The Mermaid's Den

Lots of new techniques

2009-03-21T01:52:00.001-07:00

I've been trying some new techniques lately. This bracelet was made using two-drop peyote stitch, which is quite similar to regular peyote stitch, but you use two beads at a time (or one large bead) instead of one small bead at a time.

And this is the first time I ever attempted herringbone stitch. It's pretty simple once you get the hang of it, and I like the fish-scale look of it. I used antique seed beads I got when I was in Paris for this one. They're slightly irregular in size, but the uniformity of the beads doesn't seem to affect herringbone stitch as much as it does other stitches.

And for this one, I learned African helix weave (the tube of spiraling blue beads in the center), right angle weave (the bail for the blue bead hanging in the middle), and I learned how to make peyote stitch bead caps, which involves decreasing the number of beads per row, something I'd had trouble with before. Individually, I like the different things in the necklace, but I don't think they look great together (and the bead caps look a little phallic). But it's a good practice piece.

Stretchy bracelets

2009-03-17T03:23:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty busy lately, so I haven't been posting much, but I have still been making stuff. I felt like doing something simple, so I made some bracelets with stretchy cord. It seems like the stuff I make keeps getting more and more complicated, so it was nice to be able to sit down and make ten bracelets in an evening.

These have some vintage crystal/glass beads and blue glass spacers.

These five bracelets are held together with magnetic beads (the gray ones).

And my favorites: vintage crystal and metallic spacer beads.

More resin experimentation

2009-02-14T01:07:00.000-08:00

I almost always have a few resin pieces sitting and curing, but lately I haven't been happy with them, so I never get around to posting them here. But I want to document successes as well as failures, so maybe others can learn from them. And I can remind myself of what went wrong if I forget. Here we have a bunch of discs that I put pictures on and then put resin over them. I mod podged the pictures onto the discs, not to mention coating the pictures themselves with mod podge to keep the resin from soaking in and blurring the ink. They seemed fine when they finished curing, but some of them had bits of resin that had dribbled over the edges and stuck out on the sides. The resin book I have by Sherri Haab recommends sanding your resin pieces in warm water so you can avoid the resin dust raised by sanding--it's unhealthy to inhale. So I put them in warm water, but then the pictures began to peel away from the discs. If I were to do this again, I would cut the pictures slightly smaller than the discs so that the resin could cover the edges of the picture. The only pieces that turned out okay from this batch were the two small oval silver bezel settings that I put pictures in and the green cabochon on the left side. The green cabochon just needed an extra layer of resin to cover some holes left by air bubbles popping. The top looks fine, but the sides are a little lumpy where the resin pooled. I plan to make a beaded bezel for this one, so that's not a problem.

So, lesson learned, I got some more settings to put my pictures in, and I also tried using the pictures with my resin molds. And although I put several coats of mod podge on the pictures and re-coated them once they were in the settings, the resin managed to seep in around the edges of a bunch of pictures and discolor them. Oh, and the two cabochons with beetles turned out darker than I'd intended, so they look a bit sinister.

You can't see it as well in the picture above, but you can clearly see the discoloration in a lot of these pieces.
After I discounted the ones that were discolored, the ones that had bubbles, and the ones where the resin managed to set with hairs or bits of fuzz in it (even though I cover the resin pieces almost immediately after using the resin), these three are the only error-free ones.

And finally, I have a few pieces I'm really happy with. The pictures don't really do these justice; they look amazing in person. I'm currently making more of the rectangle shaped ones, and when I next get paid, I'm going to get a drill so I can drill through my resin pieces and string them. I'm thinking the rectangles will make an awesome bracelet.

Little round peyote tubes

2009-02-12T04:53:00.001-08:00

For awhile, I had been making simple beaded loops for toggle clasps, and then I started using flat round peyote stitch to make the loops, but now I've graduated to tubular peyote stitch clasps. It probably doesn't look much different from flat round peyote in the pictures, but it makes for a much sturdier and nicer looking clasp in person. Basically, you start out with a circle of size 15 seed beads and after working the first three rows, you work rows up alternating sides, slowly adding larger beads to increase the size of the circle, and then you join the two sides at the top.

After trying a toggle, I though these little circular tubes would look nice as earrings, so I made a couple of pairs.

Another round of resin

2009-01-31T01:30:00.000-08:00

This is from awhile ago, but I was disappointed with how a lot of it turned out, so I'm only now getting around to posting it. I put resin on some more discs, but they weren't on a perfectly level surface, so the resin coating on a lot of them ended up lopsided. And some of the pieces I made with molds turned out cloudy or had very noticeable bubbles/flaws.

Here's a close up of some of the discs and some hoops I made with leftover red resin I'd mixed. One of the hoops didn't get as much resin as the other. I also tried applying some resin to an acrylic flower bead I had, just to see what it would look like. The resin pooled in the deep end of the petals and doesn't look that great. I think if I could have gotten a more even coat it would have looked better.

More discs. I tried putting polymer clay on some of them and adding sparkles to the clay, but I'm not crazy about the way they turned out.

More discs and some pieces from molds. I put amethyst chips in the hoops, thinking that might look cool, but they look really washed out and almost invisible. I also put amethyst chips in the two long, rectangular pieces, but I also added gold foil. I think they would have turned out kind of cool, but the resin turned cloudy. The large green oval piece has peridot chips and gold foil. I really like the way that one looks, but it had some bubbles on the surface which left little holes in the piece where they burst. I've currently added another layer of resin to the top and we'll see if that fills them in and makes it look okay.

The large green oval would be nice if it didn't have that line in it--I'm not sure what caused it.

And a close up of my favorite from the batch. Hopefully, the new coating of resin will fix it. And hopefully I'll have some better resin pieces to show in a few days.

Pride and Prejudice bangle

2009-01-30T12:42:00.000-08:00

I didn't make this one, but I thought it was nicely made and a cool idea, so I'm showing it here. A friend of mine got me this Pride and Prejudice bangle, covered in actual text from the book. I'm slightly aghast that the person who made it cut up one of my favorite books (couldn't she have photocopied it or printed it out from an e-book?), but I like it nonetheless.

Of course, I read around the whole bangle to see what part of the book I got. I recognized one part instantly--when Lizzy and the Gardiners discuss Lydia's elopement with Wickham. I got out my trusty copy of Pride and Prejudice to see if I could track down the rest of it. Most of it was within a few pages of the scene that I first recognized, but there was one section I just couldn't find, and I had to resort to searching this site in order to find it. And since I'm sure you're dying to know, here's what's on my bracelet. I've put the text that's actually on the bracelet in bold, but I've included the surrounding text for context. Some bold sections are longer than others because the pieces of text overlap a bit.

1st section
From Chapter 47

``Upon my word,'' said Mrs. Gardiner, ``I begin to be of your uncle's opinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and interest, for him to be guilty of it. I cannot think so very ill of Wickham. Can you, yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up as to believe him capable of it?''

``Not perhaps of neglecting his own interest. But of every other neglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I dare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland, if that had been the case?''

``In the first place,'' replied Mr. Gardiner, ``there is no absolute proof that they are not gone to Scotland.''

``Oh! but their removing from the chaise into an hackney coach is such a presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the Barnet road.''

``Well, then -- supposing them to be in London. They may be there, though, for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptionable purpose. It is not likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it might strike them that they could be more economically, though less expeditiously, married in London, than in Scotland.''

``But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their marriage be private? Oh! no, no, this is not likely. His most particular friend, you see by Jane's account, was persuaded of his never intending to marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia, what attractions has she beyond youth, health, and good humour, that could make him, for her sake, forgo every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what restraint the apprehension of disgrace in the corps might throw on a dishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge; for I know nothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your other objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has no brothers to step forward; and he might imagine, from my father's behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that he would do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do in such a matter.''

2nd section
Also from Chapter 47, but starting in the paragraph preceding the 1st section

``I HAVE been thinking it over again, Elizabeth,'' said her uncle as they drove from the town; ``and really, upon serious consideration, I am much more inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does of the matter. It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless, and who was actually staying in his colonel's family, that I am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the regiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is not adequate to the risk.''

3rd section
Also from Chapter 47, but starting in the paragraph after the 1st section

``But can you think that Lydia is so lost to every thing but love of him, as to consent to live with him on any other terms than marriage?''

``It does seem, and it is most shocking indeed,'' replied Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes, ``that a sister's sense of decency and virtue in such a point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say. Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young; she has never been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half year, nay, for a twelvemonth, she has been given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way. Since the ----shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love, flirtation, and officers have been in her head. She has been doing every thing in her power, by thinking and talking on the subject, to give greater -- what shall I call it? -- susceptibility to her feelings, which are naturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of person and address that can captivate a woman.''

4th section
From Chapter 54

Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two Netherfield gentlemen to supper; but their carriage was unluckily ordered before any of the others, and she had no opportunity of detaining them.

``Well girls,'' said she, as soon as they were left to themselves, ``What say you to the day? I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turn -- and everybody said they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucases' last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least. And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater beauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And what do you think she said besides? "Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her at Netherfield at last." She did indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good a creature as ever lived -- and her nieces are very pretty behaved girls, and not at all handsome: I like them prodigiously.''

5th section
From Chapter 27

It was a journey of only twenty-four miles, and they began it so early as to be in Gracechurch-street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gardiner's door, Jane was at a drawing-room window watching their arrival; when they entered the passage she was there to welcome them, and Elizabeth, looking earnestly in her face, was pleased to see it healthful and lovely as ever. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls, whose eagerness for their cousin's appearance would not allow them to wait in the drawing-room, and whose shyness, as they had not seen her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower. All was joy and kindness. The day passed most pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres.

Elizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt. Their first subject was her sister; and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to her minute enquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her spirits, there were periods of dejection. It was reasonable, however, to hope that they would not continue long. Mrs. Gardiner gave her the particulars also of Miss Bingley's visit in Gracechurch-street, and repeated conversations occurring at different times between Jane and herself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the acquaintance.

More peyote stitch bracelets

2009-01-29T01:26:00.001-08:00

I made the base for this bracelet with peyote stitch and then added the blue drops around the edge and the flowers on the top. The large flowers are vintage Swarovski buttons I got in Paris.

I also used one of the buttons for the clasp.

For this bracelet, I tried tubular peyote stitch with different sized beads in order to make this spiral effect, aka Cellini Spiral. I really like this technique, but I thought the instructions made it sound more complicated than it actually was. It's just circular peyote stitch, and for each row you use three size 11 Delicas, two size 11 Czech seed beads, one size 8 seed bead, and two more size 11 Czech beads. For the starting row, you double the number of each. That's it.

Spiral rope chain

2009-01-25T00:40:00.000-08:00

One of my goals for this year was to learn spiral rope chain, so I spent a couple of weeks playing around with it. This was my first attempt at spiral rope. I used larger beads so I could see what I was doing, but after a few spirals, I didn't like the way it looked, so I took it apart.

Then I decided to try double spiral rope chain, which I think I like better than plain spiral rope chain. I added bigger beads to the middle of each stitch, so I got a textured spiral.

And another bracelet in a different color:

The Art and Elegance of Beadweaving has a section on spiral rope chain and mentions several variations to try, one of which has size 15 seed beads at the core of the chain. I liked the small, dense spiral that this created, but you have to pass through the core beads a few times, and I found that size 15 seed beads are just too small for that--they kept breaking. And nothing is more frustrating than when your seed beads break and leave a hole in the piece. So I stopped working on this one and started another.

For this one, I used size 11 seed beads for the core, and just went through three on each pass instead of four. I used two size 15 beads and a size 8 bead for the spirals. You can't really tell from the picture, but the spiral is slightly less dense than the previous one, but I think it looks good still.

Goals for 2009

2009-01-09T05:25:00.000-08:00

I've seen several jewelry websites and forums that are encouraging people to make jewelry resolutions for 2009. The word resolution sounds too intimidating to me, though, so I'm just going to list my goals. The word resolution also makes me think of trying to break bad habits or change things about yourself, and mostly I just want to learn new things, so the word goal seems more appropriate. And here they are:

Spend more time on my etsy shop listing, updating, and promoting my items. Also, remove all mentions of free shipping in December, since it's well into January now.
Start making my own earwires. It will be more time consuming, but also more economical, and I'd like to try making some of the interesting shapes I see other people making.
Learn some basic metal-smithing, maybe a bit of soldering, as well as dapping and stamping metal. The problem with this goal is that it requires expensive materials that I don't have, so I don't know how successful I'll be with it. I would also like a rolling mill so I can begin to make some textured discs (like the ones I put resin on in the previous entry), but those are quite expensive.
Increase my knowledge of how to incorporate resin into jewelry and experiment more with it.
Work with polymer clay more and learn how to create some of the cool effects I've seen people get on their beads/pendants/etc.
Learn to increase and decrease in peyote stitch. I've attempted to do this before, but it always looks sloppy. I'd also like to try making peyote stitch covers for wooden beads and peyote stitch beadcaps, both of which require that you increase/decrease seamlessly.
Learn spiral rope stitch and experiment with its different variations.
Learn herringbone stitch.
Learn the various helix stitches (I always see them called different things, so I'm not sure exactly what to call them).
Try to use better quality materials. I always get sucked in by how much cheaper plated findings are, but precious metal findings will hold up better in the long run. I don't want to do away with plated stuff altogether because I'd like to be able to offer more affordable jewelry as well as better quality pieces, but I'm lacking a bit in the better quality pieces at the moment.

Resin

2009-01-04T13:09:00.001-08:00

I got some resin for Christmas, and it seems like a very cool medium to work with, though I've been kind of nervous while using it so far. After you mix the resin and hardener together, you have a limited amount of time to work with it before it starts to set. However, it can take a few days to fully cure, so you have to use it quickly and then wait awhile to find out if your pieces turned out okay.

First, I tried making puddle beads. I got the idea from the Easy Cast Resin Jewelry booklet. You spread a thin layer of Easy Cast resin over wax paper and then cut the resin into strips and roll it up while it's semi-cured. Then when it fully cures, you have little tube-like beads. I tried embedding a few different kinds of objects in my resin. The color on the little purple beads ran, which was too bad, but at least I know not to use them in anything else now.

Unfortunately, I can't show you any beads because it turns out I used greaseproof baking paper instead of wax paper, which the resin permanently stuck to. I blame Bob for this. He threw out the box that the paper came in and it felt kind of like wax paper. I'll try again when I have actual wax paper.

Then I tried using the molds. I planned to fill six of the molds and add a thin coat to the some polymer clay pieces I made. I mixed an ounce, but it turned out to be a lot more than I needed, so I ended up filling four more molds than I'd meant to, and I still had a bit left over. The resin pours out more quickly than I expected, and I overfilled a few of the molds. It's not that noticeable in the finished pieces, though, and I can always sand them down a bit. Here are the pieces I've made so far:

To the top set of hoops I added some sparkly pigment stuff which is supposed to be mixed with paint (but seemed to work just fine with resin) and some pieces of iridescent film. To the bottom set of hoops I added some bits of gold foil.

To the orange pieces I added more sparkly paint pigment. The rest of the pieces here have black polymer clay segments embedded in them. I added micro-glitters to the top of the clay to create a faux-dichroic glass look. I got this idea from Sherri Haab's book. The pieces on the right are slightly cloudy, which is disappointing. I was watching a video about resin on Youtube and the guy mentioned that if you cast pieces that are more than about an eighth of an inch thick with Easy Cast, the resin becomes cloudy. I hadn't encountered this piece of information anywhere else, but it seems to be true. Resin can also be cloudy for other reasons, but I cast most of these pieces at the same time, and I have a mix of clear and cloudy castings from the same batch of resin. Only the thicker pieces are cloudy, so I'll have to watch out for that in the future.

And I also made some orange sparkly hoops which I turned into earrings:

And finally, I got some textured metal disks and experimened with coating them with resin. A lot of them look rather crappy at the moment, but some of them look good. I'm going to work on figuring out how much to put on each piece because a few of them are completely covered and have a nice dome of resin on top. Others are a bit more patchy. I plan to keep adding layers of resin to them until they look better. Also, I experimented with adding silk dye to the resin to color it. There are all sorts of resin-specific products you can use to add color to your resin, but I already have a bunch of silk dyes, so I thought I'd try it out to see what happened. Sometimes the stuff you add could potentially cause the resin to not set right. The resin seems to have taken the color well and set just fine, though, so I'll be adding more silk dyes to my resin in the future. I also tried adding powdered pastels to color the resin, which Sherri Haab recommended, but the bits of pastel did not mix in with the resin and left little dusty pieces of pastel throughout the resin.

And a close up of a few of the better pieces:

A few new pieces

2008-12-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

I made these with some vintage glass stones and some multi-color Czech glass beads. To attach the earhooks, I added jump rings to the top rather than loops made of seed beads. I think it looks sturdier that way.

I made a peyote stitch bezel for this one so you can see both sides of this bead. It was hard to photograph the lovely, opalescent quality of this bead has, but I sort of managed it.

And finally, another pendant. I think the woman seen here is the goddess Artemis/Diana (the Greek and Roman names for the same goddess). I'm basing this assumption entirely on the fact that she's hunting and I know that Artemis/Diana is associated with hunting. I could be wrong, though. For this one, I tried a square stitch bail, which turned out pretty well.

Seed bead swatches

2008-12-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

I started to do a lot of projects with seed beads when I got a Beading Bead-a-day calendar a couple years ago. The good thing about the calendar is that it has a lot of different techniques and the instruction cards are a useful size to keep on the table next to you while you're trying something new. One helpful tip I picked up from the calendar was to keep swatches of your seed beads so you know what you've got to work with. As you can see, I've built up quite a palette over the last few years.

When I was in Paris, I went to the Marché aux Puces St-Ouen de Clignancourt, a huge flea market, and I found a shop with a huge selection of wonderful vintage and antique seed beads. I just finished making swatches for all of them because although swatches are useful, they're not terribly fun to make. Since older seed beads tend to be more irregular in shape, the swatches look kind of lopsided, so I guess I won't be doing much bead-weaving with them. They'll work as spacers, though.

A few close-ups:

I also recently got some vintage beading needles. I had some vintage beads that I hadn't been able to do anything with because I couldn't get a modern needle through them. The holes in these needles are almost non-existent, but they do go through vintage beads easily.

And I finally managed to make something with those tiny-holed vintage beads.

And I just included these to show how thread color can affect the way beads look. I initially made these swatches using black thread (top row), but I thought it looked awful and re-did it with white thread (bottom row), which I think looks much better.

A few new pieces

2008-12-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

I was originally going to sell this, but then I liked it too much, so I decided to keep it instead. It has some purple stones from laurenrose.

Then I made some earrings with the faux opal/harlequin cabochons I had leftover from the necklace I made. For this one, I tried to make my photos a little more exciting, hence the picture of them on a notecard featuring a flapper. (These are in my etsy shop, if you're interested.)

Then I took some photos outside, and the swarovski crystal beads I used in the bezel started to look like they were glowing. I didn't play with the coloring on this at all when I edited these photos--they really looked like that.

And this is how they look from the back:

And finally, some earrings with labradorite and hematite rondelles and beaded beads.

New listing on etsy

2008-12-07T03:31:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to resurrect my etsy shop for some time now, so yesterday I listed these earrings. The problem with the bead woven pieces I make is that often they take quite a bit of time to make, and then by the time I'm finished with them, I've become attached and can't sell them, so I keep them or I give them to friends. And while I like how these earrings turned out, I'm not so attached that I can't part with them. Also, lately I've been doing pieces with netted bezels rather than peyote stitch bezels, which go together a bit more quickly.

Here they are from the front:

And more of a close-up:

And what they look like from the back:

Silk sari yarn bag

2008-12-07T03:19:00.000-08:00

This yarn is made in Nepal and India from the scraps leftover after they make silk saris. the scraps are spun together to make this variegated yarn, which is very pretty, and a giant pain the ass to work with. The thickness of the yarn changes drastically and several times it grew so thin that it actually broke while I was knitting. And it tangles up on itself constantly. I felt like I was fighting with this yarn. But I did manage to make a bag out of it, from this pattern. Overall, I like how it turned out, but the sides do pooch open a bit, so I'd be a bit nervous carrying anything small in this bag. So far I've used it to carry books and packages to the post office and it seems quite sturdy.

Here's a view of one side:

And the other:
And what it looks like hanging normally:

Faux opal necklace

2008-11-19T02:13:00.000-08:00

I've been working on this necklace for the past few weeks. I've always loved faux opal (aka harlequin) vintage glass cabochons. I bought some on etsy from both laurenrose and sunshinebuttercup. Once I got all of them, I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, but then I thought that it would be very cool if I linked a bunch of them together to form a necklace.

So it started like this. You can see bead embroidery in various stages here.

And then I started planning out how it was going to look once I joined them all together.

But in the end I decided to place them sideways rather than up and down. Here, you can see that they've been sewn together, I've added pearls around the cabochons, and the sides of the necklace are there, but I haven't gotten to the clasp yet. The colors don't look quite right in the photos I took inside, however, and the pink beads and pearls don't match the cabochons as well in these photos as they do in real life.

And here I added the clasp--a toggle with three loops so it's adjustable.

And finally, here are some pictures I took outside in natural light. The colors still aren't quite right, but it's much closer. I think this is my favorite picture.

And the whole necklace again:

And I still have some more of these faux opal cabochons left. I think I may make some earrings and a simple pendant with just one stone because as much as I like this necklace, it is awfully fancy.

Taj Mahal earrings

2008-11-16T06:06:00.000-08:00

I got these lovely Taj Mahal cabochons from the etsy seller sunshinebuttercup, and I decided to make some earrings with them. Note: the photo below was taken by sunshinebuttercup and I lifted it from her etsy shop because I forgot to take my own picture of them before I covered them in beads.

Here they are in their beaded bezels.

And then I decided to add some more beads at the top.

And after that I added some brick stitched beads around the edges.

And here's what they look like from the side.

And here's the finished product. I added another beaded component at the top because I didn't think they looked quite finished as they were.

More of the yarnstravaganza

2008-11-07T04:55:00.000-08:00

And here are a few more things I've made recently. I had a surplus of pink yarn, so I made some pink fuzzy socks. I photographed them on a blanket I made last year.

And some wristwarmers.

Sea foam green earrings

2008-11-07T04:28:00.000-08:00

I haven't made many earrings using bead embroidery techniques, but I like these pretty well. When I make earrings, I like having a couple of components, but when using bead embroidery, you want to make sure they're connected in such a way that they don't twist around and show the back. I've had that problem with other earrings I've made, but these are pretty much twist-proof. I joined them with three strands, so it would be hard for either piece to twist around, and I secured the loop at the top to several beads so that it couldn't twist either. They pretty much have to stay facing forward now.

I started with some stones I got from laurenrose on etsy. This is what they looked like initially, and the only thing that I'm disappointed with about these earrings is that I had to cover up so much of the stones to secure them in their seed bead bezels. I wonder if a net stitch bezel would be better next time, because that would allow the stones to show through. Or I could use bigger stones.

Note: the photo directly above was taken by laurenrose and I lifted it from her etsy shop because I forgot to take my own picture of them before I covered them in beads.

Yarnstravaganza!

2008-10-29T04:17:00.000-07:00

I've been making a lot of yarn stuff lately. As soon as it starts getting cold, I always feel an urge to craft warm, fuzzy things.

Here's a sweater I made (with a free pattern from the Lion Brand webpage). It's nothing fancy, but I wanted to try a quick and simple sweater pattern just to make sure I could do it. I tried a more complicated sweater pattern once before and the pieces just didn't fit together right once I'd made them.

And a shawl, also a freebie pattern from Lion Brand.

And some socks, from a pattern I found in a blog, but now it seems to be inaccessible. They're very bulky, but nice and warm. I ran out of pink yarn, so I had to finish the second one with blue.

The socks by themselves on a blanket I made last year.

And some bigger socks I made for Bob.

The Lady and the Unicorn bracelet

2008-10-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

When I was in Paris, I saw the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Museum of the Middle Ages. They were amazing and lovely, and I decided to use them as an inspiration to make a bracelet. I started with some antique buttons and I used some antique seed beads that I got in Paris, too. Here's the start of it:
And what it looked like when all the stitching was done:

And what it looks like from the back:

Then, I glued it to a metal bangle and glued a piece of ultrasuede to the other side and sewed beads around the edges to hide the metal on the side. And this is the finished piece, along with a card depicting my favorite in the series of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries.

And a view from the side:

Fancy lampwork bracelet

2008-10-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

This one's a bit more colorful than usual, but I think it works. I used five complementary but not matching lampwork beads and matte foiled seed beads (I love those!).

I also tried a slightly different clasp. I used peyote stitch on the enclosure for the toggle, so instead of just a ring of beads, it's a triangular tube thing. Maybe I can't describe it very well, but you can see what I mean.

Beads and a button

2008-10-14T13:37:00.001-07:00

I modeled this pendant on a project I saw in Bead and Button magazine a long time ago. I bought the antique glass button when I was in London last year and I'd been hoarding it for some time, wanting to do something special with it. Well, this is what I came up with. There's only one progress shot as I forgot to take more pictures along the way.

I tried adding larger beads around the edge of the pendant. And I made a V-shaped brick stitch bail, something I'd never tried before. I like how it turned out.

And now for something slightly different

2008-09-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've done this kind of pendant with brick stitch around the edges, which allows both sides of the bead to be seen, but I've found that it's difficult to get the brick stitch tight enough so that it won't flop around a bit and slide off the edge of the bead. I've also done this kind of pendant with bead embroidery and peyote stitch, where one side of the bead ends up being covered by fabric. This bead was too lovely to cover either side of it, so I decided to try making a bezel out of just peyote stitch. It took a little longer because I had to stitch around both sides of the bead to make sure it would be held securely on each side, but I think it was worth it.

Here's one side of the bezel (without a bail);

And the other side:
And what it looks like around the edge (I used a different project to prop this one up):
And finally, with a bail and on a cord:

The fanciest bracelet ever

2008-08-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

I got some very pretty vintage rhinestones on ebay awhile ago, and as per usual, I put them in with my bead stash and occasionally I would get them out and turn them every which way while admiring how sparkly they were. And then I would put them back, because when you have something really cool, you have to make a piece of jewelry worthy of its coolness. And when I have a limited supply of beads (or rhinestones) that I really like, I tend to use them sparingly when I do use them. But one day when I was looking at these, I decided that they needed to be used together, decadently, in the true ostentatious fashion of the costume jewelry era from which they came. But I didn't have the metal findings that would normally go with vintage rhinestone costume jewelry, so I decided to bead around them instead. It was hard to find the exact size of the base I needed, so it took a few tries. These were my failed attempts. The rhinestones didn't sit quite right in them.

Most of these pictures don't quite do justice to the stones because I took them inside without the flash, but you get the idea. They have lovely watermelon, peacock colors.

I finally figured out the right size for the beaded bases, and then I started to bead around them. This took a loooong time. Initially, I thought I might add other beads in between the rhinestone links, but I decided against that. I also somehow thought that five of these would fit around my wrist. I was wrong, but this miscalculation may have been a good thing because I kept thinking I only needed a couple more, which spurred me on.

Then I thought that six might be enough.

But in the end I needed seven.

Here are some pictures I took inside:

And some I took outside. I'm not sure which lighting works better. I like each in its own way.

Net weave bracelets

2008-08-09T05:24:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile since I posted anything. I've been pretty busy with stuff for school, but I stayed home sick most of last week, so I've got a few new things to show. When Bob and I were in Amsterdam, I saw some cool beaded bracelets made with a bead netting stitch. I found instructions for how to do it and I made some of my own. They look almost nothing like the bracelets that inspired me, but that's how creativity works sometimes.

I started with a practice piece which I did with size 11 seed beads. I decided it was going to take too long to make a full bracelet using such small beads, so I switched to size 8 seed beads, and I changed the size of the netted spaces. I like the way this looks, but I wanted to be able to fit other beads in the spaces. The spaces in this practice piece only would have fit another seed bead.

So I made this one using carnelian and size 6 seed beads in the spaces.

And this one using 6mm Czech fire polished beads and faux pearls in the spaces.

A close view of each:

Another floral landscape

2008-05-31T08:14:00.000-07:00

I made another floral landscape the other day. I started with a background I'd painted and embroidered some twisty vines.

Then I added some french knotted flowers.
And some flowers from fabric I'd dyed.

And then I put it in a frame I had.

Scarves!

2008-05-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

I dyed some silk scarves yesterday. It was a lot of fun, but I'm not used to having to fill that much space, and it used up a lot of dye, too. Maybe I'll get some smaller silk hankerchiefs next.

A bracelet gone awry

2008-05-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

I started out thinking that this was going to be a bracelet. I used peyote stitch to capture some lampwork beads.

Then I started to plan out what I wanted to stitch around them.

I laid some beads in place to see how it would all look.

And then I started to sew them all in.

Then I realized that this was going to be quite the honkin' bracelet. I also decided that I liked the way it looked flat more than I liked the look of it when it was curled. When bent into bracelet shape, it started to look like it had weird bug eyes.

Then I found this purse at the thrift shop. I'd already started to pull it apart at this point (as you can kind of see), but I put it back together together to get a 'before' shot of it. It had these weird straps on the bottom which tied around it to hold it closed. I pulled off part of the lining and pulled the straps out.
Here you can see the lining pulled away from the purse.

Then I scavenged an older purse I had for a magnetic clasp and attached it to this purse.

Then I planned out what I wanted it to look like. I decided to use one of the tie-straps as a shoulder strap for the purse, and I positioned the beaded piece.

I finished sewing on the rest of the beads--as you can see above, there are still white spots in the beaded piece.

Then I cut around the beaded part and used fabric glue to attach it to the purse.

I added some beads around the beaded part to hide the white edges, and around the edge of the purse, too.

Then I sewed the lining back on to cover all of the stitches and I added the shoulder strap, too. (I took these pictures outside--that's why it looks different).

And a close-up of the final product:

Cards

2008-04-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

I love stationary and cards, so when I saw these aperture cards (aka cards with holes) at the craft store, I had to get them. I put some fabric that I dyed in them, and I embroidered some flowers on them. The daffodil's petals got a little out of hand. Other than that, they all turned out well.

I liked the fabric for this one, so I decided not to embroider on it.

But then I decided that it seemed a bit too plain, so I added a border.

I got some more blank cards today, so I should have some more to show soon.

Another keychain

2008-04-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

I went to the Botanic Gardens the other day to get some inspiration for more types of flowers to embroider. I took some pictures of this yellow flowering bush. I liked the way the trees looked behind it.

I painted the trees in the background and embroidered the base for the bush.

Then I started adding the flowers. I think the branches of the bush got a little lost, though. It looks better up close than it does from far away because the flowers overpower everything else from a distance, and they look like they're just floating there.

Then I put it into one of the keychains.
And I added another scrap of fabric for the back.

My favorite chandelier earrings

2008-04-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

At the moment these are my favorite chandelier earrings. They're almost too sparkly to get a good picture of, but you get the idea.

Some red and orange jewelry

2008-04-12T10:30:00.001-07:00

I got some vintage beads from the woman at the flea market who keeps loose beads aside for me. First, I got some orange foily lampwork beads. I made earrings and a necklace, and practiced my wrapped loop skills.

You have no idea how many times I closed both wrapped loops before realizing that I needed to join one of the loops to the necklace.

The earrings and necklace together:

Some red plastic beads I got. I just liked the shape and color of them.

More of the red beads and some pink pearls:

Yorkie frolicking in a field of flowers (or just sitting)

2008-04-06T04:07:00.000-07:00

I was sad when I had to leave my yorkie (or Bob's family's yorkie) behind when I left, so I decided to try my hand at embroidering a portrait of him.

First, I sketched him out (which was really tough). I had a picture for reference, but it was tiny.

Then I started to fill him in. I know he should be more blonde on his face than gray, but I didn't have the right shade, so I just used light gray instead.

Then I thought I'd put him in one of those keychains, but Bob pointed out that he would look better outlined in black, so I took him out.
And he did look much better outlined in black, but the fabric around him started to unravel, so I decided to cut him out completely and put him in a floral landscape.

Luckily I had a bunch of ribbon that I'd just dyed.

And I painted a background for him. The little dots are metallic paint that I flicked on with an old toothbrush. It looks like the spots are stars, but I didn't plan that. I just like it when things are sparkly. Also, I re-layered the dyes after I took this picture, so you'll see that it looks a bit different in the next picture.
Then, a few days later, it was done. And I used a needlework frame I bought awhile ago to display the finished project.

Even more ribbon embroidery

2008-03-27T17:13:00.001-07:00

Here's a new pair of earrings:

And a couple of new pendants
This one has generic poofy flowers:
For this one I did a fuchsia:
And this is probably my favorite one I've done so far. The pictures just don't do justice to the lovely colors--it looks much better in person.

New stuff

2008-03-23T12:40:00.001-07:00

Here are a few new things I've made recently. I tried a new type of closure for this bracelet and I like it.

And some earrings with ribbon embroidered roses:

And some bead flowers earrings:

Keychain

2008-03-22T10:59:00.001-07:00

I was at the flea market yesterday, and I came across these Japanese cross stitch keychain kits. You're supposed to make it so one side has a cow sniffing a flower and the other has a girl with a scorpion, but I decided to ignore their template and make my own insert for the keychain.

There are even instructions in Japanese. I wonder what they're saying. Cross stitch is pretty self explanatory.

This is what I made:

I'm not sure the 3-d effects of ribbon embroidery really work when they're smooshed into a keychain, but I still kinda like it. I'll probably get another kit when I go next week.

Ribbon embroidery and famous people wearing my jewelry

2008-03-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

I have a couple more pieces that I finished recently. Some simple flowers here--slightly different sizes/shapes, but I'm working at getting the earrings more uniform.

And a pendant that I especially like. Again, the grain of the fabric shows up more prominently in photos than it does in real life, but the you get the idea.
And now for the fun part. I like collecting artsy and historical postcards, so I added my jewelry to a few of them.

I bet you didn't know that Rossetti's model wore my earrings.

And Queen Elizabeth really liked that pendant I just made.

Jane Austen did too.

And this guy--well, I couldn't resist.

More ribbon embroidery

2008-03-02T02:14:00.000-08:00

I've been doing some more ribbon embroidery and using the ribbon I dyed. It runs out pretty quickly, so maybe I should start dying it in bigger batches. I only did a couple yards of each color last time. Here's a landscape and a pendant and earrings that I embroidered yesterday. In the photos, the grain of the fabric shows up much more prominently than it does in real life. It's really not that noticeable. I was practicing embroidering irises, so all the pieces are iris themed.

Brick stitch and bead embroidery

2008-02-25T10:45:00.001-08:00

Someone asked me how I sew the beads on around the edges of these pieces. I use brick stitch around the edges. I know I've seen tutorials on how to do this in books and magazines, but I couldn't find a good one online, so I thought I'd do a quick one myself.

Step 1: First, sew through the back of the piece, coming out just below the outermost row of beads, and then sew up underneath the outermost row of beads.

Step 2: Put two seed beads on your needle. This is the only time you'll add two beads at once. You might be able to start with just one, but I think it doesn't lay quite right. There's some reason for starting with two, even if I don't remember quite what it is.

Step 3: Sew around from back to front, coming through just below the outermost row of beads.

Step 4: Again, sew up underneath the outermost row of beads, and then up into the second bead.

Step 5: To add more beads around the edge, sew them on one at a time.

Step 6: Again, sew through from back to front, coming through just below the outermost row of beads.

Step 6 continuted: This is what it should look like when you pull the seed bead snug to the piece.

Step 7: Sew up underneath the outermost row of beads and up through the bead you just added.

Step 7 continued: This is what it looks like without the needle in the way. It might look a little loose, but the next stitch will snug it up.

Many steps later: when you get to the end, the first bead won't really be tied down.

So when you come up through the last bead, sew down through the first bead and then stitch through the piece to hold it in place.

And here's the finished product. In case you're wondering what they are, I have a friend whose grandfather recently died. He was a hotdog mogul, so I made her some hotdog earrings to remember him by.

Hand dyed silk ribbons

2008-02-24T14:12:00.000-08:00

I finally got my silk ribbon the other day! Then I had some fun playing with my dyes, and trying not to dye the floor interesting colors. Why the floor, you ask? Because my table is covered in crafts. I'm working at slowly clearing it off, but as soon as I work through some stuff, more seems to pop up to take its place. So I had to dye my ribbons on the floor. I put down lots of paper, but I still managed to leak through it a bit. Here's what I've made so far. Some are variegated and some are just one dye. Can't wait to use them.

Ribbon embroidery

2008-02-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

I saw a couple of books on silk ribbon embroidery while I was at the craft store (I'm such a craft book junkie), and I wanted to try it. I ordered some silk ribbon, but it was taking a long time to arrive, so I ended up getting some regular old ribbon and giving it a shot with that. This is the first thing I made:

Mostly I like it, but it is very pink. I finally got my spool of white silk ribbon the other day, so I can start dying some custom colors for my next project. The store bought ribbon came in very limited colors.

A few more pairs of earrings

2008-02-05T12:04:00.000-08:00

I made a few more pairs of earrings this week. I'm still playing around with embroidery and bead embroidery. It's hard to get the beaded stitches on the edge of the fabric to stay straight, though.
And finally some regular old bead embroidery. I like the focal beads in these earrings. They're clear-ish with other rainbowy colors floating over the surface. It kind of looks like there's mold growing on them, but it's cool mold.

Recycling beads

2008-02-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

When I was in London over the summer, I found this awesome necklace at an antique market. The metal beads were really corroded, but it was cheap, so I thought that even if I couldn't manage to clean it up, it would still be worth it to take apart for the beads. When I got home, I realized that the metal beads were indeed corroded beyond all hope, and some of the blue beads were quite stained from the corrosion as well. I took the whole thing apart and cleaned the glass beads as best I could. Then I put them aside, waiting for some inspiration to strike. A couple of weeks ago, I was at a local flea market/variety market and I came across a woman selling vintage jewelry. I looked through what she had and I picked up a necklace of green gemstone chips. The woman behind the table asked if I was looking for loose beads (she must be an excellent reader of people) and I said that I was. She pulled out a bag of loose beads from behind the table, and I pawed through and found these wonderful blue crystal drops that I knew would match the other blue beads I had. Then I made this vintage-inspired necklace with all of them.

I bought some other vintage beads from the flea market, too. And I think that table could be my undoing financially, so I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't go back and buy any more beads until I'd used all the ones I bought initially. The market's on Friday, so I have some work to do if I want to make it back this week.

Found object jewelry

2008-02-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

I used a piece from one of the miniature games that Bob plays for this pendant. I like how it turned out. And who wouldn't want to wear a swarm of scarabs around their neck?

This is what it looked like to begin with:

Other stuff from January

2008-02-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

Here's the rest of the stuff that I made in January. I was definitely in a floral mood. And a chandelier earring mood. I haven't had flower beads in awhile, but I got some for Christmas. I love how versatile they are.

Bad dog, bad

2008-01-23T10:07:00.000-08:00

Since we can't get a real dog at the moment, I decided to make our experience of living with a stuffed dog more realistic. So I crocheted him a turd.

My favorite bead/embroidery combination so far

2008-01-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

I made an embroidered landscape/beaded cuff bracelet recently, and I really like how it turned out. It's almost a shame that you can't see the whole length of it when it's worn. The pictures don't really show it, but I mixed in some metallic thread with the embroidery floss on the flowers, so the whole thing is rather sparkly. Sewing on the beads was actually the most time-consuming part, especially the ones that cover up the sides of the bracelet. I used brick stitch for it, and I like how it looks (as opposed to the picot edging I used on the earrings in the post below), but you have to sew each little seed bead on individually. Initially the edges of the bracelet curled up a bit when I wore it, but I shortened the line of beads leading up to the toggle, and it stays flatter now since it lies tighter on my wrist.

Embroidered earrings

2008-01-19T08:27:00.001-08:00

I decided to make something a little smaller this time and combine regular embroidery with a bit of bead embroidery. I started with some dyed circles (in retrospect, I could have just dyed the whole thing and then outlined the circles with marker--the edges got a little blurry this way).

Then I added some featherstitch in green.

And some french knot flowers with some floss that I blended to get a marbled effect.

Then I added some matching beads around the edges.

And some more beads to cover up the sides.

And a few finishing touches later--earrings!

A new crafting skill is born

2008-01-19T06:33:00.000-08:00

Recently I got this book called The Art of Embroidered Flowers by Gilda Baron. The cover just enchanted me and I had to try it. Her work looks really great, and yet the techniques she uses aren’t very difficult for a beginner to try (as I found out). So here’s my first attempt at something similar to what she does.

First I painted my cotton fabric with silk paints to create the background and I painted some extra fabric for cut-out flowers.

Then I added some background flowers by painting bubble wrap and pressing it on the fabric.

Then I started to add some french knots in different colors.

Then I realized this was a hugely time-consuming process and only filled in the top parts of my flower columns with french knots, scattering them randomly on the grass.

Then I added my fabric flowers with beads sewn on in the centers.

Detail:

Now I have to find something to do with it.

I’m happy enough with my first attempt, but I’m sure I can do better in the future. Next time I want to try adding some more interest to the background (as in embroidering some grass, or adding some mountains, clouds, or water), as well as making the colors less uniform throughout the sky or ground. I want to try cutting flowers in different shapes and varying the color of the flowers a bit, too. I also dyed some embroidery floss to go with the colors I used in this piece, and I used the instructions from the book, but my embroidery floss was awfully stiff and rough-feeling once it dried. I like the idea of having dyed embroidery floss to match, but I’ll have to figure out what went wrong with mine because it was hard to work with.