More Micro-Macramé and Other Pieces

The micro-macramé has been going well. One of the projects in the book by Kris Buchanan I purchased caught my eye, and I tried out the leaf shape to see how hard it was. The answer is, the decrease/increase wasn't hard at all, but getting the beads in the center, which fall in a small gap, to be tight between the rows of knotting, isn't as easy as it looks. I suspect I did something wrong with the angle of the anchor cord as I did the second side. You have to drop a cord each time to make the top side, then pick it up again as you create the lower side of the leaf. Cool!

I'll continue working at this practice piece until I feel like I can fling myself into a real project. Not yet. A few more leaves perhaps. 

Some earlier pieces joined me in my photography tent, but the light wasn't cooperating, either that or I've forgotten everything from the last session. Pics aren't as sharp as I'd like, or the depth of field stinks, or something. 

First is a fun piece I did in a netting stitch, there are some vintage purple glass beads, some amethyst drops, but most of it is glass. Oh, and the little coral dumbbell shaped beads are so much fun. I wish I had a ton more of those, though they weren't cheap. When you put multiples together, they form such great shapes.

Next is one of the first pieces I did when I came home from Mendocino two years ago. That's when and where I found those wonderful black and white seashell beads. Yes, those shells are naturally striped that way! Not painted. They're combined with bone beads from Africa, some coral, and some onyx. I love this necklace, and actually made it twice, but the other one isn't as full and I like this one best. I treasure those shells and will have to use the remaining ones very carefully.

The lapis and silver necklace is also one of my favorites. The large silver beads are silver over ceramic, there's sea glass beads, along with real Afghanistan lapis that I took out of a crudely strung necklace I purchased at a swap meet several years ago. Silver spacers and liquid silver fill it out. Stringing liquid silver is a bit intensive. This was a "learning to get the lower multi-strands to connect to the single upper strands, and get them to hang right" try. The main lapis piece somehow came out a trifle to one side. Sigh. I don't really want to redo the whole thing, but you can't sell something that isn't perfect.

Last for this post, is the original embroidered pendant that inspired my friend Anne to get her commission piece. I finished this just before Christmas last year, for obvious reasons. I absolutely loved working on this. On the second piece, I incorporated a pin back to help anchor the pendant to clothing and/or to anchor the length of the sliding braid. When worn, this one is a bit fussy as it keeps sliding down and hiding the large fringe at the bottom. I'll have to retrofit a pin back on this one, eventually. 

I also did this directly on Lacy's Stiff Stuff, and that was before I realized that you had to either color the LSS with pens or cover it with ultrasuede so that white doesn't peek through the beading, because nobody can perfectly bead 100% coverage. So, not a perfect result, but still really cool. It impressed the heck out of family members at Christmas!

More gallery pieces as I get the pictures taken.