Through the Grapevine

Finished this today, though it was mostly made yesterday while I was doing laundry.  A new technique for me: tubular netted.  I had planned to make it longer, and because of that had used a batch of seed beads (black iris) that I had a ton of, but somewhere in adding thread the second time something went wrong and I couldn't figure out where or how.  So I finally gave up and simply attached the clasp.  It has the feel of a grapevine given the netting style and the clasp with its grape leaf toggle and the cluster of grapes on the bar.  I didn't originally know how I felt about the black iris coloration with such intricate chainwork, but it grew on me the longer I worked with it.

 

Name:  Through the Grapevine

Price:  $35 (reason: mostly time and effort)

Length:  18.5 inches

Mom's birthday necklace

Didn't realize I hadn't posted this here!

I had a hard time deciding what to do for Mom's birthday (the 28th), when I suddenly hit across a series of ideas.  I was originally making this style of bolo in a bright blue-teal, and she had remarked how much she liked it and wanted to see me finish it.  But I haven't gotten around to it due to lack of finding ideal fringe beads.  Then, during Bead Day with my niece, she commented how much she loved these buttery-yellow seed beads a friend of mine had sent me.  Bingo!
So I started to bead the bolo chain.  Then I realized I didn't have a ring for it.  So I rummaged through some things until I came across a metal ring necklace I'd bought on clearance with the intent of using spare parts for another project (but had found a better alternative), and decided one of the links would be perfect.  I still wound up one or two fringe beads short, so I smuggled the unfinished work home last weekend, snuck to my favorite local bead shop, bought a couple beads, went home, smuggled my bead box and the project upstairs while she was busy in the garden, and finished putting it together.

 

Name:  N/A

Price:  $40 (original not for sale)

Length:  about 30 inches

Springtime Murano

What a battle to get this done!  I bought this really nice green, silver, and gold Murano leaf pendant years ago (another "finally done" project!), and it's been sitting in my bead box ever since.  I've tried a variety of techniques with it, but none worked until I decided to simply multi-strand it using a mix of gold, brown, and green.
First I fought to get all five strands the same beaded length.  That done, I then battled to get the bead cone and crimp cover on one end; the holes were too small for five steel strands, even at the thin diameter I use.  Got one side set, and started on the other, wrestled for fifteen minutes, then discovered the pendant hole was just too small for the widest part of the cone to go through.  Being glass, I didn't want to force the issue (a good hard yank might've done it).  So I had to undo 15 minutes of work by pulling the cone and crimp cover back off, stringing the pendant, then another 15 minutes to put them back on.
All figured, this took two days to do.
Note: the colors in the pendant look washed out in the photo, but the greens and golds match in both pendant an beads.

 

Name:  Springtime Murano

Price:  $30 (reason: time and effort mostly; Murano foiled glass isn't entirely cheap, either)

Length:  about 20 inches; pendant is 2.5 inches tall

Peachy Keen memory wire bracelet

I decided this morning I wanted to experiment with a tiny difference in my work.  Usually when I make memory wire bracelets, I'm limited to seed beads or similar; most stone beads don't have large enough holes to string on memory wire.  I decided, what the heck, I'd go through my bead boxes and see if I couldn't find some stone beads that would work.  I'd been thinking of my peach adventurine for the last couple of days and how I hadn't done anything with it (purchased it well before Christmas), so I got it out and turns out it worked.  I also don't use a lot of gold, but it went so well with the aventurine.
I thought a lot about my neighbor growing up, Lois, and how I remembered seeing her wear two colors a lot when I was a kid: peach and mint.  The two go well together, so when I photographed the bracelet, I used my new dusty teal sweater as the backdrop.  It's kind of a tip-of-the-hat to Lois and my childhood.  Lois is my parents' age, and my sister and I used to dog-sit and mow her yard.  Her husband, Jim, raises honeybees and does woodworking.  We spent a decent amount of time over at their house or in the woods between theirs and ours.  They're one of the sweetest, gentlest-natured couples I've had the honor to know.
Now all I need to do is make some lemon poppyseed bread like she made me while I was growing up...

Name:  Peachy Keen memory wire bracelet

Price: $15 (reason: over a whole strand of peach aventurine)

Length:  5 loops

Lapis heishi multi-strand bracelet

I had only a small amount of lapis lazuli heishi remaining from a necklace I made a guy at work months ago, so I purchased a new strand in order to make another one.  Turns out, when the new heishi arrived, they were a size larger.  So I came up with this.  I got these really neat three-hole spacers at Hobby Lobby a while back, and knew I wanted to do a piece like this (heishi with them, at any rate).  I like how the blue and silver work together.

Name:  Lapis heishi

Price:  $25 (reason: time and effort, plus lapis)

Length:  about 9 inches total

Survivor's Song earrings

And here are a pair of earrings to match the previous necklace.  I don't do earrings very often, but these just kind of came together.  They were the only findings I had for a pair of gold earrings, and I've never used that kind of ear wire before, but they worked out well.

Name:  Survivor's Song earrings

Price:  $8 (originals sold to Lou Anne G.)

Length:  approx. 2 inches including earwire to the bend

Survivor's Song necklace

I had originally planned for this necklace to be for my personal collection, but it's too long for what I wanted.  I may have enough leftovers to make one just a little longer than choker-length for me after all, though, so wins all around.
I bought the tube beads yesterday at Von's while helping Mom pick out some beads for a pair of necklaces, but didn't pay very close attention to what they really were.  I'd intended to buy lapis lazuli (and was in that section), but I'd noticed when I was looking at them that they were missing the gold flecks.  Turns out they are dyed the lapis color, but they're actually kiwi stone.  They work very nicely with the sweater and scarf I'd purchased them to match, however, so they're worth it anyway.  I spiced up a very simple pattern with some 4mm Swarovski bicones I had left from my friend Dan's attempt at right angle weave (see the project Dutch Tartan).  I then rummaged around and found I still had gold metal seed beads to use as spacers, gold crimps, gold crimp covers, and a gold clasp to finish the project.
Taking photos for it was a bear; my camera battery was on empty, so I had to keep charging it, rush out to snap a photo or two in the dying light, recharge enough for a couple more, over and over to get what I needed before it got too dark where I shoot.
The name of this piece suggested itself to me today while I was working on it as I've thought over my experiences the last couple of days, and then over my life in general and what all I've come through to get where I am today.  My best friend once said I could write a book about my life, and though it might seem like the experiences are an unbelievable set, there's no way I could make this stuff up.
The darkness of the kiwi stone can be symbolic of the dark times people (and I) have gone through, with the gold shining in that darkness refined and tempered like a survivor.

 

Name:  Survivor's Song

Price:  $30 (sold to Dan V.; my original given to Lou Anne G. for Christmas)

Length:  24.5 inches (personal version 16.5 inches)

Mahogany Obsidian bracelet

For this bracelet I used up my last remaining five 6mm mahogany obsidian rounds, two blackstone 4mm rounds, and a bunch of 4mm mahogany obsidian rounds.  Again, I wanted to stay simple yet classy.  The five larger rounds are the focal for this bracelet, set off by the blackstone on either side, and complemented by the smaller mahogany rounds that make up the rest of the piece.

Name: N/A

Price: $10

Length: 7 inches

Twisted Ice, twisted tubular Herringbone bangle.

     I decided to give the twisted tubular Herringbone another try this week, having bought a pair of seed bead packets specifically for the project last week.  I wanted to use a pair of colors that contrasted better than the colors I used last time, and I chose better quality seed beads so they would fit together more evenly.
     I selected silver lined dark teal and silver-lined ice-blue (I really like the extra sparkle and richness of silver-lined colors).  The ice-blue looks more silver than blue in the bracelet, though, but overall I'm happy with it.  As with the other of this pattern, I stitched the ends together to form a clasp-less bangle.  The colors remind me of the different shades sea ice can be.

Name:  Twisted Ice


Price:  $15 (reason: time and effort)


Length:  about 8 inches

Fancy Glass bracelet

  So since the earrings went together pretty quick, I sat down and used more of the same glass to make a bracelet with seed beads and silver rounds.  I used two different shapes of the fancy glass, the ovals and some diamonds.  I bought both at the same time, so it's natural to wind up using them together.
   Since it's so cloudy it's hard to get good pictures, so I'll try again this weekend, weather permitting.

Name:  Fancy Glass bracelet


Price:  $15 (reason: fancy glass and silver used)


Length:  about 9 inches

Fancy glass earrings

     Figured since I was on a roll this week as far as projects, I might as well do one today, too, since the weather's dreary and too cold to spend much time outside.  I kept it simple--a pair of earrings using base metal components, seed beads, and pink fancy glass.  They look like flat rounds, but in actuality they're ridged down the center, which is why they don't lie flat in the photo.

Name:  Pink Fancy Glass earrings


Price:  $5


Length:  almost 1 inch (not including ear wire)

Carnelian and agate cross-weave choker

     Today I did a project for myself.  I've had a unique oval red-and-black-and-white banded agate pendant for about three years, but had been unable to come up with a suitable design for it.  It reminds me of a clownfish, which was part of the difficulty.  I'd bought carnelian rounds to go with it (I read somewhere that banded agate is usually carnelian and/or onyx, both members of the chalcedony family, as is agate).
     I decided today to try just doing a simple round necklace using the carnelian rounds in the cross-weave pattern, but figured it probably wouldn't lay right unless it had a pendant.  Then I remembered I had the banded agate pendant sitting in my bowl of collected polished stones and dug it out to use at last.  I love the way it turned out, although where the necklace comes together over the pendant doesn't quite lay flat.  I didn't have enough carnelian to make a longer necklace, and because of the pendant's size I didn't want it too low anyway.  As things are, the V where the cross-weave comes together sits at the hollow of my throat.  I used size 15 black-lined red seed beads between the rounds, and a single blackstone round as embellishment below the pendant.

Name:  Clownfish choker


Price:  $40 (reason: tons of carnelian, time, and effort; personal collection)


Length:  15 inches; pendant is 1.5 x 1 inch oval

More 6-loop Memory Wire bracelets

     My goal today was to make five new 6-loop memory wire bracelets.  I also wanted to show a variety of patterns and colors.  These are what I wound up with.  It's amazing the different sizes that occur, depending on what type of beads you use!  Another note:  it's very hard to take pictures when you have a big, needy tom cat insisting on attention!

Name:  6-loop memory wire bracelets


Price:  $8 each


Length:  6 loops; size varies depending on beads used

Woven Flower Bracelet.

I learned a new design over the weekend...or, rather, roughly three that combine into one project.  My Mom got me two new beading books for Christmas, and this is the second piece I've tried out of one of them; the other is a beaded chain lariat necklace I still need supplies to finish.  I wanted a little more of a challenge, so I went ahead and got the elements to do this bracelet rather than finish the lariat for the time being.  Everything went smoothly, up until the last decorative tendril.  Then I broke two needles and a bead and had to refasten a leaf and the two tendrils on that side to another bead in the pattern since the bead that broke was the one all of them were connected to (figures!).  I put a lot of work into this!

Name: Winter Rose Bracelet

Price: $20 (time and materials involved; personal collection)


Length: about 5 3/4 "

Twisted tubular herringbone bangle bracelet.

Five episodes of Planet Earth plus the "making of" diaries after each later...
I got the twisted tubular herringbone bangle done!  I couldn't finish it the way the book said because I couldn't seem to get the bottom two rows (the starter rows) unwoven from the piece, so I had to make do with a slightly uneven connection.  Good news is, if you don't know exactly where it is, you can't see it.  The piece as a whole took me longer than I thought...I watched the entire Planet Earth season and all the diaries; each episode is an hour or so long, plus a fifteen minute or so diary.  There are 11 episodes.  Now that I've got the hang of it, however, it shouldn't take that long again.
Frustration: I was sewing the ends together and was nearly done when I dropped the piece and it yanked the needle.  I instinctively locked my fingers, which bent the needle too far and broke it.  That was my last needle.  Now I absolutely have to order a new card of them, unless there's one in the bag of leftover floss and pattern for the cross stitch sampler I made Mom for Christmas...

Name:  Twisted herringbone bracelet


Price:  $15 to $20 (it would depend on number of colors used, size, bead type)


Length:  about 8" circumference

A current project.

I've learned a new technique over the last couple of days out of the book my boyfriend Dan bought me: the tubular twisted herringbone stitch.  The book was a little vague at step 4, which is where the tube starts working upwards, so I had to experiment a few times.  I finally got it to work, and intended to finish it for a dinner Dan and I had last night (this is going to be a bangle bracelet that ties into itself so no clasp), but then I broke my last needle.  I had been running low on needles before the show in November and had bought more from my usual source, but broke all but one in a matter of hours.  This needle was the last one of those--hadn't been used before yesterday.  It snapped within two hours.  I've never gotten a bad batch before.  Fortunately, I found the last of the previous card of needles this morning, so hopefully by the end of the day I'll have the bangle done.

Soft pink sparkle illusion necklace.

Project of the day: the first of several new illusion necklace ideas I've been toying with.  I had intended to get three different styles done today, but given I was doing a variety of other things as well that didn't happen...so we'll have to settle for one.  A friend of mine has been asking me to make a pink illusion necklace for a few months, but time and inspiration have been against me until recently.  Her only stipulation at the time was "no purple," and yesterday she mentioned she was looking for something "light pink."  Given I'm not a pink person per se, I rummaged through my bead boxes to see what "light pink" I might actually have.  Answer: not a lot.  Fortunately, there was just enough to make this necklace.  Yes, the pictures stink.  I was losing light given it took me longer than I thought to make it and my camera doesn't like focusing in good light, let alone fading.  I like the way it turned out!  Normally there's something I don't like about my illusion necklaces (they're hard to make even!).
I used pink Swarovski bicones and butterflies, rose fire polished glass, pink pearls, cherry quartz, pink faceted rondelles, and white pearl seed beads, fishing line for strength and durability, and a toggle clasp.  I used three strands (usual for me).  Usually, I space my beads more, but this design needed more since many of my beads were small--between 3mm and 6mm.
Note 1/11/12: NEW PHOTOS!

Name:  Soft Sparkle

Price:  $20 (Swarovski crystals, time and detail involved; was a custom project for Dawn H.)

Length:  20.5"

Seed bead earrings

This pair of earrings was a custom order for someone to give as a Christmas gift, made to go with a memory wire bracelet and a twisted multi-strand necklace in the same colors.  I'm still learning seed bead earring techniques, so didn't want to do my usual fairly-tacky loops, and managed to find a pair of metal jump rings I'd had lying around waiting to be used and simply strung the seed beads on them and through the ear wires.  Turned out pretty well.

Name:  N/A

Price: $8 (were a custom project for Donna V.)

Length: dime to penny size in circumference...didn't measure before I delivered them.

Dan's Mom's Christmas present

Since it's now safe again to post (some I didn't want to risk due to them being gifts for people), and I currently have access to a computer...
First up: Dan made this necklace for his Mom for Christmas and chose all of the beads himself when we hit JoAnn's late Black Friday evening.  He did everything himself.  She absolutely loved it.

Sparkly multi-strand necklaces

I was searching for ideas for my sister's birthday this year, and asked her if there was anything in particular she wanted.  I gave her the FusionBeads inspiration projects page, and she sorted through and sent me the link to the Sensational Olivine Necklace.  I made it for her, but the magnetic box clasp I bought from Hobby Lobby for it (as FusionBeads' one for the project was out of stock) didn't work, so I bought an extender chain clasp for it instead.  Then I made her a bright orange one too, which goes with her quirky personality, and for the Frankfort show Dan made a lavender one since he'd helped me with the olive one for Margot's birthday.  Yet another project that's very easy to customize into any color(s) you want!

 

 

Name: Sparkly multi-strand necklace

Price: $25 each (olive and orange custom projects for my sister; tanzanite donated)

Color: olive; orange; tanzanite

Length: adjustible; ranges from 18" to 22"