Saturday, October 13, 2012

History Blog Hop








I was given Indus Valley for my historical period.   The Indus Valley produced beads for trade from shell, stone, clay, and metal -- they have even found beads of wrapped copper wire with silk fiber inside!   Their jewelry was very simple bead strung pieces and "bangri",  from which our word bangle descends.  So here are a few simple bangles:



Sorry this is late and so few bangles, I'm claiming it as a "senior moment" and sticking to it.  Thank you, and apologies, to Leah at The Beady Eyed Bunny

Bead Table Blog Hop






Sorry I am a little late with this post.


First thank you to Lisa Lodge of Pine Ridge Treasures  for setting up this blog hop and providing such great beads to work with.  Here is what she sent me.  Special thanks for the darling cat head bead.







The beads seem to sort themselves into two groups, the amethyst chips forming the basis of one and the candy came stripe beads anchoring the second.





I chose to work with the amethyst group and in the spirit of the hop worked only with left overs from previous projects and repurposed materials.















Recently I've being playing around with kumihimo so I started by making a spiral braid of embroidery floss and C-Lon cord with the amethyst chips on the raised cords of the spiral.




















 I added fringe to the braid using the 4 purple and white flower beads in the center.














The larger beads are strung on C-Lon to form the back.  The clasp is a repurposed brooch, I removed the original center of the flower and replaced it with a pink pearl, the same pearls used in the fringe.











To see what everyone else made:



My Bead Table Blog Hop

Your Host: Lisa Lodge

Molly Alexander, Beautifully Broken Me
Audrey Belanger, Dreams of an Absolution
Ginger Bishop, lilmummy likes...
Tanya Boden, Fusion Muse
Lisa Boucher, Lisa’s Clay Happenings
Michelle Buettner, Mishel Designs
Eleanor Burian-Mohr, The Charmed Life
Mikala Coates, Maybe Just Perhaps
Marlene Cupo, Amazing Designs
Kathleen Douglas, Washoe Kat's
Mary Anne Klinglesmith Flesch, Hand Crafted Serenity
Therese Frank, Therese's Treasures
Mary Govaars, MLH Jewelry Designs
Tanya Goodwin, A Work in Progress
Mary Hicks, Falling Into the Sky
Tina Holden, Polymer Clay Bytes!
Shelly Joyce, Au jour le jour
Carolyn Lawson, Carolyn's Creations
Kathy Lindemer, Bay Moon Design
Susan Lloyd, Designs by Susan
Cynthia Machata, Antiquity Travelers
Inge von Roos, Inge's Blog
Kristen Stevens, My Bead Journey
Sonya Stille, Dreamin' of Beads
Christine Stonefield, Sweet Girl Design
Toltec Jewels, Jewel School Friends
Norma Turvey, Moonlit Fantaseas
Sandra Wollberg, City of Brass Stories


Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Tidying Up the Blog . . .





Blog clean up day -- it's so much easier than cleaning up the house or (shudder) my work space.   So please excuse the odd missing photo or blog update message.

Photo above is the focal for necklace made with torn silk, this time the flat braid is accented by size 8 seed beads.  The "bail" is macramé  C-lon cord and torn silk with seed beads crochet creating the fringed edge.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

More Experiments in Kumihimo

I'm having way too much fun with my Kumihimo disk,  I've been making braids out of all kinds of materials and beads, here are a couple pieces that ended up as finished jewelry.

The first piece uses fabric from my stash and some metallic round cord in a flat braid.  This flat braid is fast becoming a favorite, the channel down the center created by varying the cord sizes is a great place for beads or other shiny stuff.   I like the rustic look of torn fabric strips, I think it goes well with the clay focal.

Finished Necklace



Braid Detail
























This is C-Lon cord and beads.  The large wooden beads are worked into the "rungs" of a ladder braid, the excess cord is braided into a long fringed tail that can be worn in front or behind.  Two strands, lavender and apricot, of size 6 seed beads and spiral knotted cord are woven thru the braid.  The bail is folded micro macrame, another technique I've been playing with.




Bail Detail



Monday, September 3, 2012

Pay It Forward - Handmade

Thank-you Katherine at Terra Beads for letting me play.




So by now you probably know how this works, but here it is again:

I’ll send a surprise gift to the first three people who comment on this blog post and then pay it forward.  The gift will be handmade by me and will be sent to you some time in the next 365 days (yep, mystery gift at a mystery time).

All you need to do is leave me a comment and make sure you include your email address (if your profile doesn’t include it). I’ll then contact you for your snail mail address and ask a few questions (likes/dislikes, favourite colours, sizes general stuff like that).

To complete signing up you MUST play along too. To do this you must blog a similar post and pledge to make a surprise gift for the first three people who comment on your post.




Come on, join in the fun!  You don't have to be a beader, the items just need to be handmade by you.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Kumihimo & Red Creek Jasper Necklace





This was my first kumihimo braid I made for a piece of jewelry, I love getting into my fabric and embellishment stash and pulling out things to braid.  This braid has a bit of everything in it, I love the textures using different fibers produce.  I've had this necklace finished for a month or so, except for the end caps for the braid.  Everything I looked just didn't have the "heft"I felt this braid and the stones required.  As soon as I saw Krisit Bowman's  spiral copper end caps I knew they would be just right.  I also ordered several other pieces from Kristi and am really enjoying working with them.



Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Nightmare Bead Challenge

My first Blog Hop Challange reveal!  Thank you Jennifer Cameron for including me.

 My Nightmare Insomnia bead turned out to be a dream come true. I live where the sage of the high desert meets the granite of the Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe waters, my bead is granite grey with sage green and blue spots. What could be better?



 I recently purchased some sage sari cloth, knew I wanted to use that right away, also pulled out silver Krienek braid and C-Lon cord. Went hunting thru my stash for grey silk, I didn't find any but there was white silk organza I'd stamped with black paint. Rip, rip, ribbon! From my bead stash I pulled pale grey size 6 seed beeds, some dark metallic glass pearls that matched the ends of the focal, miscellaneous sage and blue beads and all the bits and pieces of antiqued silver I could find. I kumihimo braided the fibers and the grey seed beads and then sewed the pearls on the braid using the beads as anchors. Great!



All that was left was attaching the focal to the braid. I tried micro macramé and it didn't look right, nor did a beaded bail, I haven't worked with wire . . . Stuck. A few days later, I went to work on finishing the ends of the braid. I tried a couple things, including some silver spacers. Eureka! I worked one of the spacers down to the middle of the braid and I had my bail.  I finished it off with C-Lon cord, making the three framing braids and the fringe. Not crazy about the fringe, but . . . Here is the finished product.



Now to see what every one else created . . .



Beti Horvath: Stringing Fool
Gretchen Nation: Art Food Lodging
Karen Totten: Starry Road Studio
Kathleen Douglas: Washoe Kat's
Keirsten Giles: The Cerebral Dilettante
Kristen Stevens: My Bead Journey
Lori Anderson: Pretty Things
Rana Wilson: Rana Lea Designs
Shannon Chomanczuk: For My Sweet Daughter



Sunday, July 29, 2012

Boho Horsewoman's Bracelet

This bracelet was inspired by the book Bohemian-Inspired Jewelry and a wonderful set of ceramic beads from Gaea.


 The focal bead has a horse shoe imprint and I wanted to make something to donate to The Center For Adaptive Riding auction. A Boho Horsewoman's bracelet seemed just the thing.


 I ripped up some light weight silk I'd dyed and made a flat kumihimo braid with a copper ring braided into one end, then I strung the Gaea beads with spiral knots in between and made a strand of red creek jasper beads using figure 8 knots. Using copper wire, a first for me, I wrapped the three strands together and attached the clasp. When I tried it on it seemed a little thin, so I purchased some copper chain, another first, and attached it to the rings at each end. All that copper was just too bright, so I hung the whole bracelet over ammonia in a covered jar (thank-you Google) and Voila! 




I'm so happy with how it came out I don't want to give it up. Guess I'll have to make another one, or maybe two.

Monday, July 9, 2012

From White Cloth

Wearable Art



 This vest and skirt started out as plain white fabric.  I dyed, stenciled, and stitched then added beads to create the fabric.



Finally I added a beautiful raku button. 




Vest/Skirt pattern by Lois Ericson.  Don't have the name of he button maker, but I do have a big stash of her beautiful buttons!

Beaded Glove Gauntlets

Some times my two loves, horses and beads, come together.  Here is a pair of beaded gauntlet fringe gloves I just finished.  My adaptation of a Native American design.


Saturday, July 7, 2012

Okay, busy trying to spruce up my blog, company may be coming!  As usual, I'm a bit behind on the "housework".

Thank-you Cyndi at Beading Arts for featuring my free form peyote necklaces on your blog.  I am truly honored.

Beading Arts Blog

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Just got word I am in my first blog hop! Thank-you Jennifer, can't wait to see what my Insomnia Nightmare will be. Link to Jennifer's blog in my previous post.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Charoite Free Form Peyote Necklace

Another free form peyote necklace from a couple years back.



Learning Micro-Macrame

I had a new hip installed this spring, which gave me a chance to learn something new.  I already have a big stash of fibers, so Kumihomo braiding? Micro-macrame?  I started with micro-macrame, and was immediately hooked. Then I figured out how to make it into 3 dimensional shapes. Whoopee!

so here is my first sampler,






Here is the second piece, a necklace with a donut focal.  This is a "everything but the kitchen sink" piece.







Monday, July 2, 2012

Oops!

broke the big ceramic bowl we kept on the dining room table  . . . shattered it.  Cleaning up the shards, some of them started to look a lot like polished stones.  So I got out my beads and set some of the shards in peyote stitch bezels.  I put them together using free form peyote.




Sunday, July 1, 2012

getting started

Not sure about this blog thing, but I need one to join beading blog hops . . . so here I am.  Imagine horses and dogs will wander thru here along with my various bead and fiber projects. Who knows what else?