Time to Stitch 4 Blog Hop



Hi everyone!  It's been really quiet here on the blog the last week or so.  After putting away all the Christmas decorations I went on a much needed clearing out/organizing binge.  I'm not finished yet, I've made a lot of progress and things are looking better already!  But, today I'm participating in the blog hop put on by Therese and Christine.  These two great ladies have done this hop for a few years now and it's always great fun.  The idea is to urge beaders to try new stitches, or to revisit stitches they may have used once and not used again.  This time around the stitch that was the focus of the hop was netting.  Then we all had the opportunity to vote on another stitch we would like to work with as an extra.  The winner was spiral rope!  That's one of my favorite stitches so I was very happy.  Here are my two necklaces.

 

 First is the netted stitched lariat.  I love lariats and I wanted to stitch one using the netting stitch.  The beaded beads that are part of the fringe were the color inspiration for the beads I used.  The netting was done with size 15 seed beads in bronze and aqua.  The fringe was stitched using bronze and aqua crystals, daggers, and bronze flower end caps.  The beaded beads were done a few years ago and I wanted to use them in this lariat fringe.  Here are some close up details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The spiral rope necklace I made is actually a variation of spiral rope created by my good friend Kathy, the owner of the bead store, Bead Soup.  She used the new Rula beads as part of the spiral.  Rula beads are another of the new two hole beads that are coming out now.  Here is my version.

 

 



 

 

 

 

I used a pretty soft pink size 8 bead for the core and bronze 15s along with the Rulas for the spiral.  The Rulas were a beautiful iris finished bead and the pink core picks up some of the pink tones in the finish.  It was very hard to capture that in the pictures.  Here are the  details.

 

 

 

 



 

So, there you have my entries in this challenge. I want to thank Therese and Christine for hosting this hop.  They are two very wonderful people I've gotten to know because of this blog.  Thank you so much for visiting me. 

 

Here's a list of the other participants and   I hope you visit their blogs and see what they came up with. 

 

 

1.  Amy Severino

2.  Janet Bocciardi

3.  Cynthia Machata

4.  Alicia Marinache

5.  Paula Kramer

6.  Kim Hora

7.  Dee Alcalde

8.  Dagi (Kokopelli)

9   Maryanne Gross

10. LizE

11. Sally Russick

12. Becky Pancake

13. Jasvanti Patel

14. Karin Slaton

15. Alenka

16. Sarah Sequins

17. Tanya Goodwin

18. Debbie Rasmussen

19. Shirley Moore

20. Crystie Willard



21. Nelly May

 22. Ana Cravidao





The other necklaces

As I said in the last post, I've been finishing up some of the many things on my work table.  Our beading group gets together at Bead Soup about once a month and we work on a project from a book or magazine.  Usually it's a component of some sort, so that means I come home and decide what I want to make out of it.  The last couple of  months I've made necklaces with them.  Of course, life, and other projects get in the way and the projects pile up!  Well, I've finished three necklaces in the last couple of weeks and I'm working on a fourth as well as my Beading Babes necklace.  Busy, busy...

But, I love this necklace the most of all the ones I've finished. 

It's Marcia DeCoster's Urchin bead.  It's one of my favorites among  her patterns and I was so happy to be working on it with our group.  Everyone's looked so different in the different colors.  I used my favorite bronze seed beads and the new Swarovski rose peach bicones in the AB finish.  They are a great color and I love the way they look with the bronze beads.  The bead isn't difficult to stitch.  It's RAW and the only challenge is to watch the unit count for the RAW units because the bead sizes change.  My friend Jennifer came up with a solution.  She would take the correct number of beads for each row out of the pile and when she had used them up she knew she had the correct number of units.  Perfect solution!  I strung the bead on a spiral rope that Marcia has in her book for the Urchin bead.  It uses a 3mm crystal as one of the core beads every 12 rows.  It really makes a great variation on the basic spiral rope, which is one of my favorite stitches.  You can get a glimpse of sparkle in the rope that is really pretty. As you'll see, I'm going to be using this variation of spiral rope a lot!  I love this necklace and this bead!

The next project I worked on was Diane Fitzgerald's Gypsy bead from her new book.  Here's what my necklace looked like when it was finally finished.

Kathy found some lucite beads that were the correct size for the instructions in the book.  We still had to so some adjusting because some of them were a little too big or a little too small.  But, it worked and once again everyone's looks so different because of the color choices.  I think we worked on this in March and I was feeling in a spring time mood because we had such a warm March here in Maryland!  So, I chose yellow to work with.  It's not a color I use a lot, but I do like it for spring and summer.  Kathy had gotten in some great new 11 seed beads in an aqua lined topaz that looked great with the yellow lucite bead.  I was using a pale yellow crystal that I had in my stash and a crystal AB size 15.  Again, I came home with a beaded bead and needed an idea to finish it with.  After making the spiral rope with the crystals I decided to use that  (see, I told you'd be seeing it again!) since I had enough of the yellow crystals left from the bead.  I needed a way to attach the bead to the rope so I decided to stitch it to the ring of seed beads that joins the ends of the netting stitch around the bead.  That worked but it needed something to cover the join.  I ended up stitching a couple of rounds of peyote off the seed beads and then embellishing the peyote with the remaining crystals.  It gives the bead a nice finish and is a good connection between the rope and the bead.  This is a light weight necklace that I've worn on a warm day and it was very comfortable. 

I feel as though I've accomplished something towards clearing up the clutter, but I still have one more necklace to finish as well as the Beading Babes necklace.  I just love the Beading Babes projects this month and I can't wait to finish the necklace.  I've worn the bracelet already and everyone compliments it.  They are just great projects!

Well, I hope you have a good day.  It's gloomy here but we need some rain, so I won't complain.  I might actually make some progress on all my projects since working out in the garden isn't going to happen!  Thanks for stopping by!





Remember this pendant?

It's the pendant I made before Christmas at Bead Soup in Savage Mill.  I really liked the finished pendant.  It was so frosty and wintery looking that I didn't want to let it sit in the studio collecting dust.  So, as soon as things settled down a little after the holidays I stitched a necklace for it. 

Since I really love spiral rope stitch I decided to use that for the necklace.  I just finished it yesterday and I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  As you can see in the picture below I peyote stitched a toggle bar and used a white frosted glass ring that I found at Michael's some time ago for a toggle. 



So, now this is my new favorite winter jewelry!  I say that when I finish all my jewelry!  We're going to be joining friends for dinner tomorrow evening so I can wear it!  It's pretty cold and frosty here, which makes it very appropriate!

Here's a picture of the entire necklace.  Enjoy!



Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy the coming weekend.  Don't forget to do something creative today!



The Transformation Completed

As I posted a few days ago, I decided to remake this necklace.  I had never been happy with it even though I always got compliments when I wore it. 

One of the things I liked least about the necklace was the string of beads that the triangles were suspended from, so I started with that.  The original necklace was cream colored size 11 Delicas, size 8 hex beads, and 4mm cubes strung in a pattern.  I liked the cream color with the summery colors of the triangles.  So, I decided to stitch a spiral rope, one of my favorite stitches, out of the same Delicas and the same  hex beads.  I eliminated the cubes.  I think it makes a more substantial looking necklace.  Then I auditioned several ways of attaching the triangles.  This is the result.

I decided to make chains of triangles.  I used the hex beads to attach the triangles together and then used a hex bead to attach the string to the spiral rope. 

Here you can see the rope and the attachment of the triangles.  I had spent several weeks last year making the triangles after seeing an article in Beadwork magazine's December 2008/January 2009 issue about Phyllis Dintenfass and her geometric beadwork.  The project offered to go along with the article featured these triangles.  I love geometric beadwork so I pulled out some beads and started making triangles.  One triangle led to another triangle!  Each one is a different color on each side.  So, this necklace is actually reversible, which is very cool,  I think! 

I'm happy with the reworked necklace.  I think I'll enjoy wearing it more than I did before.  In fact, I think I'll wear it today, just for fun!

Thanks for visiting today.  I hope you have a wonderful and creative day.

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