Jewelry

Years ago when I went to the big quilt show in Houston, I attended a lecture by Marla Gassner who wrote The Bead and I. I enjoyed her talk so that I bought the book and made the yellow necklace.

Recently I decided to make another and did this green one. It's a great way to feature special beads as accents and also to use up odd beads that you don't have enough of to make a more traditional piece.

 

It's fun to wear. With my long, skinny neck, I often wrap it around two times. It always gets comments.

Jewelry

I seem to be in bracelet mode. This one is on a grosgrain ribbon and makes use of the rings I seem to like to buy. It became very formal, so I edged it with the picot stitch.

Jewelry

Quite a while ago, I put together "kits" for myself to make some bracelets on grosgrain ribbon. I like to organize a number of projects when I have everything out and only make the mess once. No wonder the reporter for the Los Angeles Times called me a left brained/right brained artist!

They have been sitting around while I made felted cuffs for the Bead Journal Project. Now I'm catching up with them. This one is on a 2" ribbon. The rectangular shapes are shell. It seemed to need the edging to contain it.

Jewelry

I like to take larger beads and create a ruffle around them, so I was working on some brown ones thinking I would make a complicated necklace from them. Then reality set in. I don't like brown; I don't wear brown. Did I really want to spend so much time on a necklace? NO It wouldn't look good close to my face anyway.

The result became a bracelet, because I just needed to stitch the finished circles to ribbon that had stabilizer behind it. It's backed with ribbon to have a finished lining. The edging is picot stitch. A button and loop became the closure.

Next I'll work on a color I like!

I took a class from Christen Brown through www.joggles.com several years ago and liked the concept of beading on ribbon to make a bracelet.

I decided to try my own version by making a narrow one and doing the closure differently. I also made it more geometric. The ends lap over and snap together. The big snap is very secure, believe me. I have trouble getting it off!  I used some of the buttons from my collection and am pleased with the result.

I tried to take a photo of it on my wrist, but it didn't work at all. It's too small to fit anyone else. I also forgot to take the camera to my quilt group, so one of them could take the photo. So this is what you get to see.

Jewelry

Previously I'd tried to make a necklace using one continuous tube. It doesn't mold around the necklace nicely, so this time I made 3 smaller sections with a large glass bead between them to act as a hinge. This works. The tubes have beads filling the centers. It's the only way to have a good path for the thread, and you can use ugly beads as they are hidden.

Thanks for commenting on my last post. The Bead Journal Project has been a good one to be involved with.

Jewelry

A While back a good friend gave me this piece of glass that she had created. I tried several beaded straps to make a necklace and even a leather one, but none seemed right. Then I remembered seeing ribbons used in a book on necklaces. Of course then I couldn't find the book and had to just try things until I liked the result.  This has two painted ribbons and a rattail cord. I knotted a regular closure on the ribbon.

I'm taking Christen Brown's Right Angle Weave class at http://www.joggles.com/ , and made this as the first bracelet. It went quickly.

Necklace

I finally decided on a cord for the piece of shell I had beaded. A simple one seemed to show off the piece best. I tried fringe on it and didn't like it. Now to wear it.

TIF Challenge, Jewelry

I missed blogging on Wednesday because of a trip to Seattle-a 3 hr. trip one way. Of course that meant I had to stop at Shipwreck Beads and buy an obscene number of beads. I also stopped at the college to see the show I'm in. I missed the opening because of a reaction to some food. It was a long day but pleasant. I'm taking Sharonb's Studio Journal class from http://www.joggles.com/ and also doing the Take It Further Challenge http://sharonb.wordpress.com/take-it-further-challenge/ , so this month I decided to combine the 2 and make a collage in my journal.

Here is the Mother of Pearl piece I'm working on. It was given to me by a friend when we were leaving Northern California. The back-lower photo-is too pretting to cover up. I checked a book to see how to cage it, but the directions said to start with 20% fewer beads than fit the edge and after a couple of rows decrease until the beading goes over the edge-doesn't make sense and doesn't work. I don't know why I try to follow directions-did my own thing, and it worked. Now I get to add decorations.

Jewelry

The lower portion with the donuts is a bracelet that I made from magazine directions. It was always too big, so I didn't wear it. Changing it would have been a pain. One day it hit me that I could add another bracelet and wear it as a necklace-much better. The other bracelet is made from peyote stitch beads. I've made them in lots of colors to wear together.

Jewelry

This is the bracelet I made this week. It is based on a design in a book, but I added more stuff-like things more embellished. I used Nymo D again, because I have such a supply of it, and the other bracelets made with it have held together just fine through the years. The popular style of beading thread has changed through the years from fishing line-which deteriorates-to Nymo-first B then D, to Kevlar-which they found is too strong and cuts through the work-to Sylamide to Fireline.

Jewelry

Last Wednesday I got together with friends and showed them how to make a basic necklace. Here is the one I made.

This is what you can do, if you twist 3 of them together. If you make them in lots of colors, you can have any combinations that enhances your outfit. It's fun, and everyone thinks you have made a complex beading project.