a little bird told me

From a Mary Tafoya pattern I made this cutie.  I played around with the colors a bit, made my own brass cuff, and used a pale leather for the backing.  This was my first try at attaching a peyote strip to a backing.

and the stitching really is not visible to the non-bionic naked eye

I stitched the peyote strip to Lacy's Stiff Stuff, glued the leather to the metal cuff I made, then stitched the Lacy's to the leather.  I want to thank the Bobbie from Beadsong Jewelry for her suggestions.

Golden Dragonfly

I made this dragonfly with 24K gold wings from a Good Quill Hunting pattern.  Christina has amazing patterns and kits for a variety of stitches.  If you don't weave but bead embroider, go to her site to get inspired.  The mix of beads, stones, colors, and stitches takes my breath away.  She has some free patterns and tutorials as well as an amazing list of links and resources.  Click here for Christina's blog, also full of gorgeousness and info.  My dragonfly cuff is coveted by my friends, co-workers, and students.  And you can see why:

look at all those shades of gold in the wings!

add a little sunshine and it glows

a little closer

the beads on the wings shift colors in the light - she really appears to fly on your wrist

I love the bright blue eyes

Finished with vintage glass buttons and peyote loops

I messed around with each end of the pattern a little bit so that the bands of color would meet up at the closure.  The idea didn't dawn on me until I was finishing so I didn't get it quite even, but I like the result.  I also tapered the corners to avoid them getting dog-earred with wearing.  The sweet little clover buttons are vintage pressed black glass with facets and heavy brass shanks.  I found them at an antique shop here in Q'town which specializes in vintage clothing.  They measure about 8mm across.  This cuff is about 2 1/8" wide. 

On Christina's web site she recommends Joan Painter of Painter's Art Beads as a source for small quantities of Delica beads.  I followed this advice and managed to get the quantities I needed down to 1 gram of this and 1 gram of that.  Joan carries just about every Delica number under the sun.  I saved a bunch of money on beads for this bracelet, but went a little crazy ordering beads that I had not been able to find elsewhere!  Joan takes her orders via email.  Send her a message with your order and she charges you for the actual shipping cost.  She is great!

bead corral

I've been making beaded beads the past few nights.  Right now I'm waiting for an order of Delicas to make a stunning dragonfly cuff I spotted at Good Quill Hunting.  I keep telling myself I won't make another one-drop peyote cuff, but I found this one and fell in love.  This is the photo from Christina's pattern site:

you cannot tell how shimmery this is in the photos

These are the beads I've been playing with since the weekend.  The little ones are woven on an 8mm core of 15/0 seed beads.  The larger ones are made from 11/0's and are on a 10mm core.

these are about 9.5mm across

these are the little guys; the big ones are rolling around in the background

I use circular peyote to make my beaded beads.  I make two halves and join them together.  This came about because I find it very difficult to decrease on a 3-D surface in the round.  Also because I originally followed a tutorial in French and the part about the increases was about all I could understand.  The details for the decrease were not accompanied by the best diagrams, so this was the solution  I invented.  I like getting all my rows to line up and not having any bulky areas sticking out as I had with some other methods.  I'm pretty certain this is fairly similar to the TQB beaded bead.  But if you check out her beads you will not believe how tight they are.  I guess mine will get better after 15 years of practice.

My mom commented that I needed another light source for my photos.  I've got three lights now, but they are not fancy photo lights.  I think I need to change the bulbs and see if this helps.  Above is my do-over pic of the celtic trefoil.  I think it is a little better photo, but I'm going to continue working on the lighting.

Frozen

I finished a peyote cuff last week.  I've had this pattern and the beads for it since last spring, but just got around to putting it together. 

this one fits right into my current craze for pale purples

 

the 15/0's on the picot edging look a bit off color in the photos, but they really pick up the golden highlights in the petals

This design is by Viki at Fairy's Dream Jewellrey.  I added the edging and changed one of the colors from her design (the amethyst swirl and all that is that color was a dark metallic blueberry which got a little lost against the charcoal grey)

Saltillo goes Armenian

A few weeks ago I posted that I had started a wide peyote stitch cuff.  My husband actually expressed interest in having it, but when push came to shove, he backed out and I finished it to fit my wrist.

weighing in at 48 mm wide X 190 mm long

three snaps close this baby

you can see the overlap where the snaps are sewn

The pattern is by Pascale Guichaoua-Mikovic and appeared as an on-line project in Bead&Button magazine in 2009.  I altered it only a tiny bit, but have listed at the end of the post some other ideas I might try  if I make another.  Every time I make a wide, high contrast, highly detailed cuff which includes black, white, and some other bright colors, I get people who want to buy it on the spot. Except they want to pay $40. 

My goal was was to get a group of items up for sale by the end of the summer, but this hasn't happened.  One stumbling block is pricing.  I have seen loads of advice on this.  The reality is that I'm a hobbyist and I want to make enough to pay for my hobby.  But I also have feelings about undercutting artists and designers who make a living selling their work.  I have one avenue I need to investigate - an arts center in the town where I work which has an under $100 gallery. Perhaps I'll go and check out the local pricing.

I was wearing this today when I went shopping and a woman asked me if I had done the cross stitching.  I told her I made it but that it was about 4,000 tiny glass beads.  Her jaw hit the floor.  I wish I had a camera to capture the look on her face.  I took it off because she wanted to get a closer look.  Then she called over a friend who was with her.  Both were amazed.  I'm pretty amazed too.  But each time I finish something I start thinking about what I need to do differently (ditch the palest grey, which actually appears white - and use the cream, which is actually the Delica flesh-tone; give the center medallion the same interesting indentations with red dots that the triangle shapes surrounding the medium grey wedges have; use more of the metallic bronze which just reads brown in these pics, but actually really pops). 

The snaps were suggested by Kokopelli.  I was thinking that I would use a long tube bar closure.  Check out the link to Monsterslayer's selection.  They have a 40mm 7-loop clasp!  When I started playing with the piece, I realized that the ends joining formed just as interesting design as the center.

Only a matter of time

I was expecting this, sort of.   My husband has laid claim to one of my seed bead projects.  I'm working on an impossible wide (40mm) cuff in black, reds, and greys.  I left my work next to the computer where I had been catching up on-line on TV programs which are on past my weeknight bedtime.  After dinner, he sat down there and must have been playing with the piece.  He actually called me over to suggest that he could wear it.  Now this is my machote husband.  The one who wears only solid colors, who just this summer wore bermudas in public for the first time, and still will not wear sandals of any type.  He wears a watch and his wedding band, but that is it for jewelry.  This is what caught his eye:

The pattern is by Pascale Guichaoua-Mikovic and appeared as an on-line project in Bead&Button magazine in 2009. From her website, you can click to her all peyote site.  She has lots of pattern grids posted.  Her work is spectacular.  Do not miss her galleries.

This is the piece I'm working with two needles to to avoid the bulk you get when stitching in odd-count peyote.  I've found the added bonus of this approach is that I need to add thread half as often!  Now I have to figure out what sort of closure will be masculine enough for Papi.