Just a very quick post to say that I’ve finally got around to photographing and listing these earrings, which were my project in issue 23 of Bead magazine. You can find them in my Etsy shop and on my website.
And here’s another wonderful treasury – Last Fall Days curated by demetgun3 - featuring my Sunflower book thong.
I made this chunky cuff for our Monday Moodboard challenge on Operation Tackle That Bead Stash and I have to say I enjoyed every minute of it! I like to be spontaneous when I’m creating jewellery and very rarely plan too far ahead. This often means that I’ll encounter problems along the way but sometimes these same problems turn out to be a blessing in disguise. This cuff was no exception as the flower originally had petals made from herringbone stitch, but I ran out of beads about ¾ of the way through! I decided to unpick the petals and redo them with a simpler stitch and halve their length. This turned out so much better, the length suited the face more and the petals are fuller and have their own little twists and turns giving them a bit more life.
I also have a funny story about the face. I use a flesh coloured polymer clay to make them and I was debating whether or not to add some pink acrylic paint to give it some colour. I decided against it and started the beadwork. Not long after I noticed the face starting to get a little pink. Then I saw my thumb and realised what was happening. I’d coloured the backing material with a pink permanent marker and hadn’t quite left it to dry long enough, as I was working my thumb was tranferring tiny amounts of pink from the backing to the face. And you know what? I thought it looked really nice! I think this is what they call a happy accident!
So here’s ‘Flower Power’ which will be for sale very soon. If you’ve got a minute please visit the Monday Moodboard post and see what the team and our readers made :)
Here’s a quick tutorial to show you how to get started with twisted herringbone stitch.
Make a row of ladder stitch using pairs of beads like this…
Form a ring by stitching through up through the 1st pair, down through the last pair and then back through the 1st pair again. You should have your tail thread and working thread coming out of opposite sides of the same stack like this…
Pick up the colours for your first pair and pass the needle down through the adjacent bead…
Bring the needle up through the next adjacent bead like this…
Repeat with the second pair of beads and step up through 2 beads…
What you’ve done so far is regular tubular herringbone. If you keep going in this way, stepping up through 2 beads at the end of each row, you’ll end up with a straight tube. Here’s how you get it to twist…
Repeat for the next row, picking up your 2 pairs as usual but at the end of the row you’ll be stepping up through 3 beads instead of the usual 2…
At the end of the next row you’ll be stepping up through 4 beads instead of the usual 2…
From this point onwards you step up through 4 beads at the end of every row. You may notice a little bit of thread showing during the first few rows, this is normal and won’t be too noticeable if you keep your tension tight while it’s starting to twist.
Don’t forget to check out issue 23 of Bead when you can learn how to make my Diva earrings using this technique ;)
Making this cuff I’ve completed three tasks in one. First of all I’ve listed in my Etsy shop, adding one more item to my collection of beadwoven jewellery. Secondly, I’ve used up almost a whole tube of hex beads, completing my goal for Operation Tackle That Bead Stash. And last, but not least, I’ve created my entry for the Etsy Beadweaver’s June challenge.
The theme this time is Phenomenon and the brief is “Try to remember one Phenomenon that amazed you the most and transfer it to amazing beaded jewelry”. The phenomenon I chose for my inspiration are the Northern Lights, also known as Aurora Borealis, which I witnessed here in Wales several years ago. It’s extremely rare to see them this far south and it was a beautiful sight that I will never forget!
Here’s what I’ve made with my giant 2″ button - a whopper of a piece which I’ve worn a few times already and absolutely love! I started off with the ceramic button which was made by the very talented Tania Grey of Tan of Course and as soon as I saw it I put it on my wrist and knew it would be perfect for a cuff.
It took me some time to decide how to mount this beautiful button, in the end I went with a strip of herringbone in Japanese seed beads which I’ve stitched to a cuff blank covered in fern Ultrasuede. I’ve used just three colours – dark green, medium green and turquoise - to echo the colours in the glaze. While I was making the base, I was thinking which way would be the best way to affix the button - stitch it on before attaching the cuff to the base or stitch in on afterwards? I thought it would be tricky to stitch the base on where the button extends over the edge. It turned out that this would probably have been easier than stitching it on afterwards! But hey, you live and learn. Hope you like it :)
