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

Lola: Bead Lola Bead

Lori Anderson: Pretty Things

Nancy Pederson: Something Heartfelt by Nancy

Pam DeBoer: Purple Notes from the Studio

Rana Wilson: Rana Lea Designs

Shannon Chomanczuk: For My Sweet Daughter

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.

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.

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

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.

Nightmare Insomnia Bead Blog Hop

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.

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.

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?