It isn't that I haven't been creating, it is that I wasn't taking pictures and blogging about it. A few days ago I put a load of finished pieces in front of the camera in order to get ready for some serious posting.
This summer when I was in Cleveland I picked up the February/March 2010 Beadwork. I had somehow missed this edition between buying from the newstand and subscribing and of course every time I saw a piece I really wanted to make it was from that issue! Between getting a pedicure with my BFF of 29 years (that final F really is forever!) and my goddaughter, who is now the same age that her mom and I were when we met, and having lunch at a Turkish restaurant with my mom and auntie, I stopped by The Isle of Beads. This was the bead store where I first bought beads and stared at the containers of seed beads and wondered who was crazy enough to spend time trying to use those tiny things. I spent quite a long time chatting with Denise Newman, the owner, about the difficulty of owning a bricks and mortar store today. What I didn't realize was that she had just opened her store about the time I stepped into the world of stringing. Twenty years later there I was drooling over drawers of gorgeous hanks of Czech 11/0's. She also had one copy of that elusive issue of Beadwork.
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| the cuff - my first brick stitch work - a few tension issues |
I took awhile for me to find all the different beads I needed and still I had to make two color substitutions, but I finally amassed the sizes I wanted. I love Lynn Davy's Pendragon Cuff. This was my first brick stitch project and it includes six different sizes and shapes of beads. The triangles were fun to work with, but I wish they had turned out to be as light as they were pictured on the website when I bought them (big problem for me - no bricks and mortar stores within a two hour drive!). Next I wanted some earrings to go with the cuff. I mixed peyote and herringbone, Delicas, 15/0's, and silver wire and came up with the pair pictured. I've worn them a few times and gotten raves, as well as, "you are going to have to teach me how to do that."
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| little tribal shields to compliment the Pendragon cuff |
They are a double layer of beading which is connected at the tip by a drop bead. I need to explore this shape a bit more so that I can devise a way of attaching the earwire without stitching it to the beading directly. Do you have any suggestions for this?
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| a hint of things to come |
