Harvest Moon Lily

I just finished this tonight.  The light was disappearing as fast as I could snap pictures.  I'll take more in better light, but I really wanted to post.  There are many things I would do differently - particularly assembly - if I made another similar piece.  This is really the first thing I did without using a pattern of any sort.  I just sat down and decided to try tubular herringbone.  Then I realized I could use a beaded bead and some tiny drop beads when I got to the ends.  Probably any two of the elements would work together better - the three seem a bit over the top.  But what the heck...I survived the harvest moon occurring simultaneously with homecoming week during the hottest fall anyone can remember.  I have super powers and I can be over the top if I want.  Besides, maybe it is the proportions not the number of elements. 

harvest moon lily

Peyote stitch toggle bar; netted toggle ring

slightly wonky beaded bead that had been sitting around for months

You can tell that I love flowers and art nouveau. I love my crazy stylized flower bracelet because: 1) this is my first original piece of bead weaving, 2) I'm wild about the glowing coppery beads on the beaded bead, 3) an idea came to me and I was able to translate it into stitching, 4) it shows many of the things I have learned over the past 10 months of bead weaving.  I can tell you that the loopy lily type folding over of the herringbone in the above pic came from working on a pattern by Smadar Grossman in the 2/2010 Bead&Button, the toggle ring is a modified version of the bling ring in the June/July Beadwork, the triangular opening came from a Beadwork or Bead & Button feature about mastering herringbone stitch (flat herringbone was made with inclusions), and the beaded bead is the technique I worked on last spring.  I worked hard to ask myself, "What if..."  After reading La Bella Joya's blog about finding your own path to creativity and originality I was thinking that I really needed a lot of open space and time to explore the fantastic tips she gave.  I even thought to myself, well, at least next spring I should be able to block out days to just play around.  But I did start thinking about some of Marcie's points: what shapes do I really like?  what colors am I drawn to again and again? These thoughts were in the back of my mind as I was working without a plan.  And then something started to take shape in my mind.  I needed to get a long enough piece of tubular herringbone because - WOW - I had an idea for both ends.  This may be the riding-the-bike-with-no-trainingwheels-for-the-first-time feeling, the piece may be a little wobbly, but what the heck.