Cherry Wine

That's what I thought of as I worked this variation on Heather Collins' Triangles pattern. I have to tell you that you should visit Heather's store.  Her patterns are great, both the designs and the directions. They are clear and easy to follow. Back to this variation. The colors, and I suppose the time of year, just seemed to say Cherry Wine.  I had the idea to try this variation while I was bezeling the rivoli for the pendant from her pattern.  For this variation I followed the directions for the base triangle and the bezel, adding an extra row to the bezel.  Then, instead of putting a rivoli  in the opening, I left it open and added fringe, using beads that coordinated with the delicas.  I love the idea that the fringe is spilling out of the opening.  It doesn't fill the entire opening, which is a little difficult to see in the photo.  I attached it to the base triangle and used daggers and drop beads along with the Delicas.  Once the beading was finished, I added jump  rings to the corner beads and added a fine gold chain.  It's a soft looking necklace that has gotten several positive comments when I've worn it.  I'm really pleased with this variation and I want to play around with it to see where I can go with it.  For now, I'm finishing up the project which is going to be the culmination of all this triangle play!  I like what have so far.  It should be finished this coming week.  So, stay tuned for the next installment in my triangle series.
Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that you're able to find time to do something creative.



The Beginning of an Idea...Triangles~Part 2

This design is one I had loved for a long time.  It was created by Heather Collins of Dreamweavers Studio.  I love all of Heather's patterns but because I love to work triangles I decided to buy this one first.  Let me say that it is a great pattern to use.  Very clear directions, and it included earrings  and a pendant.  And, I have to tell you that Heather's colors are fabulous!  Anyway, having just completed the first triangle bezel that I talked about last time, I thought it would be fun to make Heather's version.  The bezel I did with my beading group was open in the back.  You weave two triangles, sandwich the rivoli between them and zip them closed.  This pattern has you weave a flat triangle base and then construct the bezel on the base by weaving peyote stitch up from one row of beads.  I love the look.  It gives the pendant a dimension that I think is really cool.  The pattern gives you directions for a triangle frame also.  It's an open peyote triangle which you can construct in two sizes, one for the pendant and a smaller one for the earrings.  Heather gives you a variety of ideas for putting the bezel and frame together.  I did something a little different than hers.  As you can see is the picture above, I peyoted a small bail and attached the frame to it with 4mm bicones.  I then attached the bezelled triangle to the frame with another 4mm.  I like the articulated pendant because it has some movement.  I strung it on a copper silk cord which is a simple finish allowing the pendant to take center stage.



I tried to get a close-up that would show the dimension of the bezel.  The colors were determined by the rivoli I had.  The pattern calls for a 12mm rivoli and I had a hyacinth  12mm.  So, I picked fall colors I love and have used before in my Autumn Confetti jacket.  Orange, burgundy, gold and copper is a combination I think expresses the richness of the season.  Well, I think it worked just as well in beads as it did in the jacket!

But, all these triangle bezels started ideas for variations of triangles spinning around in my head.  I've been working on triangles off and on for a couple of weeks now.  So, you'll have to stay tuned to see what I'm coming up with!

Thank you for visiting today.  I hope you take the long weekend to spend time creating something wonderful!



Triangles, Part One

My bead group worked on this bezel for a 14mm rivoli a few weeks ago.  The pattern is from a British bead magazine called Bead!  I think that's it entire title, I may be wrong and I apologize if that is the case.  At any rate, we had a good time watching all the different colors develop.  I love triangles in any format and so I really loved this idea.  Here is what the triangular bezel became:

A really great necklace with a dimensional twisted Herringbone rope and an embellished bail. 
Stay tuned.  As I said, I love triangles, and this one got me making different triangles, lots of them! 

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a wonderful day and make something fun!





Bead Embroidery and Viking Knit

I made this pendant when I was taking a class in Viking Knit from Joggles.  I don't always like the face cabs that are available, but I fell in love with this one.  The suggestion for a pendant that went along with the instruction was to make branch fringe around the entire cab.   I like making  branch fringe, but I knew I would get bored doing the entire piece with it, and since I love asymetry, I thought I would just do part of the face with the branch fringe and finish with a plain fringe stitch.  I used 3mm and 4mm bicones to create a double edge to  finish the pendant. 

The main focus of the class was the Viking Knit which is an ancient wireworking technique.  My daughter first introduced me to it, and I loved the process of working it, and also the finished product.  There are many ways of finishing the ends of the knit, but I chose the option of stitching peyote tubes to wrap around the ends. Unfortuately,I haven't done as much of it as I would have liked to do, but I'm planning to go back to it.  It's a versatile technique to have in your bag of tricks. 

I hope you're enjoying the end of summer.  The weather is cooling off a little here which is a good thing!

Thanks for visiting.  Have a great weekend.



Silken Straw Necklace



Silken Straw is a fabulous silk yarn from Alchemy Yarns.  Of course, there aren't any of Alchemy's yarns that I don't love.  The colors are beautiful and rich and the yarns themselves are very special.  One of my favorites is their Silken Straw.  It's a silk yarn that is almost papery in its feel and appearnce.  It's a very narrow ribbon that softens as you knit and wear it.  I've used it, along with other Alchemy yarns in my Bohemian scarves, and I just love it!! Oh, I think I've made that point already!  One thing I'd been wanting to make with Silken Straw is a necklace.  The colors are so beautiful and I knew I probably had lots of beads that would coordinate with it.  I don't have many skeins of it because it's not an inexpensive yarn, but I do occasionally splurge and buy a skein I just can't resist.  The color I chose for this necklace was "Desert Song".  I had some matte peach long magatamas and I loved the way the beads and the yarn complimented each other.  I brought a bead up at the beginning of each row of garter stitch and used short rows for shaping.  A copper slide clasp was all it needed to finish it off. I think it looks simple but elegant.

The peachy color of the magatamas was hard to capture, but they really are a lovely matte peach color.

I'm finishing up another knitted necklace that is going to use another color of Silken Straw as an embellishment.  Hopefully, it'll be ready for photos soon.

Thank you for stopping by the blog.  Have a wonderful day.



Those versatile little stars!

The little stars from the "By the Sea" bracelet are addictive to make.  So, of course, I had to use them to fashion 4th of July earrings for me and my daughter.  They work up so quickly and the color combinations are endless.  I'm sure I'll find more ways to use them, even if it's just to play with the colors.  Sunflowers, anyone!!

Here's another view. 

Have a wonderful day!  It's a great mid-summer day here, so gardening I will go!!

Finally...

I've finally finished my Artbead Blog Partner project for the Spring!   Yes, you read that correctly, the Spring!  The last few months have been so busy for my family.  We've had a wonderful time, and the memories we have created will be always with us.  But, I didn't have a lot of time to bead, or do much of anything else.  Well, it seems that now those lazy, crazy days of summer have set in and I'm finding myself with time to bead, sew and garden.  So, now I can present my interpretation of the theme for this go-round of the Blogger Program, "What's Old is New Again". 

Yep, two projects.  After all, it took me so long to get the time to work on the project that I thought I should have something to show for it!  Actually, my original design changed after I ordered my beads and I found I had a lot left over, so I thought I would make a bracelet and a necklace! 

As I said, the theme this time was "What's Old is New Again". We were asked to use something vintage, or vintage looking, with new beads and crystals.  I had been wanting to use a vintage lucite belt buckle my friend Kathy had given me and also some vintage German buttons I'd had in my stash for a while.  I was planning to use the buckle as the focal and, originally, going to have fringe coming off of it, but when I started working the design became very Art Deco in feel.  The peyote stitched bands attached to each other with Delicas gave a very geometric look to the buckle. A large amount of fringe, my original idea, didn't seem to fit the look I was getting.  That was fine with me because I love Art Deco and the buckle's design had elements of the geometric details often found in Art Deco pieces.  But, that meant that I wanted an end product that had the clean lines of Art Deco fashion.  I had chosen some of the newer Swarovski pendants to play off the idea of old versus new.  So, I decided to hang the larger one, the 28mm Aquiline Pendant, from the bottom of the buckle and use the 20mm Avant-Garde pendant as a togggle closure.  I liked that idea a lot, so I proceeded to design the strap to hold it all together.  As I said, I ordered some newer beads to play up the theme.  The new Tila beads are fun to work with, and they are some of the newest beads available.  So, I use them with seed beads and some fire polished 4mm beads to create a strap.  I loved the finished necklace.  But, I had lots of beads left over and I didn't want to not use them.  So, I decided to make a freeform bracelet with the leftovers and the German buttons I ended up not using in the necklace.  I used my last Swarovski pendant, an 18mm Aquiline Pendant, for a closure and just let the beads and buttons go where they wanted.  I had the added thematic result of freeform, a relatively new beadweaving technique, with vintage buttons incorporated. 

I'm really pleased with the results, even though it took me so long to get here.  I thank Duchess from Artbeads for being so understanding.  

Here are some details:



We're supposed to name our pieces and so I named the bracelet "...and all that jazz"  because freeform reminds me of jazz!  And, the necklace ended up seeming rather stately to me, so I named it "Manderly" because as I put the finishing touches on it, the novel "Rebecca" came into my mind. 

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.  My statements about these products are an honest assesment and I receive no compensation from Artbeads for my endorsement.