Wire Working for a friend

A friend of mine makes beautiful baskets.  I love baskets.  I use them to store things, but I also use them as decorative pieces.  I love the tactile and sculptural appeal they have.  Well, anyway, my friend makes these wonderful yarn baskets.  I asked her if she would make me one.  As all you knitters know, you can never, ever, have too many yarn baskets!  I was planning on paying her for the basket, but she had seen a wire and pearl ring I had made myself in a class I took at Bead Soup and she loved it!  So, we decided I would make her a ring and pendant to match and she would make me a basket!  Perfect!  Well, life, and the holidays intervened, and we're just getting our projects done.  I gave her the ring and pendant on Thursday and she's in the process of finishing up my basket.

The ring is a freeform design, so it really appealed to me.  I love the idea of using a little wire and a few small beads to make a really cool ring.  I used pearls in mine and Judy wanted pearls also. 

It uses 16 gauge wire and 24 gauge for caging the beads.  It's a very easy design and each ring, like in freeform beadwork, looks different. 

This is the pendant, which is made in the same way.  I used a bracelet mandrel to shape 20g wire and made a loop on each end, attaching a jump ring to the top.  I then strung the pearls on 24g which I wrapped around the ring.  You can use as many, or as few, beads as you want, and again, each pendant is different.  I've seen this pendant idea many times, and not always in a circular shape, but the idea of caging the beads randomly is very appealing to this freeform kind of gal!  The next one I make is going to be a rectagular one for myself.  I just have to decide on the beads I want to use. 

Well, it's a cold day here, so I'll spend it in the studio, cozy and warm, finishing up a project that never was finished before the holidays.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  Thanks for stopping by.





Freeform, Summer Melons

I've been gone from the blog for quite a while.  My daughter and I have spent the last several weeks creating costumes for a show written and directed by a very dear friend of hers.  We have done this for several summers now, Carrie designing, and both of us building the costumes, and it's always enjoyable.  The entire production is a family affair with many of the same actors, techies and volunteers coming back year after year to help get these plays on the stage successfully.  But, this past weekend was the opening and our work has morphed from making to managing the costumes backstage.  So, I'm able to return to what passes for normal in my life! 

While we were working on costumes I would take a few minutes here and there to work on a new freeform necklace I had started several weeks ago.  I had put a tease on the blog thinking it would be finished long before now.  I call it Summer Melons and you can see why.

I love the colors.  If you look closely you can see a square element that I incorporated into the beadwork.  It's a hand painted plastic piece from a company called My Elements.  They have a wonderful assortment of pieces in bright colors that can be used in all sorts of ways.  I decided to try them in freeform.  By beading over and under them the pieces became part of the beadwork.  And, they were the jumping off point for my colors.  The finished necklace reminds me of melons!   Here are a couple more closeups of the finished necklace.

It's a fun summer necklace with it's mother of pearl beads, lucite flowers, and fringe coming off parts of the beadwork.  I'm happy I finished it while there's still some summer left so I can enjoy wearing it.  

I hope you're enjoying your summer.  Thanks for sharing you time with me. 

The Muse

There is a young designer in Sedona, Arizona by the name of Scarlett Lanson.  Her work is incredible for her age.  She has decided that beads and beading will be her life's work and she is definitely committed to her goal.  She has a beading contest on her website, TheBeadersMuse.com, called "Use the Muse".  The contest is sponsored by Artbeads.com, which is a wonderful resource for beaders.  Scarlett sends you a kit of beads and crystals along with a component which she designates as the "Muse".  You can use as much or as little of the kit as you choose just so long as you use the Muse.  You can add anything from you own stash as well. The only other stipulation is that you keep the muse a secret until the winners are revealed on her site.  It's a great contest because anyone can enter regardless of their experience.  Scarlett's choice of bead colors is wonderful, and different every time.  You can also use any technique, beadweaving, stringing, polymer, anything as long as you use the muse.  The variety and quality of the beadwork that results is wonderful.

I had entered "Use the Muse 2" last year.  I had a lot of fun designing the necklace that I entered.  I titled it "Dusk in a Creole Garden" because I kept thinking of the courtyard gardens in New Orleans while I was working on it.

This is the finished piece.  While it didn't win I had a lot of fun with it.  I don't use blue very often, especially not the dusty blues which were prevalent in this kit.  The muse was the Lillypilly doughnut in the middle of the pendant.  That is where the inspiration for the title came from, which is the whole idea.  The muse inspires you and your creation!

I skipped Use the Muse3 because it was in the fall and that is always such a busy time around here.  But, I decided to participate in the fourth contest.  I just finished my entry this morning and I can show you a tease of what I did.   I can't show you the entire piece until the contest is over and the winners are announced on Scarlett's website.

I decided to use my very favorite technique which is freeform beadweaving.  I had a wonderful time creating this piece.  Instead of using freeform peyote I used a freeform netting stitch.  It was great fun, and I like having the two methods to choose from when I want to do freeform.  I think I'm going to name this one "River Bed" because the colors, and the way the beads flow together look like a dry river bed.  This time the colors in the kit were ones that I really like and I added some sage green beads to contribute to the earthiness of the composition.

Eventually, I'll be able to show you the entire necklace.  In the meantime, I have to go clean up the beads and plan the next project!  Thanks for visiting with me today.  Hope you're day is full of creativity!

Frosted Plums

As you know from previous posts,  I like to create knitted jewelry.  I find it challenging to use knitting fiber to make a necklace or bracelet.  Last year I started making bead knitted bracelets and necklaces.  My friend Leslie from Twisted Sistah had knitted a reversible bracelet using #8 Hex beads and micro C-lon thread.  She gave me the pattern and I was soon hooked on making these bracelets.  I'll post some pictures of some of the ones I made in another post.  I had also been making some of the bracelets Ellen from Earthfaire creates.  She uses a mix of beads and Kreinik metallic braid to knit bracelets and necklaces. 

A few months ago I started doing bead knitting with wire instead of thread.  I made a few necklaces and bracelets using sterling silver clasps.  After the holidays I was going through my stash of Artistic Wire and came across a matte plum wire in 30 gauge that my daughter, Carrie, had given me.  I really liked the fact that it was matte.  I pulled together a bead stew to use for a necklace.  One of my favorite parts of making these necklaces is putting together the bead stew.  I've learned that any bead smaller than a 6 doesn't have the presence I like.   They tend to get lost among the larger beads.  I've used stick pearls with success, but anything too large distorts the knitting.  So, putting the beads together is really fun for me.  I get to go through all my beads and find what I think will work in color and size.  It's great fun, and I discover things I forgot I had. 

As I worked on this necklace I decided it looked like frosted plums, hence the name.  I also thought it would be fun to do something different with the clasp.  I'm a big fan of Beverly Ash Gilbert.   In her new book, Beaded Colorways, she shows how she bezels a cabochon and makes a clasp out of it.  I had wanted to use fabric as to create a cabochon for a long while.  So, I decided to put that idea, and Beverly's clasp idea together.  My stash of cotton batiks is quite large because I've never seen a batik I didn't fall in love with!  And, surprise!  I found one that was a perfect match for this necklace.  I cut a 2" circle of Lacy's Stiff Stuff and a 1 3/4" circle of fabric, which I  placed over a layer of thin quilt batting.  I sewed the batik to the Lacy's around the outer edge and began beading a bezel around the fabric circle. 

I love freeform beading, and I took a class from my friend Christen Brown.  She teaches a great freeform peyote bracelet class for Joggles.  Check it out if your interested in freeform!  Anyway, I decided to use some freeform across the fabric, and I used Beverly's idea (her book is  a study of freeform beadwork and color) to use a variety of beads in the embroidery around the cab. 

Once the knitting was finished and the cab was well on it's way to being finished, I started thinking about how to attach it to the necklace and create a closure.  In Beverly's book she makes a hook out of wire and attaches it to the back side of the cab.  She then attaches a jump ring to the opposite side of the necklace.  Since my necklace was knitted out of wire I just reenforced the bound off end of the necklace to use in place of a jump ring.  But, I still needed to attach the cab to the necklace and decide on a hook.  After much thought I used my flat-nose pliers to flatten the cast on edge of the necklace and I stitched the back  of the cab to the wire edge.  I then used three small hooks from a set of hooks and eyes and stitched them to the opposite side of the cab so they corresponded to the reenforced bind off edge.  I positioned them so that just the tips of the ends were visible along the edge of the cab.  I then glued ultra-suede to the back of the cabochon and stitched a beaded picot edge around the entire cab.  The picot covered the tips of the hooks so they were no longer visible. 

I was very pleased with the finished necklace.  It can be worn with the clasp in the back, front, or to the side.  I like to wear it to the side.  The knitted wire necklaces and bracelets are very light in weight even though they have a lot of beads in them.  So, they're fun to wear. 

Something I learned from trying to photograph this necklace I also learned from Beverly.  She has a wonderful newsletter that she has recently started.  The February edition had information about taking good photographs.  In it she talked about backgrounds and their colors.  She used as an example a necklace she made using purple beads.  She needed to put it on a green background in order for the color to look good.  She used beautiful green leaves from her garden.  Green being the compliment of purple on the color wheel.   Well, I had been having the same problem with this necklace.  I tried putting it on a green plate, since we don't have a lot of green in the garden yet, and it worked.  Now my photographs are definitely not in the same league as Beverly's, but I could not get good color no matter what background I tried until I used the green plate.  Thank you,  Beverly! 

I love to find alternative closures for my creations.  Whether it's a closure for a jacket or a clasp for a necklace or bracelet, I think it adds to the fun of making and wearing the piece.  Thinking outside the box can lead to some interesting results.  Try it!

Have a fun and creative day!