How Lucky Can One Girl Get?

I've got jury duty AND a root canal, all in one week. How's that for lucky?  Still, it could be worse. I can afford the root canal, and the agony before the doc relieved the abscess made me realize how amazing modern dentistry (and medicine) is. I've never had an abscessed tooth before, and now I know why people used to just yank bad teeth out, even without anesthesia. Wow that was bad.

Sometimes life gets in the way of beading. I especially regret that now as I'm really starting to get back the flow of ideas that sort of dried up before when I was so overwhelmed by the needs of getting the software out to market.  One project after another leaps out of me, and I've got far too many to try even if I could bead for hours each day.

Our Etsy Beadweavers Team has a monthly challenge, with each entry being a listing in our Etsy stores.  This is my entry for October. The original title was supposed to be "Gifts of the Earth" because of all the semi-precious stones used in it.   The theme of the October challenge is "Inspired by Picasso" so I retitled it and related it to the theme as required.

From October 9 until October 15, you can visit the EBW blog and vote for your favorite entry. Every month there are some amazing entries, you'll be sure to get an eye-full, and find a favorite!

I've also been inspired by the November challenge theme, on Spirals, and have started a project I hope will develop into something worthy of entry.

Meanwhile, I'm learning to bead crochet, and trying to earn a living.

Notice where that last falls on the priority list.

The Time! Where does it go?

It's nearly the Ides of March, and not only haven't I got the software finished, I haven't blogged lately either. But this is me, refusing to feel guilty. Life is too short for spurious guilt.

There has been movement on the software front. Finally got the icons I need for the interface done, and the major screens are now shaping up really well. Perhaps a screen shot early next week?

I have done some beading, though never as much as I wish I could.  Let's see, what can I show.....?  (sound FX of rustling through photos)

First is a wonderful necklace that my husband says is his favorite so far of anything I've done. It's a quiet, elegant piece, and it doesn't garner the same kind of attention and/or compliments from passersby that some of my showier bits do. On the other hand, when I tell people I made it, their eyes get real big, because it looks so complicated, and yet so cool.

The neck band is all peyote, done with raku color small bugle beads. Yes, it's asymmetrical.  The pendant and fringe beads are real porcelain raku, from Xaz Beads. I bought these a few months ago at the Pasadena Bead Show, and have been wanting to use them since. They are wonderfully light, and have a surface shimmer that just won't photograph.  I fastened the whole thing together with a snap catch behind the pendant, so it goes on very easily.

Then I felt the need to do something spring-like. Even here in southern California, I get springtime cravings for color, the way I used to do in the terrible gray months in Michigan. So I spiraled my way into color delirium, I don't know what I was thinking when I bought those neon bright shocking pink beads, but they work nicely in this bracelet.

The bracelet is now listed on Etsy, too.

The spiral was fun, although for some reason it seemed to take me a long time. Perhaps because I'm just not getting enough beading time. I found some nifty magnetic catches I used in this that are so strong, they stick when you put one on each side of your finger!  On the other hand, they have holes in the middle for a knotted thread, but when faced correctly to embed the knots inside each piece of the catch, the magnets are incorrectly oriented. What genius decided that the NS magnet poles should face in the SAME direction in each catch piece? It's like selling only left shoes.

You'll notice in the second picture that the bracelet is resting on a...what is that thing?  Oh, it's my new Wristometer ©, a bracelet sizing mandrel that's printable on a single sheet of cardstock or paper.  Then you cut it out and tape it into a cone-like shape. This is something I've been working on and hoping to get out there soon.  Like next week.

There are other bracelet and necklace sizing options out there, but I think there's a place for a very low-cost, portable, and easy doo-dad for sizing how big a bracelet is. It's remarkable how the length of a bracelet when laid flat has so little to do with what size wrist it will fit! Depending on the thickness of the beading, the flexibility, the catch, all those things make a difference in fit.

So keep watching this space. I'll try to provide more updatingness. And promptidity.

Quiet Times On the Blog

It's been quiet because I imagine that like me, most people are scrambling to get ready for the holidays. I've got a lot of presents in the mail, so no pictures to show until the day. 

But I do have a couple of items I've been working on to show.

Old Gold button

A couple of weeks ago I put up some pictures and solicited some critique. I decided that the advice to change out the button on a previously completed bracelet was wise. So this bracelet went from gold to silver. The new button is slightly smaller and thus fits the loop better, and it blends more smoothly with the cherry-pop red and opalescent green/purple/blue of the small beads.

New Gold button

The silver is more understated. Good call, advisors. 

In other news, I've been netting my little heart out. This bit here is a trial to see what a 4.5-5mm bead looks like. I had a fair quantity of multi-colored various stones, and netted them with an opalescent crystal size 15 bead. Lovely. 

I'm not sure what this will end up as. Not a bracelet as it's too stiff to bend easily. Part of a necklace almost certainly. But like most of these netting bits, it's not long enough by itself, and when I was buying beads I didn't anticipate having to buy four times the length needed. I just simply don't have enough of any single bead to do an entire necklace in netted rope.  One thing I plan to do next time I get money to spend is buy enough 3-4mm beads to make a whole necklace.

Here's a sneak preview of something that I hope will be my Feb challenge entry. It's done in green jasper with gold netting and gold beads with green netting, with the larger rose-lined forest green intersection beads remaining constant. I've got some additional bits done but no pictures yet.  By combining beads I've got enough length for the central part of the necklace.  There will also be a big bead-embroidery component too. I think. I'll have to see as I get there. I really like the coordinating themes in the part in the picture. Something about forest green and gold is so...elegant.

And here, too late to list on Etsy for Christmas is another Cellini spiral necklace I finished. This was the one I started to explore a backless bezel for the malachite donut.  That part turned out well, I think. However, in the process of working that bezel, what happened was that in some sections, especially the top part, I passed so many threads through those tiny size 15 beads that the tension got very very tight, and a few of the beads just broke after one last yank! of thread through them.  Oops.  Live and learn.

So then I had to figure out what to do to connect the pendant to the spiral. If you just sling a single strand of beads over, even if you follow the spiral, the pendant hangs crooked. But  if you look at the close-up picture, you'll see that by doing one diagonal from left front, over the spiral, to the left rear, and then compensating with a shorter link of beads to the right front, it works. There's a matching short link in the back. It straightens out the pendant wonderfully, while not actually sewing the pendant to the spiral. Trying to sew to a spiral and get everything centered and balanced is a losing proposition.

In fact, the pendant can actually "screwed" down the spiral and off the necklace entirely, if you want.  It will come off over the flexible beaded catch. The spiral is done with 3-4mm drop beads which give a lovely look to it, with transparent red, christmas green, and nickel-plated silver beads.   I need better pictures to list this one. Still struggling with the camera. I'm beginning to think that it's not me, it's the camera. I just can't get really sharp pictures without a lot of fuss. 

Netted Rope Craziness

Kate Tracton has started something here with her instructions (see previous post), for netted rope.  I've got at least two commenters who are going to start using the technique, and yesterday and today, I put together a bracelet. I hope to list it on Etsy soon but apparently I selected The Most Difficult Beads In the Universe to Photograph.

The bracelet is done with 6mm hematite, crystal iridescent 15/0s and transparent red-pop colored 11/0s.  I do not know how in the world to get a good photo of these things. They create, even to the eye, a kind of shimmery surface that moves and glows.  I can't get a good focus, nor a good shot of the real colors of the beads.  These three photos are my best efforts today. 

The bracelet is about 8 inches long, about half an inch wide, and has a magnetic clasp hidden in the join. This clasp is pretty smoothly integrated, it fits really well inside the netted beadwork.

I narrowed each end of the bracelet with 4mm hematite beads for a couple of rows, because I wanted the clasp to integrate and also because I ran short on the 6mm beads, and it wasn't quite long enough. It still isn't long enough for me to wear, as I need larger jewelry.

Photography difficulties aside, the bracelet is lovely in person. I'll be working on more and more in this technique because not only is it easy, the appearance of the finished product can be widely varied.