Jewelry

Here’s the before:

And here’s the after:

It was just too rippled; it didn’t look good. I’ll have to sit down and start over. I’d like to get this footer established and the beading going, as it’s a nice project to have ready and waiting for when I want to do just a little something. I’d also like to FINISH, of course. I don’t want to look back and see when I started these two pieces (a bracelet and a wall piece), let alone when I started the piece on the rest of the warp.

A slowly progressing project is making more right angle weave beaded beads, to eventually string into a necklace with a wonderful button as a clasp (I’d like to figure out a great embellished loop for the button). I have one orange bead to include. I’m making a bunch of these blue beads. The orange bead that is the base are my “semi-precious beads” given to me by a friend. I think I want to throw in one more color of beaded bead, I think a darker orange. This is going to take me a while to complete as I don’t pick up this project very often.

I have seen many wonderful bracelets in blogs (often Hungarian) that make some sort of beaded rope, and then string them on bracelet-sized memory wire. Here’s one that I saw, by Ande. Mixing sizes of beads in herringbone makes it a different texture, not the slinky-smooth especially evident if you use the size 10 Miyuki triangle beads. I’ve mixed sizes before, but this bracelet, and others I saw after by others, prompted me to make one for memory wire.

So I’m beading away, at about inch 16, and someone asks me, “What are you making?”

“A bracelet.”

“A bracelet?!”

This is about 19″ in total, and heavy, more than 40 grams. The beads on the ends are Swarovskis.

I didn’t cut up the old one, I have a few of these inexpensive blue lapis cabs! I haven’t submitted instructions for any article proposals for a while, and thought I’d give it a try with this ring. Practices have changed in the last couple of years; instructions need to be completed for the proposal itself. So, I needed to make another ring with standard beads to have correct bead counts. My first blue ring used blue French 13s, and I wanted to convert it to Delicas (the dichroic ring uses Delicas, but the cab itself isn’t a standard, even shape and size).

So, I browsed through my Delicas and 15s to find beads that would work with the cab. I had to raid a mix for the 15s, but I like my final choices. I’ve written the instructions, now I need to create a few sample diagrams to help the editors understand my words, and see if they’re interested in publishing this.

For a friend….

Okay, now I really want to buckle down and figure out a more substantial project to do next. I like doing bigger projects, but sometimes it’s hard to start them (and then there’s the stage at about 2/3 complete, where the end never seems to be in sight).

I have a Jo Woods kit, looming (still!), and some right angle weave beaded beads in the more recent unfinished category. Longer-standing unfinished projects that still interest me are an embroidered purse, and a necklace that’s a combination of stringing and seed bead work. I have a couple other projects with components pulled and ready to go and haven’t started, which I also still want to do. I see a beaded present or two on the horizon that I could get to as well.

Motivation, please!