January Retrospective

 I must say, I've beaded more in January than I have in a very long time, and I've really enjoyed it. Although there were only 5 weeks in January (I've been beading a pair of earrings for every weekend, rather than every week)... I've actually made 7 pairs of earrings! If you read my new years resolution blog, you'll be familiar with the first two pairs, but I wanted to keep a record of each month's makes together, so I've included them here again. 

Tassels and Superduos - my own design. 

Scintilla Earrings - my own design. 

Keep your eye out for Bead & Jewellery Magazine issue 107 to see a tutorial for how to make these.

RAW Pearl Bezel design by Jean Power from her book Rivoli Beadwork. 
I initially made these as I'd seen a friend make them with sapphire rivolis and cream pearls, and they were beautiful, but very traditional looking - I wanted to see how different they would look with dark pearls and a lighter rivoli. The long kidney wire earring findings added to the different look. I really love them. 

In fact, I loved them so much.... I beaded a second pair! 

These are based on the Bicone Snowflake design from Jean Power's book Rivoli Beadwork, although I have used chatons - the 14mm chatons are lovely, etched Chinese crystal chatons which have a really unusual look.

I am in love with these Little Lantern earrings from Sabine Lippert's book Beaded Fantasies.   I made a pair years ago and they have been worn a LOT, so making a second pair seemed like a good idea. They were quick to make up and used some really interesting construction techniques, as Sabine's beadwork always does. 

This last pair for January are my design. A simple loop of CRAW with a crystal dangle in the middle. I must say, if nothing else, I'm very impressed with my wire wrapped loops on these earrings. They're neat and they match - that's quite a feat for me! 

I hope you've enjoyed joining me on my earring journey in January. If you have any questions about the designs I used, or have any suggestions for future months, please drop me a message in the comments. 

I've also noticed that my colour schemes seem to fall into the pink or blue/grey box, so if you have suggestions for colours you think I should try, just let me know. 

2021 New Years Resolutions

 The beginning of a new year is the time to make new starts and new resolutions.  I'm not normally one for new years celebrations or resolutions, but this year I've been inspired. 

I was asked by the lovely Clair Rigby if I would like to join her in her #earringchallenge2021 to make a pair of earrings every week in 2021. This is a no-pressure challenge, and I'm aware that I'm not going to be able to achieve this every week - but it is at least, an incentive to bead each week. It's also giving me the opportunity to do something that I've been thinking about for quite some time, which is to document my creative endeavours in a slightly more structured way. At the moment, if I'm lucky, there will be a picture of something I've made on my phone... but no information on materials, who the designer was (if I used a pattern), what inspired me (if it's my design), what materials I used etc. So I'd like to use this challenge and my blog to gather this information. I'm aiming to blog once a month and post my weekly makes on Instagram. If you don't already follow my on Instagram, you can find me @beadsbybecs

To start the year off, I've got a couple of earring makes I have to confess, the super-sparkly pair I started in 2020, but I attached the ear wires in 2021 (that counts, right!?). 

These are made with some lovely white opal Swarovski chatons and the bezels are made with 3mm and 4mm bicones. This is my Scintilla pattern (it'll be released later this year). 

If you can get more glam than all this sparkle, then this second pair of earrings fit that bill. They're much more dressy, and they continue along my little self-challenge of making bezels with different beads to just regular seed beads. 

These are bezelled using superduos - superduets actually - they're navy on one side and cream on the other. The rivolis are Chinese crystal rather than Swarovski, but still incredibly pretty. I made the tassels using a Clover tassel maker and three different colours of thread - navy, hot pink and a silver-grey. Also, I tend to use wire guardians at the top to add the ear wires, they're very hard-wearing and give a professional looking finish. 

I'm quite happy with these two pairs of earrings as a start to the year and to the challenge - I've started as I mean to go on. 

I think six years ago I set a resolution to learn to knit, and I learnt to knit and fell so passionately in love with it that I ended up getting repetitive strain injury from knitting, and now I can't do it without considerable pain, but the point I'm getting at, is that I know I can stick to a resolution, and I know I can fall in love with a creative idea - not necessarily *just* making earrings, because I know that'll probably be a little too restrictive, but I want to fall in love with making again, and the process of relaxing with my beads, instead of sitting with my phone in my hand, endlessly scrolling and watching the doom and gloom go by. 

 It's been an age since I last blogged, and I though that I should start again... to keep you all updated with what's going on in my beady little mind. 

Firstly, lockdown has been really tough on my creativity and except for a couple of Zoom classes I took, I stopped beading altogether!

Moving house seemed to bring my creativity back though, so I'm back to beading, designing and enjoying myself. 

I thought I'd share a little free tutorial with you all for some beaded beads made from pinch beads.  They're cute little beaded beads and make pretty earrings. 

Materials:
To make one beaded bead

15 pinch beads

5 size 11 beads

Beading thread - I usually use fireline, but KO or OneG  beading threads or similar in colours that match your beads will work just as well. 

Scissors or thread zap

Beading mat

Step 1

Pick up 3 pinch beads and tie them into a circle.  Thread through the next pinch bead in the circle.

Step 2

Pick up two pinch beads, and thread through the bead your thread is exiting from to make another triangle.  Thread through the two beads just added.

Step 3

Pick up 2 pinch beads, and pass through the bead your thread is coming out from to create a triangle.  Go through the first pinch bead added in this step.

Step 4

Pick up two pinch beads, and thread through the bead your thread is exiting from to make another triangle.  Thread through the two beads just added.

Step 5

Thread through the bead marked with an arrow, pick up one pinch bead, and then thread through the bead your thread was exiting at the start of this step.  Keep threading through bead until your thread is coming out of one of the side beads (shown with an arrow).

Step 6

Pick up two pinch beads and go through the bead the thread was exiting at the beginning of this step.  Go through the first pinch bead again.

Note – The beads from this step onwards are purple to make it easier to see what to do.

Step 7

Pick up one pinch bead, go round through one of the side beads, back towards the beads already added in step 6 – following the arrows in the diagram, so you are exiting the next side bead around.

Follow the numbers on the arrows to show the thread path.

Step 8

Pick up one pinch bead, go down the next pinch bead, through the side bead, then up the pinch bead just added – see the arrows and follow the numbers to see the thread path.

Step 9

Pick up one pinch bead, go along through a side bead, up a pinch bead, and down through the pinch bead just added (follow the arrows and numbers to show the thread path).

Step 10

This step finished off the pinch beads… without picking up any beads, go through the side bead, up a pinch bead, down the next pinch bead, and back through the side bead.

Step 11

Now to embellish the side of the bead… pick up one size 11 seed bead, pass through the next side pinch bead.  Repeat this all the way around the bead.  Weave the thread through the beads to get to the start, tie the ends together and trim the threads.

I hope you've enjoyed making these little beaded beads. If you've given them a go, please leave me a message below - I'd love to hear what you think. 

Happy Beading! 

That's no moon.... it's a space station!

Oh dear, it has been far too long since I last blogged - I am so sorry!
I have been wanting to blog about a piece of beadwork I made for quite some time (I actually finished it in January), but I had to wait until the judging of a competition before I could publicly share it.
I decided to take part in the Beadworkers Guild Crystal Anniversary Competition; it was sponsored by Swarovski, so it had to be something bling.
I'm not often a very sparkly beader - I have the odd moment when I go crazy with crystals, but usually, I'd prefer pearls.  After my first geometric beaded sculpture being accepted as a finalist at the British Bead Awards, I decided to make another piece along the same lines.  Still 60 triangles, but joined together in a different arrangement, to make a stellated dodecahedron (a round(ish) structure made from 12 pentagonal pyramids).
To show off the crystals to their best, I decided to make the majority of the structure from white delicas.  Buying delicas in 50g packs was something quite new to me... it felt very odd!  To complement the white, I added a pale pink (think coconut ice) and a matte copper to embellish the edges of the triangles. 
I chose five different finishes of Swarovski chaton to include, and a generous sprinkling of Swarovski sequins to add some shine to the vertices.
As my first geometric structure ended up with a nickname (sixty flippin' triangles), this one did too - I jokingly started calling it The DeathStar (I am a secret sci-fi geek).
When I had finally finished making it and stitching all of the triangles together, it was so close to the deadline... I only just made it!  I took some photos and submitted them, and I was honoured to find I had been selected as a finalist in the competition.  The Beadworkers Guild website has a gallery of all of the finalists and winners.There is some incredible work on display in the gallery, it is well worth checking out. 
I wasn't selected as a winner, but I am grateful to have got through to the final round of the judging.
Here is my DeathStar... It's so nice to have it back, proudly displayed in my living room.

Playing with Spikes Part 2

I've been playing with spikes again... I recently went on holiday, and took a small box of beads with me... some 15s, some 11s and some delicas, and 12 spike beads. My aim was to bead myself a dodecahedron, with spikes all over it.  An element of maths was required to work out how the elements would join together, but it wasn't too taxing for a holiday.

I was very pleased with the result, and even more pleased when it was described by one of my friends as "very Laura McCabe"!


I have written this up as a tutorial, which is available from my Etsy store.

Earlier in the year, I blogged about going on Laura McCabe's beaded sculpture masterclass, which I attended the week after I got back from my holiday.  I was very proud to take these little spiky balls with me to the class, and Laura liked them too!  I'll blog about the masterclass itself another time.

Little Beaded Owl

During December, I found I had a recurring dream, about a beadwoven owl... I couldn’t figure out how to make one, but when I mentioned it on a facebook group – it turned out another member had been having a similar dream, and she had found a kit online to make a beaded owl!

The kit is by Heather Kingsley-Heath, and can be found here.  She also sells just the tutorial, so you can pick your own colours etc, which is what I chose to do.  I wanted my little owl to have slightly more natural colouring than the kits offer.  She does explain why her kits are unusual colours on her website - they are based on Kimono fabric, and they are beautiful... just not for me!

I can only speak about the tutorial, not the beads provided in the kit, but it was well presented, in a small booklet, in a plastic binder, with excellent diagrams and well thought-out text.  It explains step-by-step how to make the owl, using the wide variety of stitches required.  It is a real stitch sampler, using peyote, netting, right-angle-weave, herringbone, brick stitch and albion stitch.  Albion stitch is totally new to me, but it is well explained and is easy enough to do to make the little leaves at the end of the branch. Because so many different stitches are used, it is almost impossible to get bored making these little owls!

So, here is my little guy... for some reason, he looks a little cross-eyed, but I don't mind... I think it gives him some character!

(Top photograph from the HeatherWorks website www.heatherworks.co.uk)

Gazing at stars

Back when I was working on the maven meld project, I bought a lot of tutorials, but some of them got put to one side when I had finalised my design. Well recently I've had flu, and to keep myself sane, I thought I'd do some beading... So I dusted off the tutorial for the star gazer bangle, by Heather Collin. It can be purchased from her artfire store, here.

The bangle is right angle weave, which is my new favourite stitch. It was actually quite a big thing for me to learn RAW, I'd had so many attempts at it in the past, but never really 'got it'. A well written tutorial by Ella Des got me out of my 'I can't do it' rut, and now I love it!

So, this bangle, it should only be attempted if you actually know RAW, as it doesn't explain how to do the stitch, just how to use it to construct the bangle. The diagrams in the tutorial are excellent, and are a brilliant visual explanation of how to make it.  

This isn't a quick make though, you need to dedicate a good few hours to it, but it is totally worth it!  I have now made two and a half of these beauties, and they both look so different, due to the different beads I used.  The first one is much more of a day bangle, made from matt opaque beads, with a couple of rows of gilt lined beads, and finished off with agate and turquoise.  
The second bangle is more of a night time piece.  It is matt black and galvanised silver, finished off with Swarovski crystals in a dark grey AB. I've actually been wearing them both together for the last few days, and even though the looks are very different, they do work well together. 

I'm working on a third bangle at the moment, I've chosen the beads to hopefully end up with a piece of jewellery that looks like it's made of ice. It is being made from crystal, AB crystal and silver lined beads, and I plan to finish it off with some swarovski crystals and pearls. I will post a picture of this when it is finished.

Melding more beads

A few weeks ago I started beading a piece for a challenge for Bead Mavens... the challenge was to 'meld' two or more tutorials written by the Mavens.  
I started off with Heather Collin's satellite beads, making them from black, teal and grey beads with sterling silver accents.

I beaded up three of these beautiful beads, the third (not shown) has silver bi-cones instead of rounds.  My plan was to then incorporate these beaded beads into Nancy Dale's Trellis Necklace.  This was where I got stuck - it was nothing to do with the tutorial (which is very well written and beautifully illustrated), and was entirely to do with getting my head around how I was going to get these two components to fit together!


This evening, I sat down in my studio with the determination to get a bit further on with my meld... thankfully, I managed it!!  After linking the first two of my satellite beads with a length of trellis rope, I took a picture...

The beaded bead on the left is going to be the focal point of the necklace, with its silver bi-cones and extra flashes of teal, it is bracketed by two slightly smoky looking faceted rondelles, the beaded bead on the right has smaller, haematite-coloured faceted rondelles on either side.  Encouraged by my progress, I carried on beading sections of trellis rope, and added the final beaded bead, and more faceted rondelles.

It doesn't show too well in these photos, but inside of the light grey AB trellis is a RAW rope made from matt black and teal 11/0 Tohos.  The trellis is made from 15/0 Miyuki seeds.  

I carried on beading as the sun went down (hence the shadows in the photo above) and added some further trellis sections.  


I'm actually really enjoying the way this is turning out... it is definitely a challenge though. Part way through beading this evening, I came up with an idea to make this into a long necklace (instead of a standard 18" one), which was going to be tremendously assymetric, with the beaded beads on one side, and bezelled agate rectangles on the other... it may still turn out that way, but as I only have two weeks to finish this before I head off to LaVidalerie for my holiday, time is of the essence!
Is anyone else out there Melding?  I'd love to hear about your progress if you are!

Every cloud has a silver lining

Yesterday, I bought a beading kit.  It's not something I've done for years, but it caught my eye when I was wandering around Hobbycraft.  I really don't normally buy kits, they're usually over-priced, but the design of this one was something quite special.  This is what it looks like:

The Beadery, Designer Style Selections Pendant Necklace Kit
The kit contained a cab, beads, findings, needle and thread and instructions.  The cab isn't in the picture below.

For the sake of fairness, I'm going to discuss this kit in two parts... the instructions, and the beads/kit.
First off, the instructions:  These were excellent, the design is pretty, the instructions were clear, well presented and well explained.  I didn't agree with their suggestions to put glue on knots instead of weaving in the ends, but for an inexperienced beader, that is OK.
Unfortunately, that's about all the good things I have to say about the kit.
The beads were of a shockingly poor quality, totally irregular in size and shape... and I'm sure I'm not just saying this because I've become accustomed to the high quality of Japanese seed beads.  Also, the large, pale-blue lined beads were just a horrible colour - not at all similar to the photo on the front of the kit.  The needle supplied with the kit was totally inappropriate for the type of beading too... it was one of those 'big-eye' needles, which are only really good for stringing, and not for bead work like this.  Also, I've no idea why there were ear-wires in the bag of findings... there were no earring instructions!  Another problem I had was with the thread - it was a spun thread, not woven, so it tangled and twisted up really quickly... so quickly in fact, I quickly gave up and used my own Nymo.
By far and away my biggest problem with the kit was the cab.  For the design, the cab was not of the correct dimensions.  
Although I beaded with my usual crazy tension, the netting was just too baggy/large for the cab.  The pattern started off at the back, and ended up having to cover quite a large part of the curved front, just to keep it from falling out.  I can't even bring myself to photograph it to post on here, because it looks like one of the most terrible pieces of beading I've ever done!
I am really on the verge of taking the entire kit back and asking for a refund... Has anyone ever taken a kit back to a shop because of this sort of problem?
It is possible to make beautiful things with the pattern though...

This picture is of a stone cab (can anyone tell me what stone? Please?), and the bezel is made with a mixture of Toho and Miyuki seed beads in sizes 11/0 and 15/0.

With the help of some of my beading friends, I've decided that it needs a beaded rope to go with it, and that rope is going to be a 7 drop beaded netting rope... once I've beaded it, I'll add a photo!

Beading up a Meld

Tonight I started work on a project for a challenge, a beading challenge, organised by the Bead Mavens.  It's called the Maven Meld, and the idea is to make a piece of jewellery based on two or more of the tutorials written by the Mavens (a group of top class beaders, who design the most beautiful beaded jewellery).
So, I've been giving this challenge a lot of thought... like, several weeks thought - which is quite unusually for me; normally I just start beading and see where the beads take me.  Basing some jewellery on two other people's tutorials is much more difficult than it first seemed!  Normally I never stick to patterns, and add a little twist of my own, but actually getting two patterns to meld seamlessly was really tough.  
I've decided to base my design on the Trellis Necklace by Nancy Dale, and the Satellite Bead by Heather Collin.  It's going to be like a Pandora-style piece, with three satellite beads on a trellis rope, all based on my favourite shades of green, and grey with silver thrown in for good measure.  I've made two of the satellite beads, the third is going to have different shaped silver beads, to make it stand out as the centre bead.  

I'm not sure what the plan for the trellis rope is, but it is going to involve the teal, the matt black, and its going to be accented with the light grey AB beads.

As it all comes together, I'll keep on posting... 

Teaching my boyfriend to bead - Part 2

So, after the first beading lesson, Tim was up for more!  On Sunday we sat down to continue with the RAW bezel he started earlier in the week.  Again, Tim only had the sticking power for an hour of beading, but he did complete the second (more complicated) row.  
Tim does have quite a skill though... he only needed a couple of pointers, and I think the only thing that drew his attention away from it was the football... but... he is a boy after-all!
On the other hand, I sat and beaded my afternoon (and evening) away and finished another beaded pendant and rope... I really have entered into a love affair with RAW... I can't believe it was once my nemesis!  

I just love this cab - it's a gorgeous soft grey shell jasper, and it goes so well with the victorian shades of soft peachy-pink and light grey.  And it's all finished off with an assymetric heart-shaped toggle clasp.  I wore it to work today, and I had a number of very positive comments... I wore it with a pinky flower print top, so it was the perfect combination!

My next project is going to be similar, but made with yellow-jade (a pale greeny-yellow colour), and actually 3 cabs of decreasing size.  I'm quite excited about how it's going to turn out.

Rainbow Bright

Not so much chatter about the 80s cartoon character, but colour - and more to the point, my relationship with colour!
Those of you who know me well know that you will hardly ever see me wearing blue (I have two blue tops, and one of them is technically turquoise - that's the extent of my blue wardrobe!).  Tonight, I wanted to carry out a little bit of a colour experiment, which is a bit of a thinly veiled attempt to re-organise my seed bead and delica stash.  I thought it might be interesting to lay them all out in colour and size groups, and this was the result!

So, I've noticed there are two colours noticeable  by their (almost) absence... blue, as expected, and red, which surprised me!  I have lots of brownie-reds, but nothing scarlet, crimson or otherwise properly red.  The other surprise was the large number of goldy-bronze beads... I'd always considered myself more of a silver person, but I guess I like gold colours more than I thought!  

Part of the incentive for looking at these colours was down to some semi-precious cabs  I ordered, a whole kilo of them!  They came in all sorts of colours and sizes, but they were all oval.

I'm thrilled at the number of green and grey stones (mmm, favourite colours!), but the cherry quartz ones have left me a bit stumped!  I love them, don't get me wrong... but they're red!  I've no idea what to do with them!  The part of me that uses logic, says red and white beads would work well as a bezel, but as you can see, I don't have (m)any red beads.
This is the point where I'm asking for help... how can I combine the beads I have with the cherry quartz (the red cabochons)??  Any other ideas for colour combinations for the other stones would also be greatly appreciated... as much as I love beading and jewellery design, colour is still the thing I struggle with most.  This year I have turned a corner with my colour combinations, but it's still something I need to work on.
Oh, and before you suggest I buy some red beads, the whole point is not buying any more beads in an attempt to save up for my jewellery making holiday in September!

Frustrations of a Beader

Recently, I've been working on a new piece of bead work, it is comprised of various elements which need joining together.  Today I have been joining two of these elements, and one of my beads broke.  Needless to say this is frustrating, but it wasn't in the element I had just made, it was in the element that was already joined to other parts.  Normally, I wouldn't let this sort of thing get me down, but it takes about an hour to bead each element, and due to the way I've connected them, I now have to take 3 of them apart (and when you consider I've only made 4, this is not good!)
I suppose that as I have a real passion for tiny beads, this sort of thing is inevitable.  And seeing as I have recently pondered on facebook if it is possible to get beads smaller than size 15/0, I imagine that it's a problem that I'm going to suffer from in projects to come! I really should invest in some finer needles!

Westcoast Beads

Yesterday I got a package of beads in the mail... I was very excited, I'm always interested to see what sort of goodies will arrive from a new supplier that I've not bought from before.

Westcoast beads and jewellery, have this brilliant idea - they sell a selection of beads, grouped together called 'Beads of the Month'.  It's not a subscription thing, you don't have to buy them every month, but it is a collection of beads, gemstones etc that go well together.  They even come in a lovely plastic pack, with some design ideas to go with the beads.

I decided to buy the July beads of the month, and was lucky enough to get the last pack!  They're lovely shades of pinks, reds and greys, and included:

8mm Pink Aventurine rounds, Oxblood and bamboo coral rounds, 4mm firepolish crystals (pink and blue-grey) 3.5 mm Garnet glass rondelles, 20 pink Lucite flowers, and 30g each of silver lined clear and grey Toho Triangles 8/0

The triangles totally lead themselves to some herringbone beading, but tubular, spiral, or flat, I'm not sure yet.  The larger gemstones I may well just thread... I've not done any stringing for a long time, and it'll be good to have something like that in my jewellery box (yes, I do occasionally bead for me!).

But what I'd really like to say about these beads is how great the quality is!  They are totally beautiful!  You know how sometimes you order a strand of gemstones on the internet, and what arrives is really not the same quality as was photographed... well this did NOT happen on this occasion.  They are all just lovely, and the service was great too.  I was emailed to let me know there would be a delay of a couple of days with posting, and they even sent me a strand of haematite rounds for 'liking' their facebook page (although I can't promise they'll do that for everyone!).

In summary, this seems like a wonderful way to build up your stash and to experiment with beads and gemstones you wouldn't usually turn to for designs.  August's beads are amber and green colours, they look beautiful, but the tumbled chips and nuggets just aren't my style, so I won't be buying them... but I will be going back for more, probably very soon!!