lo and behold

I am really in love with this completed bracelet.  I used 5 shades of darker blue and 3 silver/light blue beads, and I did them in random twelve-bead stripes.  I think this one is going into the personal collection. 

And while I was at it, with all those gorgeous blue beads out, I put together this:

which I also really like.  Full disclosure – I am a big fan of blue. 

This bracelet is made of 16 different beads, including three kinds of drops, five size 8s, one size 11 hexagon cut, and the rest a variety of size 11.  I strung them in groups of six in a repeated pattern order.  It looks random because the pattern is so long.  I love the texture but I think I’d like it better with fewer of the larger beads.  I’d prefer the larger beads to really stand out; instead, this bracelet looks thick the full length, with the smaller beads being somewhat buried.  Not meaning that it’s not lovely, but something to think about next time. 

I was on a roll, and there are more blue beauties on the way! 

Or lack thereof!  The tooth fairy has been busy at our house this month! Rachel has decided that she’s “pretty sure” the presents that appear under her pillow are from me, but she says, “I just can’t figure out what happens to the tooth.” 

Here’s an unfinished project that’s been hanging around for a very long time – a super ugly bead crochet made of random blue size 11 seed beads.  The random thing was intentional, of course, but geez, I have a bit to learn about how to mix colors.  All those beads are blue.  The lightest ones are a pearly baby blue, and I’ve used them other places, but I hate them in there.  There is also a few pinkish, purply beads; I have no idea what I was thinking about those and why they are there.  Probably, I just had some leftover from something else and wanted to use them up, so I threw them in.  Not such a good idea.  I mixed matte and shiny, dark and light, keeping the main color constant, and I’m calling it a flop.  Maybe next time I’ll try keeping all the finishes the same and see what that does. 

So, what am I going to do: throw it away? NO, I can’t bring myself to do that, and I’m not going to give it someone, and I’m not going to offer it for sale, either.  I have to like what put out into the world with my  name and my heart attached.  So, this Friday is Project Redo.  

I cut the cord (literally and metaphorically) and unstrung all the beads.  I separated them into their like groups.  I don’t know how long it took me – maybe an hour, but there is something I find very satisfying about that process.  Call me weird, I know. 

So, I ditched the little pink ones completely, and I decided to add a little more balance by using another light-ish bead; that one on the light is a very light silvery blue, and the one on the left is a silver-lined sapphire (I apologize for my poor photos.  I am still experimenting with different backgrounds and light sources).

As far as design, I decided on what I call horizontal stripes, which means I interrupt the spiral stripes by changing colors every six beads.  In a typical bead crochet pattern, it looks like this: 6A, 6B, 6C, etc, as opposed to six spiral stripes which looks like this: 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F.  I know this may be confusing.  I’ll do a post about patterns sometime soon. 

Here’s how it turned out, and I’m delighted.  I love the new look. The lights are more balanced and don’t look out of place at all.  I made the stripes twelve beads thick and I kept the order of stripes random.  I’ll post a photo of the final finished bracelet when I get there.    So, worth it!  

 I try, on Fridays, to put aside my professional writing and editing work, and give myself over to jewelry.  Otherwise, I rarely get large blocks of time to create in color.  Some of my writing is creative, sure, but it’s black and white.  And it was not until I fell in love with beads that I felt, deeply, passionate about color. 

So, I’ve set some goals for my next few Fridays - and truth is, I’ll be delighted if I can keep this up for the next few months of Fridays. 

1. Work on and finish projects that I’ve started.  In some cases, started means only that I’ve bought some beads and have an idea floating in the recesses of my mind, or maybe on a page of my design book. I do have a design book, but there’s much more in my head than on the page.  Maybe it’s that black and white thing . . . . And, sometimes started means half done, and I’ve stopped because I’ve gotten stuck, or I’ve gotten scared.  Sometimes, I think I am just scared to create something that will be beautiful. 
2. My second goal is to write about my Fridays.  So, here I am - off to a great start! 

I’ve been trying for a while to figure out how to make beads out of bead crochet.  I want to incorporate more glass beads and gemstones into the jewlery I make but I don’t want to give up the crochet which I think is so unique, and also lovely.  Here are what some beads look like. I’ve worked on a purple-themed necklace, a brown one, a rainbow one (the yellow bead), and green/aqua one. 

Bead crochet is a tube, so with a short enough bead and a long enough needle, I figured out I could string then on some Fireline bead thread.  I added a variety of other beads:  aqua glass, silver rounds, seed beads, and crystals in three different colors. I knotted the end of the thin string, and slid it into the center of a crocheted tube.  The bracelets roll on with no clasp and I wanted the necklace to be similarly ”endless.” 

I was only somewhat satisfied with the end result.  It was hard to get the right tension on the string.  I didn’t want any string to show, and to make it tight enough, kind of crimped it up.  It didn’t have the fluid relaxed drape that I had imagined. I also didn’t like that you could see the string end of the crochet beads.  So my Friiday job was to take it apart and try a different method.

This time, I decided to make links with wire.  Each crochet bead would have a loop on both ends, and each segment of other beads would be strung together on a wire with similar loops on each end.  A good chance to practice my loop making.  It was really fun to get into the rhythm of making the links. I cut all the pieces of wire. I made one loop on each bead, and then I linked them together. I am much happier with the final product. 

I know it’s cliche, but the new year makes me want to feel more organized. Notice, I didn’t say, BE more organized. For me, true organization is a bit out of reach; I’m only just as organized as I have to be. I don’t lose important things, I mostly pay my bills on time, and just recently, with minimal effort, I put my hands on a piece of paper which I hadn’t touched for about 9 years. Maybe it’s not that I’m disorganized, but more that I’m messy. Is that possible? Can a person be organized and a slob at the same time?

Or maybe it’s not that I’m a messy slob, it’s more that I’m creative. I think the truth is that I’m a bit of all: creative, messy, and organized. Those pictures on top - they aren’t “before” and “after.” On the left, that’s my jewelry design and production space. It always looks  like that, sometimes worse, and I really don’t want it to be different. Why? Because I think of color combinations for bead bracelets all the time, and I set those tubes out on my desk until I do a stringing session. Also, once I get going on a palette, I tend to do a bunch of different bracelets in the same grouping. I want to see what the bracelet will look like if I string them dark to light, and then I want to see what happens if I take out the two darkest and use all light beads. I percolate on those colors for days until I string them, and I need to see them in front of me for that particular creativity to happen.   I also, for example, like to keep my design board in sight, so I can shift things around on it for days before I actually make the piece.  I believe that the final product is better because I’ve had that tinkering time, and I’m visual enough that I need to see things in order to tinker.  Now, that doesn’t mean there’s any good reason that my tools can’t go  back into their basket each time I’m done with them. . . ..

On the right, though, that beadboard is a thing of beauty of which I am very proud. I made it myself, and I’m going to tell you how. Again, I like to be able to see my beads, see my colors. I was keeping everything in plastic shoeboxes: one box for the cool colors, one for the warm colors, one for metallics, and one for randoms, but my collection was growing beyond the boxes, and more importantly, it wasn’t serving my real need. So here’s what I did - and it’s so easy.

1. Buy or find a bulletin board or a white board made for hanging on wall.
2. Buy quarter-round molding cut to the width of the board.
3. Glue the pieces of molding on to the board using a hot glue gun or a strong adhesive. Make sure there is enough space between the molding “shelves” to remove the tubes of beads.
4. Cut and tie pieces of elastic into rounds. Slip the elastic onto the board from the top or bottom and position them above each shelf. I used two pieces of elastic for each shelf because I have both short and tall tubes.

I could have made the whole thing more elegant by painting the border of the bulletin board or painting the pieces of molding or lining the back with a fabric. Frankly, I wanted the beads to stand out with no distractions. And I LOVE the end result. This board is for all my size 11 seed beads. I want to make another, smaller board for my size 6 and 8s since I have fewer of them but I would still like to see them, too.  I really should patent and market this beadboard, but in the meantime. . . . go for it!