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.