or about 11/13/11, and that today is 11/15/11. Some one once told me that in thinking of time and other dimensions, it is quite possible that past, present, and future are all happening at the same time. I like this thought, because, in the time/space continuim, all these catch up posts are right on time!)

A Charmed Life Charm, conquered.

Day 294 - Fluffy Bead

2011-11-01T05:19:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Fluffy Bead

Straight from the pages of the December 2011 issue of Bead & Button, is the Fluffy Bead designed by Laura Shea. Laura explains the base of the bead is your everyday truncated icosadodecahedron and she calls it "Archimedes bead after an Archimedean solid, or a polyhedron made up of two or more regular polygons".

Sounds like a bead only Gwen Fisher could love. LOL.

As an aside, if you want to see something really cool, click here to go to the 2011 Bridges Conference gallery entries where Laura has entered her bead. Bridges is focuses on Math Art. You'll have to look that up yourself, but math is the base of beaded beads done by Bead Infinitum, Bead Orgami, and others. Soooo cool.

But a beaded bead is a beaded bead, and you know that I love 'em! I have actually woven the base bead before in another pattern so I was familiar with it. I was curious as to how it got "fluffy".

In the materials list the pattern calls for 3mm bicone or round crystals or fire-polished beads, a lot of them. But there is a little note that says the bead can also be made with seed beads. Cool. I really didn't want to use 270 crystals on a daily lesson! So I opted for size 8/0 seed beads.

The 8/0 beads worked pretty well, I was able to produce the desired bead, however it's not as stiff as it would have been with the crystals. The bead was actually fun to make, once your base bead is complete there are little groups of 5 beads all over the bead that get embellished with a round of picots on each. Tubular Picot? This makes the fluffy part.

I really liked this bead a lot, but using the seed beads it produced a bead about an inch wide, which would be to big for me for a bracelet as shown in the magazine. It would look great on a necklace though!

Fluffy Bead, conquered!

Day 293 - Mirabella Twisted Spiral Herringbone Rope

2011-10-31T20:04:00.000-04:00

Monday, October 31, 2011

Mirabelle Twisted Spiral
Herringbone Rope

Yep that's what it says, Twisted Spiral Herringbone, AND it is also embellished with crystals and pearls! This interesting rope is part of Scarlett Lanson's Mirabelle necklace from the Dec 09/Jan 10 Beadwork magazine.

Yesterday I made the pendant from this necklace and was about to turn the magazine page, when one of the rope diagrams caught my eye. Frankly, it looked weird. I said to my self "Self, what the heck is that?"

So, on further inspection I found that the diagram was for the rope portion of the Mirabella necklace. This was the first time I had heard of this twisted herringbone variation, and while it took me a few tries to get started, it was really fun afterward.

The rope is a 4 bead twisted herringbone strip, that has a spiral of 15/0 beads going around the herringbone as it twists. It's very clever how the spiral is added to the sides. Then just when you think it can't get any better, the herringbone breaks apart into two herringbone strands, they go around and encase a 4mm pearl, then come back together to twist and spiral again. How cool is that?

It's pretty awesome looking, but even my little swatch is stiffer than I like my ropes. I would try it again, maybe with bigger beads to see if it loosened up any.

Mirabelle Twisted Spiral Herringbone, conquered!

Day 292 - Mirabell Pendant

2011-10-30T18:19:00.000-04:00

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Mirabelle Pendant

Today's project is from the Dec 09/Jan 10 issue of Beadwork magazine, where Scarlett Lanson designed an absolutely gorgeous necklace called Mirabelle. Dripping with all kinds of beads, she used six different techniques that include beadweaving, stringing, and some wire work. I really did try to find a photo for you, but couldn't locate one anywhere that I knew for sure was a legal down load. LOL, don't want to lead you astray.

I decided to focus on the pendant from the necklace. A 10mm pear surrounded by as trip of RAW, off of which comes a few rows of peyote using 11/0s and 15/0s on each side, 12 crystals are added around the edge, and finally a simple bail that is embellished with picots. Because you put a picot on each side of the bail strip with a bead in between, the bail looks ruffled and is quite cute!

I really liked how fast and easy it was to do the bezelling starting with the RAW strip. I think I did something similar before, but there was more than one strip of RAW. This was fast, easy and ended up very tight. My pearl was drilled, but you could still do the bezel this way with just a round bead with no hole.

Awesome!

Mirabelle Pendant, conquered!

Day 291 - Sparkly Studs

2011-10-29T09:30:00.026-04:00

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Sparkly Studs

At the library I found an older book called Beadwork Creates Jewelry, a 2007 book edited by Jean Campbell. Inside there are 40 beaded designs by various designers. Wouldn't you know that the one project I picked out to try was designed by Jean herself. I just love her work.

The pattern is called Sparkly Studs (it is also included in the Beadwork Creates Earrings book) and is for a post earring. Made with 11/0 seed beads and 8/0 triangles, a post earring finding and some glue, it doesn't sound like much, but turns out really adorable.

Not having any 8/0 triangles, I decided to give it a go with some fire polish crystals I bought online. I didn't realize they were a weird size, 5mm, and they were much prettier in the picture! They've just been laying around so I decided what the heck. The beaded piece is simply circular peyote using what amounts to alternating rows of the seed beads and crystals. When you are finished, you have a nice little dome of crystals and beads. Looking at the photos in the book, it looks like the beaded piece is just glued on top of the finding. Because I used bigger beads, the edges of the finding fit just perfectly inside the first row of beads on the bottom of the dome. I put a little glue around the edges of the finding disk and inserted that into the dome so the edge beads were touching the sides and waited.

It turned out great because in my piece you can't see the disk on the finding at all. But in the samples contained in the book you can.

This is a definite, do again. I really like the way these turned out, and I enjoy wearing posts more than wire dangles. If I wear a dangle, I also prefer it to have a post at the top.

Sparkly Studs, conquered!

Day 290 - Mae

2011-10-28T09:29:00.000-04:00

Friday, October 28, 2011

Small Bezel from "Mae"

I had seen Jean Campbell's book, Creating Glamorous Jewelry with Swarovski Crystals, but it had not ever really grabbed my attention. But that was long ago, and this is now. First, had I know that all the great dames of the old black and white movies were inside, and that it was THEIR jewelry being replicated, I guarantee I would have cracked the book a lot sooner. I love the old movies where all the women where beautiful, fashionable, in in many movies, dripping with sparkly jewels of one type or another. Now that was BLING. Second, as a method of practicing my beading, I've found staring at pieces of store expensive bought jewelry and trying to figure out how I could recreate it in beadweaving has become almost automatic in my mind.

What is so great about this book for me, is watching how the pieces were interpreted by Jean Campbell and made with crystals and seed beads. It really is amazing, even if you never make anything in the book. It will help you when you try to recreate more contemporary, wearable pieces for today's world. This to me, is where learning takes place.

So, I honed in on one little component of the necklace Jean calls "Mae" after Mae West. The part I chose to recreate is called the "small bezel", there are four of them in the necklace. I just thought it was a pretty little piece. The component is easy, basically making two peyote disks, one with 3mm pearls around the edge, enclosing a bezelled chaton, and zipping the edges. Not knowing what a chaton was, bezelled or not, I looked it up and realized I didn't have any. I decided to try just a pearl in the same size, 6mm. I also wanted to make this little component into a post earring. So I made the first circular peyote disk as described, added the 3mm pearls around the edges and tied off. I then took a silver post finding (flat disk on top, post in back) and put the post through the center hole so the flat disk was flat against the peyote, it fit perfectly. Then I made the second disk which was a little different, it is a 4 row high piece of tubular peyote, and tied that off. To assemble, I picked up the first disk with the finding installed, placed the 6mm pearl in the center, and sewed back and forth once through the pearl to anchor it on each side under one of the pearls. It was loose, but I just needed it to stay until the next piece was installed. Then I took the little tubular peyote piece and placed it over the pearl and held this and the pearl firmly against the back disk and post with my fingers. I then zipped the edges tightly from the edges of the top disk to the pearls in the bottom disk. Zipping did pull the pearls up a tad, but that made them seem to surround the middle pearl even better. The whole thing is snug as a bug in a rug.

I thought it turned out so cute, and was sooooo fast and easy. And no glue!!!

Mae small bezel, conquered

Day 289 - Beaded Gecko

2011-10-27T15:24:00.008-04:00

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Beaded Gecko

Today I tried the Beaded Gecko contributed by Candice C. on the website Cut Out & Keep. I've seen these little guys before as key chain fobs, but had never made one myself. Candice talks about making them at camp, so I suppose there in lies the problem. I never went to camp. In fact I don't ever remember doing any arts or crafts at all in grade school!

I went to a very small Catholic grade school, grades 1-8. You started first grade with about 30 kids and when you graduated 8 years later, the same 30 kids were in your class. When you moved up to the next grade, you and your class showed up for the year in which ever class room was designated for your grade. Since there was only one class of each grade, there was no switching of class rooms for the next subject during the day. When you finished Social Studies, you opened your desk, got out the Math book, and bam you were in Math. LOL. We even ate our lunches in the same class room since we didn't have a real cafeteria. Just one of those cafetergymnasiambingohall rooms. I really missed out on doing anything very creative in my younger years, we didn't even have music in school. So while I didn't miss going to camp so much back then, because I didn't even know what it was, I do miss that I didn't go now.

Just to have been able to make a beaded gecko before I was 47 would have been nice. :-)

Beaded Gecko, conquered

Day 288 - Jolly Roger Peyote

2011-10-26T11:11:00.016-04:00

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Jolly Roger Peyote

Would you believe that 288 days in to my project that I have not once attempted to read a peyote pattern? I'm not a huge fan of flat peyote cuffs and bracelets (just seems like it is way to much work! LOL). So I have more or less ignored them from the git go.

I stumbled across a site called Shala's Beadwork and she had a page of little flat peyote patterns that were made for earrings. After finally making one pair of earrings I was loath to start another, but the Jolly Roger pattern caught my eye. Not only is it a little Halloweeny looking, it is also the flag of the pirate! I love pirates!

So I started out. Flat peyote is not hard at all, so no problems there. The peyote pattern is read back and forth (left to right then right to left, etc), and this was not hard since I have used knitting intarsia patterns before, no problems there. Then I was trying to figure out what row I was on, used a sticky note guide, no problems there. Realizing you have a mistake in your pattern 3 rows down, problem! Luckily, I knew how to fix it, I had just not done it before in flat peyote using delicas. Wasn't at all sure how to get the needle nose pliers around the bead I need to break! I finally figured it out by placing my needle through the bead, bending the rest of the work back so the bead was more or less being pulled up, and the cracked it with the pliers. Then I just wove around until I was in the right spot to put in the correct bead.

I got a lot of practice with this. LOL.

I thought it turned out really cute. So I raise my Captain Morgan to Captain Sparrow and the Jolly Roger! Arrrr, matey!

Jolly Roger Peyote, conquered!

Day 287 - Paisley Drops (Day 2)

2011-10-25T13:27:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Paisley Drops (Right and Left)

Today's project is Day 2 of the Paisley Drop earrings from the August/September 2010 issue of Beadwork magazine. In Day 1 we made the right Paisley Drop earring, designed by Jane Lock.

Today we will make the left earring! Although the left earring seemed a little harder to make, it turned out beautifully. I still made the same substitutions I did the last time, instead of the center 6mm bicone, I used a 4mm bicone, and instead of the 15/0s used in the center, I used delicas to take up a tad more room since I used a smaller center bead.

Ha! Had I thought of doing earrings over two days 287 days ago I would probably have more than one set of completed earrings! Ok maybe it's cheating a little...

They are awesome!

Paisley Drop (Left), conquered!

Day 286 - Color Play Necklace

2011-10-24T09:14:00.013-04:00

Monday, October 24, 2011

ColorPlay

Today I was again completely and utterly amazed at the continued generosity of the beads artists who make up the Bead Mavens! If you don't know them and what they do, you can check them out here. One of the artists is Nancy Dale of NEDesigns. A self-taught beading artist who does amazing, incredible beadwork.

One of her most popular necklaces is called ColorPlay. A stunning cubic right angle weave rope with larger beads interspersed between the beadweaving. Word spread like wild fire through my little group of beading buddies that Nancy had posted instructions for making ColorPlay on her blog. WHAT!!! And just because people asked, how nice is that??

I already knew cubic right angle weave (CRAW), but wasn't sure how to add larger beads in between the beaded segments. The whole rope certainly looks more complicated than CRAW, so I wondered how she got that intricate look using that particular stitch. I mean if you make a little strip of CRAW with seed beads and look at it, it's just not that interesting. It's not even particularly pretty. So I went over there as fast as I could to read up. Seems the colorful, dreamy CRAW rope is made of all things, bead soup. A carefully color coordinated bead soup of beads, crystals, pearls seed beads and all kinds of interesting stuff. But still, a soup none the less. So all those lovely beads in the rope are chosen more or less randomly. Wow. I can't even chose color on purpose! For my little sample I used the bead soup I've been making out of random left over beads, yucky but it serves a purpose.

Another part of the instructions include how to add the larger beads to the CRAW rope. I knew this was going to be hard. Ha! Not. All you are really doing is creating a sort of gigantic CRAW unit with a bottom and a top on either side of the big bead, and the big bead is used instead of all four sides of the CRAW unit. Who knew?

Even if you don't try this awesome necklace it is worth the visit to Nancy's site just to see what can be done with some gorgeous beads and a basic stitch. Amazing really. Go on over there and take a look...go now...shoo!

ColorPlay conquered!

Day 285 - Diamond Bails

2011-10-23T08:27:00.000-04:00

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Diamond Bail

Staying with the same issue of Beadwork as yesterday (August/September 2010), I tried the Diamond Bails designed by Melinda Barta. These are really cute little beaded bails if you are looking for something different and more decorative than the usual band of peyote.

First thing I needed was a pendant, which I didn't have. I needed one that had a hole drilled front to back, mine were all drilled side to side. Soooo, I went searching for something to use as a pendant. I have a big pile of tangled old jewelry that I keep meaning to take apart to salvage any cool looking beads. One particularly ugly necklace had a big blue acrylic bead that was kinda cool looking so I used that. Naturally it was not drilled the right way, so I had to figure out how to attach the bail.

First I made the bail, very easy to make with seed beads and 3mm rounds. Then to attach it, I took a long piece of Fireline, went down through the big bead (about half way down the thread), picked up a big pearl, a 3mm pearl, and two seed beads. I skipped the last bead and went back up through all the beads, so I ended up with two ends coming out of the big blue bead. The bail is made in two parts that you sew together, so at the top of the big bead, I took the end with the needle, went through bottom bead of one half of the bail, and wound my way up to the top bead, where the bail instructions say to join. Using the same thread, I joined the tops of the bail as directed and wound my way back down the other side to the bottom bead, joined the the bottom beads of the bail, through the big bead and the big pearl, stopped here to do a half hitch, wound around a little more and cut that thread. Then I put the needle on the other end of thread, did the same thing in the opposite direction, make sure that the joined bottom of the bail was snugged up against the blue bead. Then I tied off and cut.

So now I have a cute pendant with the Diamond Bail and pieces of old jewelry. I was quite proud of myself for figuring that out!

Diamond Bail, conquered!

Day 284 - Paisley Drops (Day 1)

2011-10-22T22:39:00.015-04:00

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Paisley Drop (Right)

Today's project is from the August/September 2010 issue of Beadwork magazine. The Paisley Drop earrings, designed by Jane Lock are something I had tagged to try a while back, but completely forgot about. Every time I look through my old magazines it's like a brand new issue every time!

The Paisley Drop earrings are a basic Russian Leave shape using two colors of delicas, a couple 15/0s, and a few crystals thrown in for good measure. They were very easy to make and since I love Russian Leaves, I particularly enjoyed making them.

My sample has only one variation, the pattern calls for two 4mm bicones and one 6mm bicone to be used with a couple of 15/0 beads in the center. I only had a 7mm bead to substitute for the 6mm bicone, but it ended up being just a teensy bit to large. So I substituted a 4mm fire polished bead, and changed the two 15/0 beads to delicas, and the center embellishment seemed to fit pretty well.

This is a great earring and I'm half tempted to make another.

Paisley Drop (Right), conquered.

Day 283 - What's Your Bangle?

2011-10-21T08:20:00.003-04:00

Friday, October 21, 2011

What's Your Bangle?

I love me some bangles! I don't know what it is, maybe Sally over at Wild Sally Road got me started, but that's all I want to try out lately! This fabulous pattern, called What's Your Bangle? by Shelley Nybakke, is for a right angle weave bangle. The pattern appears in the new Stitch Workshop: Right Angle Weave book. I have seen the book in my local bookstore, but the link to Amazon, here, still says you have to pre-order. I'm not sure, but if you are going to buy it I would get it at Amazon, the price is $6 off list.

Not sure what issue of Bead & Button this bangle originally appeared in, but it must be back at least a couple of years. This is a nice bangle to work with, it is actually very easy and I would be a great project for an advanced beginner. The bangle base is made with tubular right angle weave (one of my favorites) and then embellished with 3mm crystals and 8/0 seed beads.

Somehow I did something wrong with mine. The photo you see here of my sample, is a picture of my bangle not completely finished. I have about one and a quarter rounds of crystal's to add, but since I was having some issues (operator error I'm sure), I decided to stop. Although I looooaaaath to do it, I will probably need to start over, almost from the beginning. Ack!

Why you ask? Well for starters, it's to small. I thought I had made the base tubular raw long enough by making it over sized, but raw starts to shrink when you start embellish it. And shrink it I did. So for one, I can hardly get it over my hand. Second, I'm having trouble with my crystals laying flat and in a straight line (before I took the picture I mushed the beads down flat). I don't know if my tension is to tight, or a slight wave is inevitable because the bangle is not totally rigid. What you see in my photo is the good side. LOL. If any of you fellow beaders have tried this one, please email me some words of wisdom!

I still think this is a great pattern and definitely want to try it again!

What's Your Bangle, conquered.

Day 282 - Twist and Shout

2011-10-20T07:45:00.001-04:00

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Twist and Shout

This necklace seems vaguely familiar, but I checked in my posts and couldn't find any reference to it. Probably because it is a simple odd-count peyote variation, and I tried some of those before. :-)

This necklace is called Twist and Shout, designed by , and appearing in the issue of Bead magazine. The necklace is made using an odd-count tubular peyote variation that adds a bugle in the mix. The addition of the bugle creates a lovely sparkly spiral around the seed bead tube.

In this variation, 11/0 seed beads and 4mm bugles are used. My sample started with 11/0 seed beads and I think about 6mm bugles by accident. It seemed loose, so I switched to what I think is a 4mm bugle, but may actually be a 3mm. The bugles came in Czech mix so I'm really not sure of the size. But the smaller bugles worked better and allowed me to make a tighter tube.

The instructions have you stringing 8 beads to start, but for the duration of the tube one seed bead and the bugle count as one bead in each round. Fun and very fast, this is a great beginner project that will give you lots of sparkle!

Twist and Shout, conquered!

Day 281 - Sculptural Cuff

2011-10-19T07:21:00.011-04:00

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Sculptural Cuff

This is a pattern that I downloaded long ago, I'm not even sure where I came across it. The pattern is for the Sculptural Cuff designed by Bonnie O'Donnell Painter. Ihat appeared in the June 2004 issue of Bead & Button magazine. The cuff is a band of peyote embellished with herringbone flowers, crystals, and anything else you want to sew on.

The cuff is made by first creating a band of peyote and then going back and embellishing the surface with herringbone flowers. Bonnie includes instructions for two different size flowers, which you should create randomly up and down the length of the cuff. Then you go back and fill in around the flowers with crystals, seed beads, or whatever you choose to add.

My sample was merely made to test out the techniques used in the bracelet, so the colors I chose are what were laying on my mat at the time. Please take a second to click on the link above to see what a complete bracelet might look like. Depending on the beads and colors chosen, the cuff could be very rich and earthy looking, or it could look like a spring garden.

Sculptural Cuff, conquered!

Day 280 - Ojo Bracelet

2011-10-18T08:27:00.001-04:00

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Today I tried the Ojo Bracelet pattern designed by Ella at Ellad2. I purchased this pattern a while ago, but have just now gotten the chance to give it a try. Ella makes some great affordable patterns and I have purchased several from her. Here is small sample of the what the real Ojo Bracelet should look like from the photo on her page.

The bracelet is very easy to make, the pattern easy to follow, great step-by-step photos and directions. The stitch is a basic right angle weave with a number of different embellishments. I would not normally copy someone else's photo, but I hope in this case Ella doesn't mind.

Ojo Bracelet

The reason I showing the photo is because I did not have the correct beads to use for my sample, and mine really turned out badly! I wanted to make sure you saw how pretty the real bracelet is! First, I didn't have brown beads for the center, so I used some lighter blue ones I had. And second, I didn't have the drop beads for the edging, which really makes the bracelet. I substituted some 8/0s and 11/0s in their place. Arg, the drops are soooo much prettier!

Do give the bracelet a try, I plan to make it again in some gemstones as soon as I can get my hands on some!

Ojo Bracelet, conquered!

Day 279 - Asteroid

2011-10-17T19:24:00.001-04:00

Monday, October 17, 2011

Asteroid

Once again I tried a beautiful pattern from Angeles at Quienlodira Creations. The pattern is for a pendant/beaded bead called Asteroid. I love the name because it does look like it came from outer space!

The piece is made using 8mm, 5mm (I used 6mm), and 4mm round beads with a few 11/0 seed beads thrown in. I used pearls for mine, but the photo on the blog is made with gemstones and is beautiful!

Strung on piece of leather as in the blog photo, it looks like a beaded bead. But hang it sideways, add a bail, and you've got a gorgeous pendant.

Great project, I hope you try it!

Asteroid, conquered!

Day 278 - Estrella

2011-10-16T07:31:00.015-04:00

Sunday, October 16, 2011

I decided to go back into some of the free patterns I've collected over the Internet in the last several months. Many of the foreign blogs convert their patterns into pictures (.jpeg files) and then post them on their sites. I didn't have time to learn all the fabulous patterns I saw, but I did take a minute to download the picture/patterns for future reference. I've discovered that sometimes this presents a small problem. Although the majority of the picture/patterns have the designers name and website or blog address on them, some do not or I can't make out what it is. Boo, since I want to make sure that I thank the designers for allowing me to try out their stuff.

So, in the next few posts I'll be trying some of this pattern stash. If I can't make out who the pattern belongs to, I will post the pattern and perhaps you can help figure out where it came from. If I do know where I got the pattern I will post a link to it like I usually do, so you can check out the designer's other stuff too. I hope this is a fair way to do this.

Estrella

Today's pattern is for a small medallion/component/pendant called Estrella. It is designed by Mu from the blog Centperles. The pattern only shows how to make one of these, so I don't know if it is a stand alone item or not. Due to the size of my completed piece, it would make a great little pendant for a little girl, a great earring, or if several were made, a great bracelet or necklace if strung together.

Although not in English, the pattern is very easy to follow and only takes minutes to complete. I think the pattern is in French, but I'm not sure (I don't know French, and frankly at this point my Hungarian and Russian are much better :-o). If you haven't been to Centperles, you are really missing something!!

Estrella, conquered!

Day 277 - Pearly Charm Beads

2011-10-15T05:08:00.021-04:00

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Pearly Charm Beads

Straight from the pages of the new Winter Sparkle 2011 edition of Bead magazine (I received it already through my Bead I-Mag subscription), I present the Pearly Charm Beads designed by Dee Wingrove-Smith.

These little beads are so cute! They are similar to some beaded beads I have made before, but this version specifically calls for pearls and has more size 15/0 beads than beaded beads this size that I have tried. The top is embellished with 3mm crystal bicones or fire polish beads. I also tried using some 3mm crystal rondelles (blue) I've had for a while and they worked great too (the blue ones).

Dee uses these pearly charms like Pandora charms to string on a teeny, weeny herringbone rope made out of gold 15/0s. Totally adorable, and I was surprised at how much the size 15 herringbone rope actually looks like a gold serpentine chain!

Love this!!!

Pearly Charm Beads, conquered.

A very heart felt thanks to Denver Kate for giving me a kick in the pants. Hugs!

Day 276 - Rosette Earring

2011-10-14T10:32:00.015-04:00

Friday, October 14, 2011

Today I cracked open my new Maggie Meister book, Classical Elegance! Many thanks to Lark once again for the wonderful prize! And a little message from Maggie in the book that is for all of us!

This is a beautiful book and I'm amazed how Maggie can look at old architecture and museum pieces and recreate them in beads. So when she says, "beading through history" she really means it!

Rosette Earring

The project I chose is a small one, the Rosette earrings. My little sample (my second attempt) does not do justice to the ones shown in the book. The earring is easy to make using circular peyote and some simple embellishment. The one suggestion I would give for these earrings, is to keep your tension tight but not to tight while creating the face of the earring. Here's what I mean. When I was making the circular peyote for the face of the earring, I kept my tension somewhat looser than normal because I didn't realize that I was actually creating the rosette portion of the earring. So my first attempt was rather flat. The second time I kept my tension tighter to get a nice raised rosette, but my tension is to tight resulting in a some what knobby looking rosette. So, not to loose, but not to tight for the face. The back is closed very cleverly in circular peyote, without the hassle of creating a separate piece and sewing them together.

15/0 beads are used for just a touch of embellishment on the face with a drop bead added at the bottom. The pattern called for a 6x9mm oval faceted bead, but I substituted something I had on hand. The drop bead in the book photo looks much nicer, it actually makes the earring.

I would be willing to take a third stab at this and possibly even make the second one! (You all know that is huge for me!)

Rosette Earring, conquered!

Day 275 - 8mm Peyote Covered Ball

2011-10-13T17:19:00.002-04:00

Thursday, October 13, 2011

A while back the awesome Hungarian blog, Gyöngyike, hand some great instructions on covering a 6mm ball with peyote. What was so great, is that the exact number of bead were given, plus a table telling you how many rows and how many beads in each row, AND some great circular peyote diagrams, AND a great flat diagram of the same, And photos of the covered beads in different finishes, AND for both Japanese and Czech beads! You can't beat that with a stick.

8mm Peyote Covered Ball

I'm still trying to perfect covering balls with peyote, so when I saw that the instructions for covering an 8mm ball were available I jumped right on it. You can see from my photo that I made numerous attempts, but no matter how hard I try I still end up with the same problem every time. I finally just called it a day.

As you can see from the first photo, I do great right out of the gate. In fact, I'm looking good all the way to the last three rows. And then it happens. SPACE. I can't get rid of the extra space between the beads in the last few rows. I tried, and tried and don't know what I'm doing wrong. I even tried it with an extra row in the middle thinking that might be the issue, but the beading ended up to long. I tried different 8mm beads thinking maybe they weren't true 8mm. Same problem as you can see in the photo below.

Usually I don't care to much, since most of the time I'm embellishing the ball so you can't see it anyway. But I have something I want to make and the peyote will show, so it really needs to be better than this.

Can anyone spot what I'm doing wrong? I'm pulling as tight as I can, honest!

8mm Peyote Covered Ball, conquered. (well, I did get it covered right???)

Day 274 - Spiral Vessel (Day 2)

2011-10-12T20:03:00.021-04:00

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

From the August 2002 issue of Bead & Button magazine, I finished up my Spiral Vessel as inspired by Wendy Ellsworth's article. Yesterday, Day 1, I spent using the instructions for making the first 16 rows of the Spiral Vessel to establish the base. After that as Wendy directs, you are on your own!

For Day 2 I continued in tubular peyote increasing and decreasing to get an interesting structure going. I wanted my structure to look sort of like a vase, so I started decreasing to a smaller neck. Some colors I didn't have many beads in, so I opted to decrease those rows until they were gone. That left me with the colors in which I had the most beads. That more or less dictated what my color choices would be when I started increasing again.

Spiral Vessel

I just played around with the increasing and decreasing to see that types of effects I could achieve. I knew I wanted it to flare some what at the top, so I attempted to do that. And I wanted some kind of dramatic effect, hence the piece that comes down a bit longer in the front.

This was really fun and I would love to try it again in smaller beads, although the size 6/0 beads are perfect for the first time. I wanted to give my little masterpiece a name, so I stared and stared at it. It reminded me of a somewhat recurring nightmare I've had for years, a tidal wave rushing towards me as I try to run from it. Apparently it is a somewhat typical anxiety dream. So, in honor of the crashing bluish waves on the top of the vessel, I named it Poseidon.

Spiral Vessel (Day 2), conquered.

Day 273 - Spiral Vessel (Day 1)

2011-10-11T16:24:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Still stuck in August 2002, from the Bead & Button issue of the same month and year, I decided to try something on the wild side! I'm making one of Wendy Ellsworth's Spiral Vessels. I have been fascinated with structural beading from the beginning of this project. I mean I love, love, love making jewelery, but something about building or covering things with beads just gets me hyped up!

Spiral Vessel

I've tried my hand at covering a few small things with peyote or right angle weave, and I loved doing that, although I still have great difficulty figuring out on my own where to properly place increases and decreases to get a smooth finish. When I saw the instructions for Wendy's Spiral Vessels, I knew right away that not only was this the coolest thing ever, it was going to be a great experience as far as teaching myself what kind of effects increases and decreases can make.

For Day 1, I started the first 16 rows of the vessel, just until it started to curl upward. The pattern starts with circular peyote and then progresses to tubular peyote (Did you know peyote is also called gourd stitch?). The pattern calls for 12 different colors of size 6/0 beads, which is about all I had after sorting out some mixes. This is where the instruction stops. After this you are on your own to try increasing and decreasing to get different types of shapes. That part will be Day 2.

If you have a minute, check out Wendy's vessel gallery on her website, click here. Now to some these may look like a lump of beads, but to me this is art and science! The article in the magazine makes some interesting references, one of which is to the spiral's occurrence in nature (exemplified by a natural occurring ratio called the Golden Mean) which is a symbol for harmony and beauty.

(Note: Bet you think I just copied that from the article right? LOL, well I did paraphrase, but honestly I was already aware of the Golden Mean (i.e. The Divine Proportion, Golden Ration), and the associated numerical series called the Fibonacci Series, from my knitting days. I won't bore you here, but if you want to read about these numbers click here, it's really fascinating!)

(Note #2: OK some of you are probably wondering what the heck the Golden Mean or the Fibonacci Series has to do with knitting right? There was an article in a knitting magazine a few years ago about making a scarf or sweater following the Fibonacci numerical sequence for the rows and colors. For instance, the first part of the sequence is 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13...so your pattern would be 1 row of a color, then 1 row of another color, then 2 rows of a color, then 3 rows of a color, etc. The idea was to come up with a perfect pattern from nature. You could do this with beading too.)

I know, TMI.

Spiral Vessel (Day 1), conquered.

Day 272 - 3-D Triangle Weave Necklace

2011-10-10T17:48:00.000-04:00

Monday, October 10, 2011

3-D Triangle Weave Necklace

Going waaayyyy back in time to Bead and Button, April 2002, I decided to try the 3-D Triangle Weave Necklace designed by Tina Czuba. This is an interesting little number, don't think it is my style, but I was intrigued with how this necklace was woven.

The pattern called for 3mm bugles and 15/0 seed beads, but I just pulled out a mix I had gotten a while ago. Not sure what size the bugles are, but the seed beads are 11/0 czech. Once you get the hang of creating each triangle from the base of the preceding one, you'll be on your way. But until it clicks you'll be stuck with a bunch of bugles and beads in some kind of a lump. At least I did!

I wanted to show you what the necklace is supposed to look like, but I couldn't find a picture or pattern anywhere on the internet, EXCEPT this Japanese blog, click here. She has two nice pictures of the necklace, but everything is in Japanese unless you use a translator. I had a great laugh at the translator on Google Chrome once again! It translated this poor woman's blog title as "Pearls Before Swine". LOL, now maybe it really is something like "Pearls Before Pigs" or something, but it still had me laughing hysterically.

My little version of the necklace turned out ok, I would suggest running your thread back through the entire necklace at lease once to help firm up the triangles, otherwise they were sort of loose.

3-D Triangle Weave Necklace, conquered.

Day 271 - Goddess Pendant

2011-10-09T10:00:00.001-04:00

Sunday, October 9, 2011

I have been itching to do some bead embroidery (BE) lately, so I sat down with Sherry Serafini's Sensational Bead Embroidery from Lark's Master's Series. This is such a gorgeous book, the eye candy alone is enough to give you ideas for the rest of your life! I don't necessarily mean the individual projects, I mean looking past the pieces as a whole to get ideas on bead placement or the type of beads one might use to obtain a desired effect.

What I love about bead embroidery is that no two projects are EVER going to look the same. I decide to use inspiration from the Goddess Pendant on page 47. I had seen this pendant somewhere before and totally loved it. I don't know why but I have this thing about face cabs in BE.

I tried my hand this past spring at making some face cabs with Fimo and a mold I bought. I made a few that weren't that great and haven't tried it since. But the little gal I used as my focal is one that survived and wasn't to horrible. The clay is flesh colored, but I noticed that as I was working and holding the clay cab with my thumb, the places that my skin touched developed a weird purplish patina. I had not used any glaze, so the oils from my thumb must have made the reaction. I think it actually looks pretty cool, although her face could use some shadowing.

Sherry walks you through the steps to make the pendant or something similar. I think the biggest difference in this piece for me, was using only the 2-bead backstitch for the embroidery. This is the stitch Sherry indicates she uses almost exclusively because it gives her better control and keeps the bead securely fastened. The other thing I did, was to use more size 15/0 beads. Using both of these "smaller" techniques was a little more time consuming, but I think I saved time in the long run because I wasn't trying to "fix" everything later. The beads ended up precisely where I wanted them and using the smaller beads, for me meant not as much background showing.

One thing I noticed with most of Sherry's work in this book is that she doesn't seem to mind if the background is showing. She has of course taken steps to make the background recede, like dying her Stiff Stuff a grayish color that she says makes the beads "pop". She also stitches on ultrasuede. She also doesn't seem to mind if a little matching thread is showing. Both of these things throw me into convulsions! I need to lighten up! If the Master says it's ok, then it's ok.

But easier said then done! I'm an encruster, I want every hole plugged with a bead. I am also very inspired by the work of The Lone Beader. She does what she calls "extreme" bead embroidery, which boils down to 3-D bead embroidery work. If you haven't seen her things, you must! Her dog pins look like the real things, It's amazing! Here is her Etsy shop link if you want to see what I'm talking about.

So, in my Goddess Pendant (I still need to do the back and edging) I used the techniques offered by Sherry, plus a couple of techniques used by The Loan Beader for texture and a 3-Dish effect. I think it turned out really cute, the only thing that displeases me is in the last two rows of the bezel when I switched to 15/0 beads the thread is showing. I pulled as tight as I could so I'm not sure what that happened. Should I not have changed to 15/0s? I may have to take those two rows out and redo. What do you think she should be? Pendant, pin, magnet? Suggestions?

Goddess Pendant, conquered.

Thank you Lark Crafts!

2011-10-09T07:23:00.001-04:00

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Recently Lark Crafts had an amazing giveaway on their blog to celebrate the publishing of two new books in their Beadweaving Master Class series. Two people would was each win a of the new books (Rachel Nelson-Smith and Maggie Meister) and a copy of each of the previous books (Marcia DeCoster, Diane Fitzgerald, Sherry Serafini and Laura McCabe). All of the books, personally autographed by the author/designer!

After going through a particularly hellish week at home, getting the email that I had won one of the book sets helped me to decide to stay on this little beading journey because I love it so much. A few of you know how close I was to trashing the entire project, because of some issues that have reared their ugly heads again. I was having a hard time staying motivated and my blog hadn't been updated in days.

So, thank you Lark Crafts! Thank you Diane, Laura, Maggie, Sherry, Marcia, and Rachel. And, mostly thank you to my friends and supports, because of all of your my inspiration is back!

Bead on, Sistas'!

Day 270 - Kaleidoscope Connection

2011-10-08T05:12:00.000-04:00

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Kaleidoscope Connection

Since it was still sitting on my desk, I went back to the April 2011 issue of Bead & Button magazine and decided to work on the Kaleidoscope Connection by Julie Olah. This project takes two components and puts them together to make necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

The first component is a small circular peyote circle that is kinda cute because it looks like six daisies on a wheel. The second component I'm not so sure about. It is made with a 9mm jump ring that has two layers of brick stitch on the edge. Very reminiscent of Tamara Allison's Beaded Washers I did a while back.

I didn't have a 9mm ring, so I had to settle for a 7mm ring. I wasn't sure if it would be that much different, I figured it would just be smaller. What I'm wondering now is if the 9mm ring is thicker than the 7mm ring. With the beaded washers, the same method is used of attaching beads to the washer by way of brick stitch. The washer has a nice little edge, so the beads are sitting on there fairly solidly. With the 7mm jump ring, there wasn't much for the 11/0 beaded to sit on, so they wanted to either push forward or back. I had a hard time getting them to sit on the edge.

Once you have a bunch of these made, you can string them together how ever you would like.

Kaleidoscope Connection, conquered.

Day 269 - Beratan

2011-10-07T04:01:00.009-04:00

Friday, October 7, 2011

Beratan Motif

Today's lesson is from a site called Beads Magic. If you haven't found this one yet, go there now and book mark it. All patterns, all free, all the time. I haven't really figured out who runs this site, but thank you who ever you are! The bracelet pattern for today is called Beratan and I'm not sure who the designer is.

This bracelet is what I refer to as a motif bracelet, something I made up to describe a bracelet that is made of separate motifs connected together. I chose to do one of the motifs, the rest of the bracelet is several of these connected at the corners with a clasp.

The pattern is straight forward, only diagrams, no text. I thought it was interesting how the shape of this motif was made. With easy fluid repeats in each section of the motif a very curvy, feminine, vintage effect developed. Reminds me of a lacy crochet sweater I made once from similar motifs. Very pretty.

Beratan, conquered.

Day 268 - Get Loopy

2011-10-06T11:04:00.015-04:00

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Get Loopy

For today, from the April 2011 issue of Bead & Button magazine (this is the famous Honeycomb Bangle issue), I've chosen to make a section of the Get Loopy necklace designed by Tea Benduhn. This is actually a stringing project, but I decided to try it anyway, even though I believe at this stage beadweaving is my thing.

This project uses 15/0 seed beads and various size crystals from 4mm up to 10mm. I chose to make mine with some cheap black pearls I had on hand instead. The necklace is also made with .015 mm beading wire, not beading thread. In defiance I did start the project using Fireline 6lb, but quickly trashed that, as the Fireline was not stiff enough to hold the shape of the strung beads with out twisting around. Luckily I had some of the correct size beading wire in my stash of bead stuff from a foray into stringing a couple of years ago. Honestly, I could never figure out how to crimp a crimp bead properly, so all my beads kept falling off the wire. That's pretty much where stringing and I parted ways.

The necklace is easy to make, this little section you see here is what pretty much makes up the whole necklace.

Get Loopy, conquered.

Day 267 - Groove

2011-10-05T20:12:00.019-04:00

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Groove

Again from Rachel Nelson-Smith's new book, Beaded Riffs, I chose a cute little earring pattern called Groove. The earrings are vintage Rachel if you are familiar with her work, either from this lovely book (it is a very pretty book) or from her previous book, Bead Fusion. Units of raw embellished with her special "bumps". You would think having worked several projects from Bead Fusion, this would not have been a problem.

I don't know what happened. I just could not understand the pattern, maybe I wasn't concentrating (I've had a lot on my mind) or maybe my mind was fried (I've been pretty stressed), or maybe it was the wine (but no, I only got the wine after several hours of getting no where with the first earring, and then it went pretty fast).

The earring is make up of a strip of raw units in 3 rounds and connected to form a tube. "Bumps" are added to the side units and smaller "bumps" are added to the ends. Sew on a jump ring (does mine look REALLY huge? eh, maybe it's the wine) and add an earring finding. Why this was so hard I have no idea. Don't think I will make the second one (ha! you know I never do!). But looking at it gave me the idea that it would look really cute dangling with some other beads from the end of one of those shepard's hook book mark things. What do you think??

Groove, conquered.

Day 266 - Billie's Bounce Wheel

2011-10-04T14:29:00.011-04:00

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Wheel from Billie's Bounce

Today's lesson is from the Billie's Bounce necklace in Rachel Nelson-Smith's new book called Bead Riffs. This pattern was also offered for free by Lark prior to the books publication, and can still be found here.

The necklace is made up of "wheels" made out of right angle weave and embellished, and then connected by strips of tubular peyote. I decided to try one of the wheels because I like they way they are constructed. Two flat circles are made with a five bead RAW units, and then joined at the outer and inner edges with 4 bead RAW units. It does make a pretty cool wheel.

Then you are told to embellish with the 2 drop method along the edge and to add 4mm bicones in each hole on the face of the wheel. Fabulous! I also added 15/0 beads on the outer and inner edges of the wheel face between raw units because I didn't like the holes that were showing thread.

Now, if you are using the FREE version of the pattern, which I initially did, there is a little situation. Problem is, you are never told what the 2 drop method is. That's because it's in an embellishment technique chapter, which of course is not attached to the free pattern. So, at that time, having no idea what that was, I moved to the second embellishment, which was to add a 4mm crystal in each hole on the face of the wheel. Good thing I've done that before, because the free pattern doesn't tell you how to do it, just TO do it. That's in the front to. Luckily my copy of the book came in the mail the next day so I was able to complete the wheel.

On it's own it's a cute little wheel. Attached to the others by 4 bead tubular peyote with the thread showing as in the photo? Eh, not so much. But then I don't like any thread showing. They would make cute earrings or maybe a few sewn together for a bracelet, lots of possibilities.

So if you are using the free pattern, don't make yourself crazy, the whole pattern isn't there.

Billie's Bounce Wheel, conquered.

Day 265 - Beaded Mug

2011-10-03T18:11:00.010-04:00

Monday, October 3, 2011

The cutest little Beaded Mug by Vic Osadchenko can be found on 2000 Melochey. Well what can you say about it?

A little circular peyote that turns into tubular peyote, and then sew a handle on it. LOL, that's it!

Did you see the cafe au lait inside??? To cute!

Beaded Mug, conquered.

Day 264 - Egyptian Chain

2011-10-02T05:00:00.001-04:00

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Egyptian Chain

Sticking with the same beading site form yesterday, 2000 Melochy, I decided to try the Egyptian Chain as shown by Vic Osadchenko.

Again, not something I would use on a regular basis, but it is pretty cool how, if done in the right colors, the chain would look like a string of Egyptian eyeballs lookin' at cha!

This would be so cute for a Halloween costume if a little girl was going as Cleo. I can almost see the white drapey dress, snake headband, and this chain as a necklace or bracelet. I think that would be adorable!

But of course I don't have kids. I wonder if my greyhounds would like to go as Egyptians this year?

Ooh, oh, they are giving me the stink eye.

Egyptian Chain, conquered!

Day 263 - Puff Cord

2011-10-01T03:51:00.001-04:00

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Puff Cord

Today's lesson is called the Puff Cord as shown by Vic Osadchenko on the Russian site 2000 Melochy. This is an interesting cord which is essentially three two bead herringbone ropes lying on top of each other to form a thicker cord. All three herringbone ropes are created at the same time.

I wasn't sure that I really liked the look of this cord all that much, but it seemed an interesting technique to try, and who knows when you might need this some day?!

Basically, a ladder stitch bottom of six beads is made, folded in half so the beads line up in pairs, and connected at the end with ladder stitch. Then it is pretty much herringbone as usual, except after adding two beads to a herringbone "column" and exiting the bead in that column, you'll go backwards to the bead behind the one you just exited. Add two beads and do the same. On the third or last herringbone column, after you add the two beads, your needle is coming out of what is now the second bead in the column. It looked to me from the diagram, that you run your thread around the thread in the herringbone column to anchor it, and then back up and out the top bead. Then you will add two beads to that last column and moved forward adding beads to the other two columns. So essentially you are moving to the front then to the back, and vice versa.

As I said, interesting, I do like how the three individual herringbone chains separate at the top of my swatch, that certainly has some design potential!

Puff Cord, conquered.

Day 262 - Mosaic Medallions

2011-09-30T05:18:00.001-04:00

Friday, September 30, 2011

Mosaic Medallions

Currently on the Bead & Button website, there is a new subscriber pattern called Mosaic Medallions designed by Liz Stahl. It's a free pattern for some very pretty earrings.

I had an email from B& B that had a link to the earrings, so I decided to give them a try. Actually when I first saw them, I really liked them, but getting a little cocky decided to make them by just looking at the picture and not reading the pattern. They looked really easy, and I was just to lazy to click on the link.

Well, although I made a fairly good reproduction, it just seemed to stitch together a tad awkwardly. I mean, I had them looking the same, but it just didn't feel right. So I made myself click on the link and read the pattern, just to see.

Interesting how different minds think. LOL. Even though substantially the earrings looked the same, you could tell right away that the pattern as written had a much more logical free flowing thread path that resulted in nice fluid bead fabric, where my attempt was sort of a stiff red headed stepchild.

The biggest misconception on my part was assuming that a motif such as the one in the earring always starts with a ring of core beads tied together to form a circle. Not. Boy do I still have a lot to learn. LOL

Once done correctly, this earring worked up very quickly and would be perfect if you needed to whip up a pair of earrings to match your dress before you go out!

Day 261 - Wedding Bracelet

2011-09-29T04:56:00.001-04:00

Thursday, September 29, 2011

If you are looking bling, then look no further than this bracelet! The Wedding Bracelet is the design of Angeles Minambres Alonso, bead artist and author of the Spanish blog Quienlodira Creaciones. The pattern for this gorgeous bracelet is posted for free on Angeles' blog.

A fabulous design of both 4mm bicones and 4mm fire polished beads, there is hardly room for any other beads! Although she does throw in some 11/0 seed beads to hold the whole thing together. Each component of the bracelet is completed separately. The are so fast and so clever, once you have the pattern down it will only take you a couple of minutes to make one. Then connect them all up and you have a stunning sparky bracelet!

I also found that the components, singly or grouped in pairs, make gorgeous dangle earrings! If you have a lot of crystals to work with, give this a try.

Gracias mi amiga Angeles! (hee hee did that one without the translator)

Wedding Bracelet, conquered!

Day 260 - Garland Rope

2011-09-28T01:51:00.003-04:00

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

OH - EM - GEE! This may be the cutest spiral rope of all time. I mean, is this cute or WHAT? LOL. The Garland Rope designed by Stacey Gibson of Unbridled Design is a modified spiral combining the best of the spiral and daisy chain worlds.

Garland Rope

I think this design is soooo clever! I have always liked the daisy chain stitch, but the ropes it produces are just to thin and lightweight for me. This design lets you have the daisy look in a more sophisticated way, including a slightly heftier weight. Even with my very limited knowledge of color, I know for this piece, color is key to the image you want to project. Daisies in primary or pastel colors would be ideal for a little girl or if you are going for a more playful look. More muted monochrome colors will give you a more grown-up version (see, very limited, lol). And what if you threw in some metallics and tiny crystals??? I think experimenting with this one would be great fun!

Don't let all those little daisies fool you, once you get the hang of it this garland rope goes really fast! I will definitely be making this rope in the future. You can find the tutorial for the rope at Stacey's ETSY store, Unbridled Design. While you are there, check out Stacey's beaded Black Widow Spider! I really thought it was the real thing!!!

Garland Rope, conquered!

Day 259 - Kulonchiki with Bronze

2011-09-27T23:34:00.002-04:00

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Kulonchiki

The Kulonchiki beaded bead as shown on the blog Kopoboyka, was designed by Russian bead artist Valerija VK. I'm not sure if I have the name of the blog or the name of the bead correct here! Valerija offers her pattern for free on her blog, just click here.

This is a pretty cool looking bead which is shown in the pattern photo as a pendant. I only completed the beaded portion of the pendant.. The beaded bead is then stung with crystals and hung on a cord as a pendant. It's really rather cool looking.

Unfortunately my feeble attempt is not! There is no text to go along with the diagrams in the pattern, but that's ok, the diagrams are very clear and very easy to follow. One thing to note as you review the pattern, the 11 steps are for half the bead. It never really stated that, but after going through them and ending up with half a bead I figured it out. lol. Just turn the completed half around and do steps 2 - 11 on the other side.

The problem I had was the substitutions for the bead sizes required in the materials list. There where a couple weird sizes that I do not normally stock up on such as 7mm beads and 7/0 beads. Who knew? I substituted an 8mm for the 7mm and a 6/0 bead for the 7/0, and just for kicks a 15/0 bead for the 13/0. Just these little bits pretty much threw off the entire balance of the bead. You can get a general feel for what it will look like, but if you want to make it for real, make sure to get the right sizes!

Thanks Valerija VK!

Kulonchiki, conquered!

Day 258 - The Rose

2011-09-26T13:27:00.005-04:00

Monday, September 26, 2011

Today's lesson is a little beaded rose. The pattern is Japanese and I have no idea where I got it. The only thing I can make out is the title and the reference to 3 and 6 mm faceted beads. The diagrams are very good and the rose was simple to make. I've included the pattern here for your use.

I used size 11/0 seed beads for the outer petals, 3mm fire polished for the internal petals, and a 6mm fire polished bead for the center. I thought it turned out pretty cute!

今まであなたが誰なの私の日本人の友人ありがとう！

(Thank you my Japanese friend who ever you are!)

The rose, conquered.

Day 257 - Floral Memory

2011-09-25T07:00:00.016-04:00

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Browsing through my back issues of B&B and Beadwork is so much fun. I only started purchasing the magazines regularly in November of 2010. Not even a year ago! But I've been very lucking in finding some back issues "on the cheap" at area bead shows and my local LBS, both looking to make way for more stock. They are each a little treasure and I read everything, every word, every article, every letter, tip and ad. Yeah, I even read the ads. LOL. I've learned a lot from ads. The names of different kinds of beads, what kinds of beads are out there in space, how kooky bead store owners can be when they make up their store and brand names! It's really fun and every time I can find back issues I'm in heaven until I read through it. I'm one of these people that loves to have books in hand. I will probably never have a kindle. Curling up with your magazine and flipping through the crinkly pages with a steaming cup of coffee is so wonderful!

Floral Memory motif on bobby pin

Ok, all that did have a point. I had pulled out Bead & Button's February 2011 issue for some tactical inspiration, and came across a pattern that I had wanted to make right away when I saw it, but never did. The Floral Memory necklace designed by Jacquelyn Scieszka is a very stunning feminine piece of bead work. It would look darling around a young girls neck in the spring or summer to offset a pretty sundress in the same colorway. The individual beaded flowers and Russian leaves are attached to a beaded rope and worn close to the collar bone like a garland of flowers.

In fact I did start the project, I tried to make one flower motif, couldn't, and dumped it. But more experience has opened my eyes to possibilities I may have missed before. What did I like most? The beaded flowers. So I beaded up a pretty layered flower and attached it to a bobby pin I found at Joann's the other day. I always wondered how people got stuff to stick on a bobby pin! This one has a small disk with two holes in it at the end, so sewing or gluing something to the pin was easy!

I really liked this idea and the flower was perfect for it! And wouldn't this be the cutest gift if you made 4 or 5, and glued them to magnets as a little office set?

Floral Memory, conquered!

Day 256 - Sparkling Waves Bracelet

2011-09-24T21:29:00.007-04:00

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Funny when I don't look at a beading magazine in a while, the next time I do it's like I've never seen it before! That is what is going on with Beadwork's 2011 Favorite Beading Stitches. LOL. I've had it for months, but it seems brand new to me right now. For today's lesson I'm going to do a segment of the bracelet called Sparkling Waves designed by Shelley Nybakke. I know this is one I would have passed over a few months ago. It sounded a little daunting to me because the pattern calls for using memory wire which I have never used before. This time when I saw the photo, I just thought to myself how the heck did they do that?

Sparkling Waves Bracelet

So I tried it. I got a small stretch of memory wire, enough to do the sample on and see how it might curve around. Much less than the pattern called for which is what gives the simple stitch a stacked look. So easy. Still not sure how I would actually handle the end of the wire, but for now I just created a little loop on the end with my needle-nose pliers. A very crappy loop. LOL. You just want something to stop the beads from falling off.

String size 6/0 beads down the length of the wire. I used a cheap czech 6/0 bead that seems much bigger than it should be! But anyway, after you have the 6/0s strung, get a length of thread and tie the end to the loop end of your wire. This is where you will start the weaving. Run the thread down the length of the beads to the other end. Now you are ready to start doing flat peyote. Add another layer of 6/0 beads all the way down, then do a layer of 8/0 beads, two at a time, all the way down. Then another layer of 8/0 beads, two at a time. Then do a row of size 3mm fire polish beads. You will see that the work is starting to ripple a bit, this is what it is supposed to do. The last row is a row adding a sequence of 11/0, 3mm, 11/0 as one bead, in each space across. Now you should see a pretty good sparkly wave!

When the memory wire snaps back in shape you have a whole stack of sparkle! So cool.

Sparkling Waves Bracelet, conquered!

Day 255 - Compass Rose

2011-09-23T17:25:00.007-04:00

Friday, September 23, 2011

Compass Rose Motif

From Beadwork's 2011 Favorite Bead Stitches special issue, I've decided to try the bracelet motif that makes up the Compass Rose Bracelet designed by Laina Goodman.

The bracelet is created by completing a number of the same motif and them connecting them together. The motif is also show stitch together with two others to create a pendant hanging from a beaded cord. Oh course you could make these into cool earrings too!

The motifs are connected by their arms so you could easily arrange them any way you wanted. Stitched up quickly, these would make a great little project for a car ride!

Compass Rose, conquered.

Day 254 - Another Peyote Bezel

2011-09-22T19:30:00.002-04:00

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Probably looks weird that I would be teaching myself another peyote bezel at this point in the game, but I came a crossed an interesting technique for starting the bezel for a stone. Yep, you heard it right. Stone, as in rock, as in gravel...??? I was looking over the Hungarian blog I Am Creative which I had visited several months ago when this caught my eye

"Gravel inclusion of peyote technique (beading)"

Now I have to ask you, you would have looked, right??

So I look. The post is about weaving a peyote bezel around rocks. Specifically rocks or stones that you might find on vacation that you take home in your pocket because they are cool looking. Providing that your rock is fairly smooth, symmetrical and on the flatter side you can make a cool pendant. Not that unusual to peyote around a foreign object, but they want the peyote bezel is started was the cool part to me.

First I feel obliged to tell you that to prepare your rock, you should wash it, then sand it with fine grit sand paper, the paint it with clear nail polish to give it shine. Let it dry, then you are ready.

A couple of days ago I did a lesson on weaving a two needle start for peyote. It was so easy and when it is finished you have your first three rows completed. This bezel starts the same way. After you learn the two needle start, you can use it to create the start of the peyote bezel around your rock. Make the starting strip long enough to fit around your rock, then to join, this is the cool part, since both needles and thread should be coming out of the last single bead on the strip, you will join the ends (careful not to twist the strip) by putting a needle through each of the starting two beads of the other end (see photo), this more or less zips the ends together and you will have a thread and needle on each side. Now you are ready to begin your bezel as you normally would, except you have a really nice clean start AND you have a nice long thread and needle on each side to weave the front and back.

This was the fastest, easiest and by far the cleanest looking peyote bezel that I have done so far. Oh, and your rock will look good too!

Gravel inclusion of peyote technique (beading), conquered.

Day 253 - Barred Bracelet

2011-09-21T20:28:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Barred Bracelet

Today's lesson is the Barred Bracelet designed by Gay Hapgood as featured in Creative Beading Vol. 5. The photo of this bracelet in the book is really awesome! I really wanted to show you what it looked like so I lifted a picture of it from B&B (don't tell on me). Isn't it stunning! The pattern for the bracelet can also be purchase by clicking here.

This is a great bracelet to use for those 3mm cubes that you bought and have never known what to do with, at least I never knew what do to with them! The base of the bracelet is easily made up with a combination of 3mm cubes and 3mm fire-polished beads. Then the cube sections of the base are embellished with several layers of various size seed beads. The one thing I did change, was that the pattern called for 11/0 triangle beads for the top embellishment, and I substituted 11/0 hex cut beads. They seemed to work out fine. In fact, I think I might like them better because it gives a little bling to the surface!

What is really cool is since you are building up the cubed sections and leaving the fire-polished bead sections alone, the stiffness of the cubed sections really feel like links between the fire-polished beads. Even this little swatch has some weight to it!

I bet this bracelet looks great on, I hope to go back and finish making it some day!

Barred Bracelet, conquered!

Day 252 - Little Pearl Ring

2011-09-20T13:56:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Little Pearl Ring

I figured while I'm on a peyote roll, I would try a ring pattern that I had seen some time ago on www.perle4U.de. The pattern is for the Little Pearl Ring. I just love how elegant but simple this ring is. It's very easy to make using peyote stitch but with a variation.

The rims of the ring are done in peyote, but then four beads are strung across to the other side where 3 more rows of peyote are completed. This makes a pretty pattern in the middle of the peyote piece. A 6mm pearl is inserted and then beaded around, and when you reach the length you need for your ring size, just stop and zip the sides up!

That's it! Would be real cute made to match your Boho Bracelet!

Little Pearl Ring, conquered.

Day 251 - Boho Bangle

2011-09-19T07:40:00.010-04:00

Monday, September 19, 2011

You might be wondering why I was trying to hone my peyote skills over the last week. Well it was in preparation to make this gorgeous Boho Bangle designed by Viktoria Szabo of the blog FDEKszer. As soon as I saw this baby I fell in love with it! I could just see stacks and stacks of them in all colors, layered on my arm! Then "POOF!" my vision left and I figured I better try to make one before I get to ahead of myself.

Boho Bracelet

Let me just say, I love this pattern. It is EASY and something any beginner could do to create a trendy, sparkly , bohemian kind of bracelet! I mean if you are going to learn flat even count peyote you might as well make a first project with some ZING! rather than the usual beaded needle case or Chapstick covers. hee hee! This pattern consists of peyote stitch and embellishing with crystals (I used 4mm pearls), that's it. The bangle turns out stiff enough to keep it's shape, but still flexible enough to get over your hand.

Viki has some awesome beading tutorials for sale at very reasonable prices, at her Etsy Shop. Here is the direct link to the bangle pattern, FDEKszer Tutorials. She also creates out of this world peyote cuff patterns and loom patterns that you can see here. And as if that weren't enough, she also has a corresponding Hungarian blog to match her English blog!

Oh yeah, for those who remember, we need to ask her what at "buru" is. That word came up in a Hungarian translation of a pattern I was trying,. I think the translations said something like "don't mash your buru". LOL. I still don't know what it means!

Boho Bangle, conquered!

Day 250 - Two Needle Peyote Start

2011-09-18T02:50:00.001-04:00

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Many thanks to Geneva over at Torque Story for emailing to tell me I was making her crazy! She couldn't find my September blog posts, mainly because I labeled them all August except for two. Duh. Thanks so much Geneva!

Thus far I have been staying away from larger peyote projects like cuffs or bracelets or anything that starts with more than 20 beads., because I can never get the first three rows stitched correctly. I know how to do it, I just can't for some reason. My beads all twist and any "quick" starting solutions tended to take me just about as long to set up than to try to start the beads without them.

Then I saw this bracelet that I really want to try which involves a long peyote base that could not be built up 6 beads at a time from the bottom. I HAD to start the peyote with over 160 delicas. Oh man. So I started googling how to start peyote and came across Suzanne Cooper's Two Needle Peyote Start as shown on About.com.

Two Needle Peyote State

This oh-so-simple method of starting the first three rows of flat even-count peyote is pure genius! I can't believe it took me this long to find this method of starting. To start, cut a fairly long length of thread and put a needle on each end. Pick up two beads and center them in the middle of the thread, then put your two needles together so the two beads in the center end up side by side, looking suspiciously like the start of two rows of peyote. Next, pickup one bead and thread both needles through it so both threads are coming out of the bead. Push the bead down to the two beads already added and notice that it sits squarely on top of the two side to side beads. That's when it really hit me how easy this was going to be! Continue picking up beads in this manner, a bead on each needle and thread, then a bead with both needles and thread going through it.

Continue unit you have the amount of beads added that you need to start the first three rows of your project. I finished this start in no time, with no angst, and no drama. AWESOME!!!!

Two Needle Peyote Start, conquered!

Day 249 - CRAW Connection Techniques

2011-09-17T18:21:00.006-04:00

Saturday, September 18, 2011

Continuing on with the October 2011 Bead & Button issue....you can't help but notice the gorgeous cubic right angle weave necklace on the cover designed by Alla Maslennikova. The Russians are gooooood beaders.

The necklace doesn't have a name as far as I can tell, but is included in the Special Section of the magazine and that is called Creating Connections. What the designer has done with this piece (excluding the bezel) is to bead sections of cubic right angle weave and connect them in various locations to create gorgeous curves and waves. Here is a link to the magazine so you can see the cover, LINK.

I set out to see if I could connect two pieces of craw to make a wave. So I beaded up two sections of craw (way to short, make yours longer if you want to practice), and went about trying to connect them. First, don't use beads that are transparent with a colored lining, it will be very hard to see what you are trying to connect, use opaque beads, and use 8/0s for your practice, it would have been much easier! Second, in practice it doesn't matter, in real life you will want to use thread that will really blend in with the beads. Because that is the nature of un-embellished raw and craw, the thread is going to show.

There two types of basic connections a simple join and a locking join. These are then used to make a straight join, curved join and a wavy join. The simple join joins a side bead from one segment to a corresponding side bead on the second segment. No problem, at this point no thread shows, but the join is like a hinge, the two pieces can move up and down like on a hinge. So you want to lock them by using a locking join. This is where I was having problems. The locking join starts by making a simple join, and then coming up the same hole in which you started the simple join, put the needle through the side bead either to the right or left of the bottom bead of the "top" side facing you. Geez, this is hard. In other words you have just made a "v" with your thread to lock the join so it won't move. Then you can use these joins to great a little back to back caterpillar thing like I made. I joined one end, bent and connected one of the craw segments to the other so there was a bump or wave apparent. woo hoo.

CRAW Wave Connections

Problem is you can see the thread in the "v". I don't know how you would get around this unless your thread matched really well or you put an embellishment over it to hide it. Of course I can't see any connections in the necklace or the samples of the join in the magazine. So I guess it is me. Anybody else notice this as an issue? Did I do it wrong? Would love to hear from you!

CRAW Connection Techniques, conquered

Day 248 - Accelerated Herringbone Stitch

2011-09-16T18:56:00.003-04:00

Friday, September 16, 2011

Another great lesson from the October 2011 issue of Bead & Button! The Accelerated Herringbone Stitch as described by Anna Elisabeth Daeger. Somewhere, somehow, maybe by accident or not, I have done the accelerated herringbone stitch, but don't know that I ever really looked at how it worked . This method of weaving the herringbone stitch in either the flat or tubular methods will get you two, two, two rows for one! That's right, just like we learned to two rows of peyote at once the other day, now we are learning the same technique for herringbone.

The technique as described in the magazine is very easy to do. After establishing your ladder base row, weave one row of regular herringbone. When you do the turn at the end of the row, slip your needle beneath the bridge of the two last beads of the previous row, then back up through the last bead in the row you just added. Now you are ready to begin the accelerated herringbone!

Accelerated Herringbone

As you prepare to add the next row, you will be weaving as you would normally do for herringbone, but instead of picking up two beads for the stitch, you will pick up four. As you go through the next bead to complete your stitch, you will notice as you pull the thread the four beads will line up so there are two on the bottom and two on the top. These are the beads for the two rows you are adding at the moment. As you go up through the next bead, made sure your tension is taut, so the rows stay close together. Pick up four beads, go through the next bead, and do this to the end of the row. When you add the beads for the last stitch of the row, you will need to anchor your thread so the beads stay in place and you will be in position to do the next row. After picking up the four beads, go through the last bead of the previous row, and the last bead of the row beneath it. Essentially going through two beads on the down swing. Anchor the thread by slipping your needle under the bridge of the two beads directly below where you are. Go back up the two beads you just came through AND the beads you just added for the two new rows. In total you will be going up four beads to exit at the top of the last bead you stitched. Your thread will now be coming out the last bead of the row, ready for you to start your next two accelerated rows!

Did that make ANY sense? Here's the thing. If you look at the section highlighted in pink on my sample, I have marked the thread paths in green. What I want you to see is that there is no link between the accelerated rows. It is open. I guess depending on tension, beads and project this could or could not be an issue, I mean you don't want little gaps showing in your work right?

Accelerated Herringbone Stitch, conquered!

Get Unstuck!

2011-09-16T18:16:00.001-04:00

Friday, September 16, 2011

It's no secret that I am in love with Noah Scalin, I mean come on! A man that is smart, creative, fun AND can make a Skull A Day for a year??? What's not to love?

And the love continues...

Release Date: November 2011

Not only has Noah written the book which inspired my 365 A Day beading project (365: A Daily Creativity Journal, Make Something Everyday and Change Your Life), I just found out he is publishing a NEW book! The new book, currently awaiting it's release date (11/15/11) , is called Unstuck: 52 Ways to Get and Keep Your Creativity Flowing at Home, Work and In Your Studio.

AND I discovered you can get in on a giveaway at Craftside, for a pre-release copy of the book! Just leave a comment and cross your fingers!

I have not read the book, I have not been contacted by Noah ( :-( ), I have not been contacted by Voyageur Press, nor have I been contacted by Craftside to throw you guys a bone.

I just love my project and I love what it has done for me already, and of course I love Noah. LOL. If Unstuck is half as wonderful as the first book, I will be immeasurably happy.

Share the love!

Mandy

Day 248 - Russian Wraparound

2011-09-15T05:26:00.001-04:00

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Russian Wraparound Bracelet

From Bead & Button's October 2011 issue, I decided to give the Russian Wraparound, designed by Carolyn Cave, a try. The Russian spiral is one of my favorite stitches, currently my go to stitch for a nice rope or necklace if I need one.

This variation uses bugle beads and four "sections" of beads to make a round. The other thing that is cool is that the bracelet is designed so that you do the weaving around something solid to make the spiral tube maintain a sturdier shape. Carolyn has suggested the macrame ring (as show in my previous post of the Zig-Zag Bracelet) or some thin tubing from the hardware store. Another thing you can use is thick cord, like the kind they use in upholstery or curtains. This will allow you to keep the shape of your rope but gives you the soft bangle look.

Even without support on the inside, my sample of the spiral was actually doing very well on it's own. I think the bugles give it a little more support than the stitch usually has.

Great fun and it really worked up fast!!!

Russian Wraparound, conquered!

Day 247 - Fiore Earrings

2011-09-14T06:28:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Today's lesson was a free bonus pattern from Lark. A free pattern from Maggie Meister's new book, Classical Elegance. I even love the TITLE of this book! I haven't seen the entire book yet, but if this bonus pattern is any indication, I'm sure I'm going to love it.

Fiore Erring

The pattern is for Maggie's Fiore Earrings. Now right off the bat I will say click here and go look at what the earring is supposed to look like when the correct materials are used. Then you can come back and I'll tell you about my experience.

Ready? This earring is really cool, but I substituted some materials because either I didn't have what was called for or I was just to lazy to get up and find them. So the beads are a mish mash of what was already littering my table. I love the over all look of this earring, very regal looking and very classic. I will most definitely make this again with the correct materials, they would look perfect with a period costume if you were going to a Renaissance festival or Medieval Times for lunch.

But what intrigued me the most was that these are post earrings. I love dangle earrings, but I generally don't wear earring wires with anything that was weight to it anymore. I don't like it when an earring makes the hole in my ear look bigger by pulling it down. And generally I have some reaction to base metals so cheaper post earrings are out also. THIS is really cool though. The way Maggie incorporated the earring post finding into the design, was to cover the entire post base with circular peyote, front and back. So the only metal touching your ear is the actual post, which I can probably cover with clear nail polish. And best of all you don't have to use the toxic waste glue (my name for E-6000).

This is just to awesome! What a great idea! This technique is definitely the lesson I picked up from this project and I hope to make use of it in the future!!

Fiore Earring, conquered!

Day 246 - MiJo Pendant

2011-09-13T20:00:00.001-04:00

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

I love strolling through my daily blogs in the early morning (usually around 4:00 AM EST), coffee in hand looking to see what all my friends are up to. I have a LOT of blogs on my blog roll and everyone of them is there for a reason, maybe at my age I don't REMEMBER that reason, but I must have wanted to see more of something on each one. One that has been particularly fun for me has been Ewa's World of Beads. I swear every day I see something new on Ewa's blog! She does awesome work and is definitely one of my favorite Hungarians! Ewa is also extremely generous with her patterns, offering a good number of them for free.

MiJo Pendant

The other day I spied a pendant of Ewa's that included a great pattern with it. The pendant is called the MiJo Pendant. Not sure if MiJo is a word or a name, but I like the sound of it! Sounds like mojo which is cool!

As usual with Ewa's patterns, the graphics are fabulous so you don't need to translate the Hungarian instructions that are included with each step. I was however, having a little trouble figuring out the thread path for a few of the steps. It seemed that the thread in the diagram sometimes fell between two beads, either of which could have been where the thread could have gone. I am pleased with the way it turned out, although there are some areas that are just not right.

I didn't really realize until it was finished that I had created a fabulous 4th of July pendant! With the silver the star motif really stands out and because I substituted a big white pearl for the 14mm rivoli that should have been in the center, I got that big splash of white to round out the red and blue.

Thanks so much Ewa!

MiJo Pendant, conquered!

Day 245 - Bojangles!

2011-09-12T04:00:00.000-04:00

Monday, September 12, 2011

Are you CRAWing yet???? With this month's issue of Bead & Button just hitting the news stands, it seems that Cubic Right Angle Weave (CRAW) is the main topic of conversation these days! In fact Bead & Button has dedicated almost an entire issue to the stitch and as usual with CRAW, it is causing terror across the beading land!

Now that I can do the stitch with ease, it seems funny that I had a problem with it in the first place. LOL. If you can right angle weave, they you can can do this. All you need is a really cool pattern to try it out on...

Enter...Heather Collins, bead artist, designer, owner of Dream Weaver's Studio and one of the infamous Bead Mavens! Whether by plan or chance, Heather published for the first time an awesome, fun cubic right angle weave pattern just before Bead & Button hit the stands.

Yesterday I mentioned that there are only two folks so far for which I have been willing to shell out some greenbacks. Yesterday's designer was one, and Heather Collins is the other. Actually Heather came first as I had purchased a couple of her patterns last month before the pattern for Bojangles came out. Heather's patterns are gorgeous and so reasonable priced (She is the creator of the famous "Cutie Pie" bracelet)! BIG clear diagrams and concisely worded instructions will get you started with Bojangles in no time. And to help you, Heather has put together a fabulous video tutorial that anyone can use to master the technique of cubic right angle weave. Honestly this is the best video tutorial you will find on the matter.

Bojangles is a really cute embellished CRAW bangle that can also be lengthened slightly and a clasp added, to create what Heather calls a "surfer's choker". This fun pattern is very straight forward, do some craw, embellish, move forward, do some craw, embellish, move forward. This was the first time that I had done a project with CRAW that involved weaving in the embellishment as you are weaving the base of the pattern. Thus far I had only woven the CRAW first and then gone back and put in the embellishments. This was the only thing about the whole pattern that I had a question about. Is there a reason for adding the embellishments as you go along or would it be easeir to create the raw base and then go back and the stuff?

Regardless, I worked the pattern as written and have been so tickled with the results!! The structure of the bangle lends itself well to bold, opaque colors. I also think it would be gorgeous in some Fall/Autumn colors with a touch of matte mettalic gold peeking through!

Bojangles, conquered! (Well the lesson is conquered, but I still plan on finishing this bangle soon!)

Day 244 - Turquoise Bracelet

2011-09-11T21:46:00.001-04:00

Sunday, September 11, 2011

I'm so excited to show you the bracelet pattern I tried out today! I was reading Kristen's blog, My Bead Journey and she was doing a review on a pattern designed by Ellad2. It was so cute that I decided to take a look at Ellad2's Etsy shop just for giggles. You all should know by now that I am into the free patterns since I am doing to many for my project, but I thought what the heck and took a look.

The patterns at Ellad2's shop are amazing! Not only are they stylish, trendy and just plain beautiful, they are some of the most reasonably priced patterns that I have found to date. I had to have one, and then I had to have two, and well you get the picture. I have only purchased patterns from one other person on the Internet (who's pattern I will be telling you about in the very near future). In order for me to justify the purchase, I have to really think about the versatility of the pattern and what could I do with it in the future???

The pattern I purchased and chose to make today is from Ellad2 ( www.ellad2.com and www.ellad2.etsy.com) and it is called Turquoise Bracelet. Please note that I purchased the pattern from the site and am under no obligation to extol it's virtues. But I really love, it so I wanted to tell you all.

The first thing you might notice is that mine is not turquoise and silver as is the sample on the pattern. But that is what I mean about the versatility. The turquoise and silver lent a very casual air to the sample, but when I changed up the beads for pearls and matte metallic, it took on a whole new look! The materials are simple, 4mm rounds, 8/0s and 15/0s. That's it. The base is constructed in RAW with the 8/0 beads and the pearls so it works up really quickly, a great project for beginners because you get some immediate gratification! The piece is further embellished with 15/0 beads. Slap on a clasp and that's it! This bracelet was made according to the tutorial with five pearls across, but the width can be changed easily by adding or subtracting a row or more. The pattern was very clear, with step by step written and step by step photographic instructions.

I really love this! And look Ma, I made the whole bracelet!

Turquoise Bracelet, conquered!

Day 243 - Swan Bracelet (Center Medallion)

2011-09-10T16:26:00.001-04:00

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Swan Bracelet Medallion

The prettiest pattern was posted on BeadsMagic.com today. It's for the Swan Bracelet. Three pretty medallions make up the front of the white swan like bracelet, one large and two small. I decided to try the large medallion in the center. I don't know who designed the pattern, so a big thank you wherever you are!

Well to start off , I didn't have the right materials for the medallion, but determined, I came up with some substitutes that worked out pretty well. The base structure of the medallion is constructed with 9mm and 6mm bugle beads. Well, I had 6mm and 3mm, 6+3=9 right? So in place of the 9mm I used a 6mm and a 3mm. Hey it worked out pretty well except that I probably didn't get the firm support I needed in the base. But I was able to proceed.

Then the materials called for 8mm, 6mm and 3mm faceted rounds, which I didn't have so I used pearls. The pattern also called for a 3mm round, but since I had already used a 3mm pearl, I didn't want another one, so I substituted a 6/0 bead for those. And lastly, the pattern called for 11/0 seed beads, but the ones I had that matched the 6/0 bead was a 10/0, so I said what the heck and proceeded.

My substitutes seemed to work out fairly well, although I noticed an error on my piece. For whatever reason, I made my base bugle wheel with 8 sections instead of 10. My only defense was that it was 4:30 AM. LOL. My piece is a little smaller, but over all it is the same pattern. The only change in the pattern I made was due to the size of the 10/0 beads. Between the 6mm and the now 6/0 bead, I only had room to put one 10/0 bead instead of the two 11/0s called for.

After I took the photo, I went around the outer edge of bugles and inserted one 10/0 bead between each one, then pulled tight. Because I used the 6mm and 3mm beads to replace the 9mm bead, that area of the base was able to bend towards me as I tightened the thread. This created an adorable little dome that could be used to surround a button or maybe a magnet. It was also half a ball! I decide to work backwards from the edge to create the other side of the ball. Stay tuned to see how it turned out....

Swan Bracelet (Center Medallion), conquered.

Day 242 - FAST Peyote

2011-09-09T19:22:00.001-04:00

Friday, September 9, 2011

Woven with FAST Peyote

Today my lesson comes from Sally Anderson's blog, Wild Sally Road. Sally just learned a new technique for weaving even count peyote. It's called FAST Peyote. What's not to like??

Sally put together a great tutorial with both written and photographic instructions. So I set out to try my hand at it. Once I'm passed the first two rows of flat peyote I really like how the beads just "snap!" into their little respective homes. Starting those first two rows, or casting on to coin a term from my knitting days, is pure hell for me. But that's a story for another day.

Once I had finally gotten my first two rows started (I used 20 beads to cast on), the instructions were to do two more rows of regular peyote. After those two rows were completed, I was ready to do some FAST peyote. Let the party begin! I'll explain briefly how it's done, but go to Sally's blog for the photos and instructions.

After completing the first four rows in regular peyote, I suspect one is asked to add the two additional rows to stabilized the base, pick up the same number of beads you used to cast on. I used 20, so I picked up 20 beads. Lay your piece flat on the table so the thread with the 20 beads is exiting at the bottom of the work. With your needle, go though the first up bead at the top of your work. Make sure you go through the up bead so that your needle is coming toward you and down towards your work. As you pull the thread through you will see that you have just positioned the 20 beads on the thread next to the last completed row. Just where you want to add them! This is the cool part, you are going to sort-of zipper them together.

Skip the first bead on the thread and go through the next bead on the thread. Now go through the next up bead on your work. When you pull the thread, "snap!" "snap!" you will see that the first two beads on the thread have locked into place on the work! That is so cool! Continue down your work in this manner, going through the last bead on the thread. You have just completed two rows at once!

Thank you Wild Sally!

FAST Peyote, conquered!

Day 241 - RAW Bezel

2011-09-08T05:08:00.001-04:00

Thursday, September 8, 2011

RAW Bezel

Strange, the new issue of Beadwork and the last issue of Bead magazine both have extensive sections on Right Angle Weave Bezels. New trend? Or are we just look for a fast way to do everything?

Me, I'm for fast, so I quickly got out the July/August 2011 Issue of Bead, well, I pulled it up since I have the subscription in an Imag, and turned to the section called Cabochon Crazy by Jennifer Airs. My preference, but I thought Bead's article/project was better than the one in Beadwork, although the techniques used are pretty much the same.

I'm not so sure the RAW is that much faster than weaving an entire bezel in peyote, but it was fun to try and was easily adaptable to the teardrop cab that I bought for a buck at my first bead show. In fact the article has instructions for how to bezel almost any shape with RAW, including a gemstone heart.

In my sample I started with one row of raw that fit around the perimeter of the cab. I joined the ends and did another row of raw. Now for me, two rows of raw fit over the outer edge of my cab just fine, but if your cab is thicker you can just add addition raw rows, or you can switch to another stitch. Which is what I did. Peyote is easy to start from raw, so I did two rows of peyote with 15/0s. This closed the back and enabled me to sit the cab inside, but I should have done a row of 11//0s before I started the 15/0s because the smaller beads pulled the right angle weave a little further back from the edge of the cab than I wanted. But is was still workable, so I removed the cab and added 3 rows of delicas, fitting the cab inside the bezel after the 2nd row and using the 3rd row to close in tighter around it. Then I added two rows of 15/0s and I was finished. It did turn out very neatly and I am anxious to try it on some bigger loose gemstones I have.

The only draw back is that the thread is showing on the corners of the raw sections, not a lot but just enough to irritate me. LOL. This can be easily remedied by adding 15/0s between the raw units all around for further embellishment. Since raw is so easy to embellish you have a wide opportunity to do some interesting embellishing around the cab!

RAW Bezel, conquered!

Day 240 - Beaded Turtle

2011-09-07T16:54:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Beaded Turtle

Fear the Turtle! If you live anywhere near Maryland you know the University of Maryland's mascot is the Terrapin. And their big slogan is, Fear the Turtle! Ahhhh, besides maybe being able to snap your finger off, they just aren't that frightful.

And neither is this little guy. Please meet the Beaded Turtle as shown on 2000melochey.ru. This is a Russian blog and the designer is Vic Osadhenko.

This only took 10-15 minutes to make and I think it turned out great. There are no written instructions to translate, just diagrams which are well done. You can see every bead and thread path very clearly.

And lastly, I would like to dedicate this little beaded turtle to my friend over at the blog, My Daily Turtle. This is another of those crazy 365 a day projects and she has been making a turtle a day out of anything that happens to be handy at the moment! Check the turtle blog out, it's very cute!

Beaded Turtle, conquered!

Day 239 - Bracelet In The Fold

2011-09-06T16:54:00.001-04:00

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Bracelet In The Fold

Today's lesson is from the Russian website 2000melochey.ru. This is a sample of a bracelet designed by Vic Osadchenko called Bracelet in the Fold. I must start out by saying that my sample pretty much looks nothing like the sample that Vic has displayed on the blog. You must go over and check that one out.

The woven strip snaking between the pearls should be a strip woven on a bead loom. I did mine in peyote since I don't have a loom and I needed something that would bend a lot. The 6mm pearls I have between the folds of the peyote strip should be a 4mm and there should be two. In order to make the fold a little more exaggerated like in Vic's photo, on the back of the bracelet (let's say the side with two pearls is the front), the pearl there should be something much smaller to pull the fold together more.

Now you may ask why didn't I make the sample with the proper materials? Well I have the flu or a cold or something, and these supplies were reachable without having to move out of the recliner. So there you have it. :-)

Bracelet in the Fold, conquered!

Day 238 - Zig-Zag Bracelet (DAy 3)

2011-09-05T05:56:00.000-04:00

Monday, September 5, 2011

Happy Labor Day everyone!!

Zig-Zag Bracelet Completed

Today is Day 3, and the final day of the Zig-Zag Bracelet designed by Lisa Kan, as seen in Bead & Button's Creative Beading Vol. 5. The last step is to add the 11/0 beads between the rows of raw. I was afraid the beading would get to tight if I used regular sized 11/0 beads, and that I might end up not being able to get the needle through the last row.

Instead I decided to use some size 11/0 czech seed beads I got at Hobby Lobby a long time ago. Since they are a tad smaller than Japanese 11/0's I thought they might help naturally tighten the bead work. I was starting to get afraid that the the gold, brown, and muted green was getting to "earthy" looking, which I love, but so much so that it wasn't "popping". I decided to use a little color, so the 11/0 czech beads are translucent orange iris. I do love the color of the bead, not so much on the bracelet. At first I liked it, but the more I added the more the rows on the raw units started to become more visible. I had switched back to the crystal Fireline so the gold Nymo wouldn't dull the translucent beads, but it ended up making the raw unit beads lighter. Hadn't thought of that part. LOL. I liked it better when the receded into the background.

Now I wish I had gone with metallic gold 11/0s or used the same color green as in the raw. The beading still slides around the ring a tiny bit when you push it, put I don't really think that matters since all the sides are the same. Next time I would thrown in some matching 15/0 beads with the 11/0s just to tighten the beading a little more.

I really love this pattern! Thanks for sticking with me on this one!

Zig Bracelet (Day 3), conquered!

Day 237 - Zig Zag Bangle (Day 2)

2011-09-04T15:36:00.000-04:00

Sunday, September 4, 2011

The Zig Bracelet!

Day 2 of Lisa Kan's Zig-Zag Bangle from Bead & Button's Creative Beading Vol. 5 , started out with me deciding I needed a Day 3. LOL.

On Day 1 I finished the tubular raw base around the 3' macrame ring I got from either Joann's or Michael's I'm not sure which. Next up was the embellishment of the base with the zig-zag element. Each "row" of the raw would have 2 15/0 beads and an 11/0 triangle added to each unit in either the zig or the zag direction.

That's when I noticed it. I was missing a row of raw in my tube. I was supposed to have six units around, but I only had five. I went back to the pattern, and there it was in black and white. But there is no way that six units could be right, the five units was already loose! And then there it was, a note from the artist, at the very END of the pattern. Not all macrame rings are the same width. Well duh.

There some changes you could make so the pattern would fit the ring, but I was way ahead of unraveling my tube!!! With only five rows, my zig zags would not match up! I was zigging where I should have been zagging! I though of ways to improvise, and my final solution was to unravel some of what I had done and just make all the embellishments face the same direction. So I actually now have a "Zig Bangle."

But it still looks pretty cool, so I'm happy with it. In fact I think I like it better! Now to add the 11/0 beads between the raw units to shore it up a bit. Right now the bead work slides slightly around the ring. I would like it to be more rigid and I think that is why the 11/'s are added.

Day 3 will be adding those 11/0s.

Zig Bracelet (Day 2), conquered!

Day 236 - Zig-Zag Bangle (Day 1)

2011-09-03T11:00:00.000-04:00

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Zig-Zag Bangle Base

Today I went back the Bead & Button's Creative Beading Vol. 5 to look for a specific earring pattern. As usual, I never got there. To the earring pattern that is. The Zig-Zag Bangle designed by Lisa Kan caught my eye. Now I've seen this many times before, but this time when I saw it I just wanted to make it! I split the making of the bracelet into two days. The first day, today, is completing the base of the bangle. And the second day will be completing the embellishment. Originally form the October 2008 issue, here is a picture of the bangle.

In the first part of the pattern right angle weave (RAW) is used to completely cover a 3' brass macrame ring. I round this ring a Joanns, it's made by Darice. Then you make a five unit strip of RAW, zipping it up around the ring to create the sixth RAW unit. Now you have a little ring of RAW around the brass ring. Now all you do is cover the ring with tubular RAW built off the units you just added around the ring. I know some folks don't like tubular RAW and prefer to weave a long strip of raw and then zip it around the ring. I can't see why that wouldn't work, just make sure to keep the raw loose. It just seems like a lot more work doing it that way!

It doesn't say it in the instructions, but the RAW will be quite loose around the ring, this is ok. Once you start adding the embellishments it will tighten up. If it is to tight in the beginning you will never have enough room to embellish.

In case you were wondering, I ran out of crystal Fireline early on, so I switched to gold Nymo which will actually match the color of the beads I'll be using. First time I've worked with Nymo except for with bead embroidery. I did stretch it ahead of time, but I don't have any wax with which to coat it. It seems to be working fine though.

Zig-Zag Bangle (Day 1), conquered.

Day 235 - Herringbone Strand w/ Embellishment

2011-09-02T09:52:00.001-04:00

Friday, September 1, 2011

Herringbone Strand w/ Embellishment

Today's project is again from the bonus section of the Oct/Nov 2011 issue of Beadwork magazine. I chose to make one element out of the Center of Attention project designed by Deborah Hermanson-Pulos. This is a pretty project consisting of 3 strands of herringbone that make up the necklace, a 3 strand beaded bail, from which hangs a matching focal bead with short beaded fringe coming out of the bottom. It's very simple, but Deborah has matched the bead colors perfectly to the focal bead so the overall effect is quite stunning.

I chose to do one of the herringbone strands used to make up the necklace. This is essentially "skinny herringbone" as Beth Stone calls it in her second book. The strand is made using tubular herringbone, but only using four beads, so it is REALLY skinny. The key here is to keep the tension very tight, but even with that, your thread is going to show folks. On the sides, it can't be helped. So try to match your thread color as best you can.

The interesting thing about the strand is the added embellishment. Every 2 or 3 rows one bead is added to each row, so you have one on each side. When you add the next two bead herringbone stitch over the embellishment bead, it will lock in place with the herringbone row below the embellishment bead. This makes the embellishment bead pop out and sit on top of the row. (I promise not to say embellishment again)

Now I had to laugh, a few months ago I was playing around with some tubular herringbone, and thought that I surely had INVENTED this method of adding the bead embellishment. LOL. This always happens to me, I think I invented something and then I see it somewhere! Like the time I knitted some long hand warmers, you know the kind that go on your arm but stop at the end so your fingers can hang out? Well, I put it on my foot just to have fun, and thought I invented the Pedi-Sock, only to see it in a magazine several months later!

Oh well back to the drawing board.

Herringbone Strand w/ Bead Embellishment, conquered!

Day 234 - Crystal Key Earrings

2011-09-01T17:35:00.000-04:00

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Crystal Key Earring

Don't let me fool you. These are the Crystal Key Earrings from the bonus section of the Oct/Nov 2011 Beadwork magazine! I just didn't use crystals or a key charm. The pattern designed by Kristal Wick, really lends it's self to using any kind of 4mm bead or crystal and anything you want for the dangling charm.

A simple netting pattern, the earring works up quickly. The only caution I have for you is what the designer herself gives in the pattern, "don't pull so tightly that the beadwork buckles." And buckle mine did. The earring does seem a little floppy, so it is suggested to run your thread through a few times to reinforce things, just don't pull tight. In fact next time I would leave it a little looser and drop it in the "drink" (that's Mop & Glo for you guys, lol). You can also lay it flat and paint on the Mop & Glow with a paint brush. Let it dry and give it a couple of coats. Instead of a charm, I added a crystal teardrop at the end, to which I added a few beads so it would sit properly. Cool pattern!

Crystal Key Earrings, conquered!

Day 233 - Lively Lace Bracelet

2011-08-31T20:28:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, August 31, 201

Lively Lace Bracelet

The Lively Lace Bracelet is one of the bonus projects from the Oct/Nov 2011 issue of Beadwork magazine. Designed by Julie Glasser, the bracelet is soooo dainty and airy when wearing it you probably wouldn't even know you had it on!

The pattern is a very easy triangle weave that makes use of one motif over and over again to make the length of the bracelet. Each motif blends seamlessly into the other, so in the end you hardly notice that is the same triangle weave wheel! Once the motif part of the bracelet is complete, a thread is run up the center line of the bracelet, adding a bicone in the center of each motif. In the magazine photo, each bicone is perfectly nestled into each center. In my world anyway, I used a 4mm Czech bicone which is a tad bigger that a Swarovski, so my bicones sit on top of each center. I deemed it a new design element and moved on!

Lively Lace Bracelet, conquered!

Day 232 - Nesting Bracelet

2011-08-30T17:46:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Nesting Bracelet

From the bonus online section of the Oct/Nov issue of Beadwork magazine, I decided to try the Nesting Bracelet. The bracelet, designed by Marcie Abney, is made by making up 5 of these circular peyote medallions and then connecting them with jump rings to make the bracelet. I did one of the medallions just t see what it looked like, and I really do like it. I would much rather wear it as an earring though.

Now when you compare my sample here to the magazine, you'll notice that I only have 5 of the 4mm beads in the medallion where there should be six. Well, this is simply because I was tired and wasn't paying attention! But the pattern worked out fine, so I think if you want yours a little bigger or smaller, taking away or adding a bead is the way to go.

Nesting Bracelet, conquered!

Day 231 - Brilliant Bezel

2011-08-29T06:19:00.007-04:00

Monday, August 29, 2011

Today's project is from the Oct/Nov 2011 issue of Beadwork. Melinda Barta, Senior Editor at Beadwork, has a new Interweave DVD called How to Stitch Beaded Bezels with Peyote, Herringbone and More. This herringbone bezelling technique is a sneak peek from the new DVD.

Brilliant Bezel

The Brilliant Bezel uses a combination of three stitches to create a relatively quick bezel. What I liked about it is that it looks like one that can be easily adapted to bezel oddly shaped and thicker stones and crystals. To start the bezel you first ladder stitch a row of beads that will fit around your stone. Then you add rows of herringbone to both sides and finish the inside edges with peyote.

I thought this was pretty cool. I'm not much of a rivoli person, but I do like to bezel odd things. This is a matte glass stone from the florist section if the craft store. Seems I look at everything now with the question could I bezel that? in mind! LOL.

Brilliant Bezel, conquered.

Day 230 - 211 Zig-Zag

2011-08-28T21:35:00.001-04:00

Sunday, August 29, 2011

I want to send out a HUGE shout, to KJ of KJs Beadacious Beads for two reasons, one has to do with my lesson today and the other is so huge it will rock you newer beading folk right off your keesters! I'll start with the big thing first and then move on to my project for the day.

KJ has amassed the largest collection of beading blog links I have ever seen in one place. Not only has she entered them all onto a separate page on her blog, she has listed them alphabetically! Some of them you may have seen already here and there, many of them I've used to find those awesome Russian and Hungarian blogs I've been using lately. This must have taken hours, well I know it did, and she has made them available to everyone. Just go to her blog and click the blog tab at the top, or you can click here to go right to the page. Thank you KJ!!

The second huge shout to KJ, is from me personally. KJ was packing to move and found that she had an extra copy of Horace R. Goodhue's Indian Bead-Weaving Patterns. I have been looking for a copy of this book for months after a lesson I did of his several months ago. This book really is priceless if you want to learn some history on Native American beadweaving. If the inside of my book is up to date, the original book was published by him in 1971 and 3000 were printed. Revised and expanded in 1989, the book has been reprinted twice since them, the last in 2007. Total book printed looks to be about 60,000. Not only does ole' Horace give you background on the different stitches, he tells you what tribe made the pattern, has hand drawn diagrams, and his wife beaded up all the samples in the photos! I've had such fun reading this book like a novel. I agree with KJ, she said the book is "an important part of history" and I totally agree.

The lesson I chose was a short one, located in the section called Zig-Zag Variations. It's called the 2-1-1 variation. It is easy to do and is pretty much the basis for all 30! of the variations offered. Starting with 2 colors of 11/0 beads, string A, B, A and tie in a circle. String A,B,A and go through the A bead on the right from the first step. Pick up B, A and go through the second A bead on the previous step. Just keep repeating the last step until you reach the lenght you want. In my sample, I started out correctly, but then started playing by adding 3 Bs in stead of one to make a picot, and then adding one 11/0 and one 15/0 to sit on the edge. At this stage you are pretty much doing brick stitch except for the beads that sit on top of the edge.

This book is so cool, thank you so much for thinking of me KJ! I love it!!!

2-1-1 Zig-Zag Variation, conquered.

Day 229 - Pearlvescent Bracelet

2011-08-28T12:49:00.000-04:00

Saturday, August 28, 2011

Pearlvescent

Well, even in the midst of the earthquake and hurricane, I some how management to get caught up on my posting! LOL, what a week! I was working on this lesson when the electricity went out due to the hurricane winds, and I was in mid-stitch! Hope all my East Coast beading friends made it through safe and sound!

My hurricane project was the Pearlvescent bracelet designed by Kelli Rae Burns. It is on page 52 of the the new Beadwork issue, Oct/Nov 2011. This is a very pretty bracelet and frankly the best use of Tilas that I have seen yet! I only did a small swatch to try out the pattern, but I'm glad I did. I want to definitely make this entire bracelet and I think doing the small swatch will help me when I start the bigger project.

It's really a very clever design! A base of Tilas is embellished on both sides with herringbone "prongs" that hold a pearl, and bicones that hold the prongs together to create a subtle arch in the work. Hey, that was a pretty good description! LOL.

The pattern is easy to follow, but I would suggest doing a small swatch to understand the pattern and figure out the correct tension. Because you are using size 15/0 beads and making multiple passes through them, it will help you in the long run to do so (I'm talking to newbies like me!). Trust me, it is a huge pain in the rear to rip sections of these small beads (and multiple passes) out if you discover you've done something correctly.

It's even prettier in person! A definite to-do!

Pearlvescent, conquered!

Day 228 - Bangle Uno

2011-08-27T17:58:00.004-04:00

Friday, August 27, 2011

Bangle Uno

Many thanks to my friend Sally at Wild Sally Road for telling me about Bangle Uno! Isn't it scrumptious?! Sally found it a few weeks ago at La Blog de Peetje. The bangle is designed by Peetje and she graciously offers the pattern for free on her blog, click here for the pattern.

Oo la la! I started drooling as soon as I saw this. The pattern is in French, but the diagrams are excellent so if you try it you shouldn't have a problem. The pattern is for crossweave with two needles, but I used one needle and did the pattern in RAW without any difficulty. Let me give you the materials list in English:

Bangle Uno Material List

+/- 120 faceted 4mm faceted beads (he pictures look like she used bicones in one picture and fire-polished in the other). The break down of the 120 crystals is +/- 90 faceted for the base and +/- 30 bicones for the embellishment. She indicates +/- because depending on the size bracelet you are making you might use more or less.
Delicas
11/0 seed bead
15/0 seed bead
2 Needles
Thread

I used 4mm Czech bicones and they worked fine. I did find that to tight things up a bit, I ran the thread through the embellishment a second time. This worked up fast, so if you are looking for a gorgeous gift you can do in one night, this is your pattern!

Bangle Uno, conquered.

Make Something Every Day and Change Your LIfe

2011-08-25T09:48:00.000-04:00

Thursday, August 25, 2011

I have much to be grateful for today. As I opened Blogger to start my morning blog run (ha! I have to laugh as I wrote that because the blog run is about as much exercise as I've been getting lately, although I have developed a nice little case of beading elbow) I was surprised to see that I now have 201 friends following my 365 project and over 44,700 views to my blog (40,000 are probably just me fixing errors and seeing if I had an new followers)!! All this since the middle of January, yes this past January, it's incredible to me.

Wonderful things, including you!, have materialized for me since I began this journey. Perhaps there is something to the Law of Attraction.

Some of you have asked or commented on my somewhat erratic daily postings of late. LOL. Although I have managed to do a project for every day, all of them might not of been done exactly every day. But one of the beauties of doing your own 365 A Day project is that you get to make up the rules and change them any time you want. Because in life, and this is still a struggle for me, everything is not black and white. We actually live in the gray areas.

Last Sunday my SIL passed away from cancer. She fought a valiant fight, as did her daughter and my brother, because you can't leave them out, they were in the trenches too. It has sometimes been difficult for me to post everyday. Some days I did a project, but just couldn't muster the emotional strength to post it. One day I did three projects to make up for three days missed.

As we lay my SIL to rest tomorrow morning, I just wanted to thank all of you, this project, my family, my pets, my friends, and my husband for helping me through my personal struggle with her death and its impact on our family. You have helped more than you can know.

Namaste my friends,

Mandy

Day 227 - Jeweled Backlace Necklace, Spiral Rope Segment

2011-08-25T06:22:00.008-04:00

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Flat Spiral Segment

Again today I've chosen a project from the new October/November 2011 issue of Beadwork magazine. The Jeweled Backlace necklace designed by Alicia Shems is a very intriguing and beautiful piece combining ALL of the following techniques: backstitch bead embroidery, three-drop tubular peyote stitch, right-angle weave variation, two-needle right angle weave, and a spiral rope variation. I ain't kidding folks.

The piece, when you look at the photo, looks like a lariat, but really it's not. Well maybe it is. It has a big bezelled focal bead set in netting, with two additional "faux" ropes in the front (so you have the look of three necklaces) and what looks like four lariat ends hanging (two each) on the ends. I know, I know, you are saying, what the hell?, but you just have to see it for yourself! The pattern doesn't say it is a lariat, and it doesn't say it's a necklace, but it does say that the designer, to wear this piece "uses a needle and thread to backstitch it onto the dress so it won't slip while she' wearing it. When she's done, she snips the thread while keeping the piece intact." I repeat, what the hell?

On closer inspection of the pattern you will find this necklace is not what you thought it was. The "netting" isn't a netting stitch, the focal bead is actually bead embroidered, and the spiral rope is a really a flat spiral variation.

I decided to try just the flat spiral variation segment of the piece. This segment was very interesting in the photo, but it was hard to see detail because the camera was to far away. Looking at the diagrams I could tell a lot of beads were being used, sizes 8, 4mm fire polished, 11, 15, and delicas. The variation is more or less constructed the same way as your normal flat spiral, except different size beads are used on each side, giving the weaving an interesting new look. I would like to experiment with this a little more in the future!

Jeweled Backlace Necklace, Sprial Rope Segment, conquered!

Day 226 - Bubble Wrap Beaded Bead

2011-08-24T21:03:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I've been told that when I'm excited I act like a little kid. Generally this is in response to me getting something new. I GOTTA open it right away and start playing. And well that's just what happened today when my husband brought in the mail, and there it was, totally unexpected, unopened and NEW! The October/November issue of Beadwork!!! Funny how one little unexpected thing can turn your whole day around!! I don't know if it is just me or not, but I think this issue and the last of Beadwork have been spectacular. That beadweaving projects have been more detailed, more challenging, and made more use of the more popular techniques I've been seeing popping up all over the blogs patterns of late. Or maybe it's just techniques that are more popular with me! LOL. I'm talking about RAW, Cubic RAW, Crossweave, Triangle Weave (TAW??), and Hexagon Weave (or heehee, HAW? lol). And just when I was regretting I ever bought Tila beads, wham!, there are two great patterns in there.

Because I spent so much time pouring over this trade rag (I even read the ads) I needed to make something fast and easy for today's project. One item caught my attention immediately, the little beaded beads on the Bubble Wrap necklace designed by Cynthia Rutledge. The necklace is a really cute, using odd count tubular peyote to create the necklace, a cool beaded clasp, and several beaded beads scattered around the peyote rope. A netting technique is used to create these little beads, and can I tell you it took me about 5 minutes right out of the gate to finish my sample. Can't beat that with a stick!

Very cute, easy, and again with changes in the beads, the possibilities are unless!

Bubble Wrap Beaded Bead, conquered.

Day 225 - Taking Shape Bracelet

2011-08-23T17:54:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Taking Shape Bracelet

Today I once again chose a lesson from Bead & Button's Guide to Easy Jewelry Designs a special issue published in the Fall of 2011. This really is a cool issue, the best parts are articles contributed by Diane Fitzgerald on such topics as design, color & value, pattern & texture and several more. It's so nice to read what one of the Master's has to say about such things!

The project I chose is the Taking Shape Bracelet designed by Anna Elizabeth Draeger. I have to tell you I passed this one by many times. It's just not something I would wear and frankly it looked awfully uncomfortable with all those spiky things come out of it! But again, it IS on the bucket list.

The bracelet is made by creating 4-6 strings of bugles, bicones and seed beads in different combinations and then cleverly attached at both ends with jump rings. Attach these rings to your clasp and you're done! In the interest of time, and the earthquake I had to sit through today, I only did three strings so I could get the gist of what it would look like. It is surprisingly soft, not pointy at all. Probably the biggest lesson for me here, was the way the bracelet is constructed. Simple strings, all attached at each end with a jump ring. That is really cool. I makes me think of all kinds of possibilities for designing bracelets or necklaces.

Taking Shape Bracelet, conquered.