Bead Soup Blog Party 7 - The Reveal

First, none of this would be possible without the amazing Lori Anderson.  Not only does she put on this party for 500 but she makes three pieces of jewelry for the hop.   I barely got one done.  Thanks Lori.

And, I also want to thank my fantastic partner, K. Hutchison of  Jumbled Hutch, who sent me the soup that inspired this adventure, and what an adventure it has been!   Here is what she sent me, 

and the few crumbs left over -- K. sent just what I needed.

I hope she found the soup I sent her similarly inspiring.  I know she has made something great,  looking forward to the reveal.

From the get go this piece had a mind of its own.  Plan A was a bit of bead embroidery to frame the focal and a kumi braid with the sari silk but ... sorting thru my stash I found this pretty little raku face and could just see it peaking out of the leaves suggested by the focal. So it was on to plan B, and C . . .   I think I've been thru the alphabet twice.

The choker was the hardest thing to get right.  I added more silk from my stash and used C-Lon to knot it, macrame-ish, letting the fabric bunch up and create a base with lots of nooks and crannies for beads.  I used Shiva Paint Sticks in forest green, turquoise and copper to get the color  I wanted it.

In the end, I think it was more than worth effort, how about you?

Be sure and hop on over to all the other participating blogs:

Click Here To Hop

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

Kashmira Patel, Sadafule .. always in bloom!

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Charoite Free Form Peyote Necklace

Another free form peyote necklace from a couple years back.

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.