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.

British Bead Awards

I've been very quiet on my blog for a very long time - I had been blogging a little on my sister-blog (mrspicklefish.blogspot.com), but I've not had a great deal that I can share with you all... I have been beading in secret!

Usually, I get so excited about what I make that I just want to share it with everyone, so making something for a competition, where the entry has to be anonymous is very difficult.  I have blogged before about competitive beading, and how I find it a bit of an odd concept, but I recently made something that I would be willing to submit to a proper beading competition.  

In the summer, I started playing around with triangles, making eicosahedra (or icosahedra).  An icosahedron is a platonic solid, made up of twenty equilateral triangles, so I made a couple using peyote stitch.

This was my first colour selection - I love the bold bright colours and the contrast of the lime green with the blues and purples. I made a second in pastel tones, which looks a lot more subtle, but is just as pretty.

I do confess to being a bit of a geek when it comes to geometry, so I wanted to see where I could take this idea next - so a stellated icosahedron seemed like the next logical step (of course)!  Stellated means star-like, so instead of making a smooth ball, it would be spiky - like a 3D star.

Of course, spikes mean more triangles and more beads.... so I stocked up on some delicas and decided to throw some crystals and pearls in the mix too.  

I stuck with the bold colour scheme, but in metallic finishes, and set about to bead sixty more triangles.  You'll soon understand why my stellated icosahedron very quickly got named "Sixty Flippin' Triangles"

The resulting ball of beady spikes was something I was very proud of, and ultimately, I decided to enter it into the British Bead Awards.  I entered it into the 'Beadwork - Non-Jewellery' category.  

After entering, I pretty much forgot about the fact that I had entered, and to my absolute amazement, I received an email several weeks later telling me I had been selected as a finalist. (I have to confess I squeaked in excitement when I read the email!)

So, my sixty flippin' triangles got sent off to be judged 'in the bead' against the other finalists... and I was invited to attend the award ceremony at The Big Bead show in October.  It was an absolute honour to see my beadwork on display and to overhear people discussing it, but unfortunately, I didn't win any awards.

I'm not deterred though - this journey of making geometric shapes out of beads has really sparked some interest in me, and I think I am now beading my 126th triangle of the year - keep your eyes open for more of my geometric bits and pieces! 

Beaded Bowls

This was originally published on mrspicklefish.blogspot.com on 26th March 2014

Bowls full of beads.... or bowls made of beads.  Either is good  with me!

My slight obsession with beads means that I often buy beads when I don't actually *need* them.  Well, who does actually need beads...???

So, I bought some big tubes of bead soup a while ago, I think I ended up with 6 tubes of 24g of miyuki bead soup - just size 11 beads... nothing fancy, but some gorgeous colours.

Quite often I sit down with some beads with no idea what the finished product will be and just 'doodle' with beads (or beadoodle, as I like to call it).

I didn't have a plan when I started off with this, but I ended up with a bowl, looking rather like this!

It's a little flexible, but holds its shape nicely, with a rolled-edge at the top for stability.  It measures about 7.5cm across at the top.

The bowl is made using a mixture of peyote, netting and right-angle-weave - it's quite a multi-stitch project, but it has been great fun to make.  So much fun in fact, that I made three!!

I'm not sure they actually have much of a practical purpose, due to the holes in them, they're not massively useful for storing beads... but they are quite handy for putting earrings in at the end of the day.

 The earrings in this little bowl are made using bead quilling techniques - the pinky ones are designed by Kathy King, and the golden ones are my design - published in Bead magazine in December.

I plan to write a tutorial for making these cute little bowls... I'd love to hear what you think about them.

Lime Surprise

This was originally published on mrspicklefish.blogspot.com on 1st January 2014

As a beader, I've always shied away from fringing.  Don't know why - it's just one of those things that I've been fearful of.   In the last few months, I've got over my fear of it.

Another thing I've never done, is make individual bead embroidery elements and link them together... until now! 

Before Christmas, I bought some gorgeous vintage cabochons from a shop called Rosebudlia; she sells a beautiful selection of cabs and other goodies.  I decided to put these cabs to use for another beading first - joining embroidery elements.

I decided that five elements would look best, and surprisingly, I had the right colours in my stash, so this was quite a stash-buster too!

This is what the finished necklace looked like, and here is me wearing it - so you can see how it sits.

It's just my opinion, but when making a piece like this, involving no metal components in the design, the best way to finish it off is to make a beaded clasp.  I love beaded toggle clasps - and the circular motifs in this lend themselves to a toggle clasp. 

 This shows a close-up of the beautiful cabs I used - they reminded me of ammonites, and the little bits of glitter in them give them a bit of sparkle.

One other slightly odd thing about this piece is that I actually used bugles in it.  Usually I don't use them as they are often sharp at the ends and can cause threads to fray and break, but these matte ones are very nice, and they work well in fringing.

I'd love to hear what you think about this latest piece of beading... I'm very excited about it, and I'm looking forward to using this technique more.

O-Bead Beadings

This was initially published on mrspicklefish.blogspot.com on 16th December 2013

O-beads - gorgeous little beads which are new on the market - they're flat, O shaped discs measuring 4mm across, 1.5mm high and they have a 1.5mm hole in them.

As soon as I saw these, I knew they would be great when used in bead embroidery, but thought they could lead to interesting bead weaving designs too.

I had today off work, so I thought I'd spend some time playing with these little beads, and I came up with a design which I think is rather nice.  It's a skinny bangle, with a base of right-angle-weave, embellished with O-beads.  In a fit of efficiency, this bangle has been designed, and the tutorial written up in the same day!  The tutorial is available in my tutorial shop.

I have to say a little bit about colour here - the picture above was not my initial colour choice when I was playing with this design - the colours in the picture below are more like my 'go to' colours.  I do love the purples and the coppery golds though. 

Also a little note about the O-beads themselves... the crystal capri gold O-beads used in the purple bracelet are different on each side - one side is clear, or crystal, the other side is the coated gold side.  In my bangle, I used them clear-side up, giving them a greater look of depth, but they look equally good with the metallic side facing up.  

April's stash-busting challenge - crochet rope!

As I'm sure you know, I have a rather large stash of beads... so I joined a group on facebook dedicated to tacking your bead stash.. Little did I know that it would in fact end up at least doubling the size of my bead stash!  This month, our monthly facebook group challenge was to make a kit entirely from stash, and make something with it.
  
Those of you who know me really well know that I have a serious affection for tiny, tiny beads, in fact, I own more 15s (super small beads) than 11s (the size beaders use most frequently).  So I decided to tackle some of my 15s.  I started off with 5 10g tubes of beads, which ended up as 8 10g tubes of 15s, along with a generous sprinkling of 2.5mm swarovski bicones.

I've been enjoying bead crochet a lot recently, and in fact, I will be demonstrating this technique at my local hobbycraft store tomorrow... so I thought I'd make a rather nice rope.  

As the beads were so small, I decided to use my Grandma's old 0.75mm crochet hook, and C-Lon D thread, and started off with a six-bead circumference.

So, I beaded away for 12 days (while I wasn't working), an finally ended up with a rope which was 46.5 inches long... for those who prefer metric, that's 118cm.  It's officially the longest beaded rope I've ever made.  I would have got completely bored threading all the beads onto the thread before crocheting them if it hadn't have been for a friend of mine who swapped her bead-spinner for some of my ultrasude.
So here it is... my finished rope!

Beaded Bag Part 2

So, it's been a couple of weeks since I posted the progress on my beaded bag... I have made a bit of progress!

First off, I've removed one of the chatons that I had initially attached... I just didn't like the way it looked.  I knew that I wanted to make the rest of the chatons stick up less from the surface of the bag... so I have developed a new way of beading them!  Instead of making a quick bezel for the chaton, and sewing it onto the backing, I've started doing more beading around them, then sewing the whole component on.

This component is an 8mm chaton, surrounded by several rows of circular peyote, then a ring of 4mm bicones, in 4 different shades of white and crystal... then a few rows of embroidery in gilt-lined opal.

This is possibly my favourite component on the whole bag... a 12mm rivoli , with a ring of 3mm bicones in rose-water opal around the edge of it

This element is super-sparkly, surrounded by antique rose swarovski bicones, with little gold size 15s highlighting the end of the crystals.

A light-colarado topaz chaton is at the centre of this element, with plenty of rose-water opal bicones surrounding the circular peyote piece holding the chaton in place.

The chaton in this piece is surrounded by tiny 2mm pearls and dusky pink size 11s.  Somehow, it looks to be spiraling out from the centre of the chaton, which I really like.

These are the remaining sparkles that I have left to attach to the backing, two of them have already been beaded around, but the others have yet to be started.

I did go on a little sparkle-buying splurge, and bough some more crystals to go on the bag - two pale gold swarovski pearl cabs, some 24k gold plated fire-polish crystals, and some 3mm crystals in rose-water opal and crystal AB.  This bag is going to be so bling by the time I finish with it!

This is my current progress... I really need to get going with it - every time  look at it, I realise just how much beading there is to do between the sparkles!

Beaded bag part 1

At the moment, I am planning my wedding. I'm lead to believe it's quite a stressful thing to do... 

We would like our wedding to be as quirky as us, and part of that is basing it on a handmade theme. We would like as much as possible to be handmade and individual, preferably made by us, or people we care about.

One thing I decided I would like to make for the wedding is a small beaded clutch bag to keep my essentials in... such as my asthma inhaler.  I've never made anything like this before, and I've certainly never attempted a project this big.  I thought it would feel daunting, but I'm so excited about it, I'm enjoying it without feeling worried about the scale of it.

I've seen some bead embroidered bags before on the internet, and from what I can work out, they've been based on an existing bag. The way I'm making mine is to use a plastic mesh bag frame as the base. I've drawn the shape out on some blackout curtain lining, and I am embroidering onto that.

The first step was to decide on a rough design for the bag... I knew I wanted it to be mainly white, but with hints of gold and pale pink. I also knew I wanted a lot of sparkle in it, so I put together a selection of swarovski rivolis and chatons in crystal, crystal AB, rose-water opal and light colarado topaz. I scattered these over the bag template and shifted them around until I had a distribution I was happy with... and then I marked which stone went where.

I've started beading bezels around the swarovski stones, then sewing them onto the backing and embroidering around them.
I am so excited with the progress so far... but I know there is a very long way to go.  I will keep updating photos on this so you can see the progress.

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!

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!

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!!

A Retrospective Part 4

Several exciting things have happened in the past couple of days... I sold my first tutorial on Etsy, I finished Alot v2.0, I managed to get the promise of free beads, just because I liked a company's facebook page at the same time as placing an order.  Unfortunately, I didn't win the EuroMillions jackpot, but seeing as I didn't buy a ticket, I haven't lost anything either!

So in October 2010, I went to France with my Mum for a week to learn some wirework and chainmaille techniques at a little place called LaVidalerie, and I was asking Karen Sarll, the owner, how she went about getting her jewellery designs published in magazines.  She told me it was easy, and all I would have to do was send a prospective email to a magazine, and they would say yes or no depending on whether or not they liked my design.  I was so sure it couldn't possibly be that easy, but it turns out I was wrong! Either that or I was actually quite lucky.

Now I'm not usually one for making new years resolutions, but I did this year, and I decided that I was going to try my hardest get get one of my designs published.  After spending quite some time perfecting a technique for making beaded bezels for pretty stones, I sent a photo of a piece to a magazine called Beads & Beyond, asking if they would be interested in it as one of their articles.  To my absolute astonishment, they were interested, and they would actually pay me too!!

Well, the time has come, and the August edition of Beads & Beyond magazine has been published, and not only is my design in there, but it is mentioned on the cover!  (oh yes, I rock!!)  I've not seen the magazine yet, but the front cover is available to view here.

The design that can be found in Beads & Beyond is for my beaded bezel ring/pendant... these are pictures of the pieces I sent them for their professional photographers to play with (I'm sure their photos will be better than mine!).

The "seeing stars" part of today's missive is in relation to a tutorial I bought yesterday, by the amazing Jean Power.  She's a beader extraordinare, and we share the same love of geometric shapes in beadwork.  I bought her Geometric Stars tutorial, the design actually won awards when she first entered it into competitions.  So I had a go at making a couple of these beauties, one in silver and black, the other in red, pink and crystal.