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I started this new piece of bead embroidery last week. It started as just a brooch, and I didn't know if I should add fringe or not.
It was fun, making little individual bezels around each pearl. I scrounged through my stash for black, white, crystal and the slightly-bronzy-but-mostly-black-bugle beads I used.
Other than the pearls nothing made me think of sea creatures...until. Until I put that fringe on the bottom.
Now, though, my first thought after I added a few of the fringes, was "Jellyfish in a Tuxedo." A very formal, decorative jellyfish it is, too.
Adding the fringe also forced an orientation on the brooch, which it hadn't had until then. Any way up looked good. So I'm a little conflicted. I like the fringe. And yet, I'm not sure if it adds anything substantial to the piece.
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Then I tried caging pendant with random netting of the turquoise heishi, with the small red beads at the intersections of the netting. Once again, a disaster. Ripped that one out too.
Perhaps I need to quit trying to gild the lily, or decorate perfect simplicity. But it seems interesting to me that the more experience I gain at beading, the more I seem to rip out. Maybe it's an intermediate stage before I learn better how to know whether a concept is good without seeing it in reality. I certainly hope so. I spend enough of my life at my computer typing backwards, I'd hate to spend equivalent amounts of my beading time beading in reverse.
Onward!
It will be interesting to see what you come up with for your blue asymmetrical bead. Very unique bead!
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