We’ve had a bit of upheaval in our lives and this week has been particularly stressful. The Man and I brought the kids up to Portland for a few days for a much needed break. Hopefully, he will be able to find an Oregon based job while we are here.
I like to bead when things are stressful. Yesterday I stopped by Planet Bead in Hillsboro Oregon and picked up a few kits. I forgot how expensive patterns can be!
I won’t be doing much shopping this year, but I am also looking forward to attending Gem Faire next weekend in Sandy Utah. Even if I can’t buy anything, it is always inspiring to go.
Hopefully I will be home (and beading) by the end of the week. In the mean time, I am currently sitting in front of a window watching the rain come down on a small farm in the middle of the Coastal Range in Oregon. I can not think of a better place to re-group. Tomorrow we are heading out to the coast. I want to beachcomb for agate. It is one of my favorite pass times.
I’ve been eyeing this pattern for over a year. It was out of the Winter 07 edition of Stringing Magazine. The design is by Katie Wall. I could not find the sterling *plus signs* that were used in the pattern so I decided to go with silver shamrocks instead. With Saint Patrick’s Day coming up, I thought this was the perfect time to make it. I’m also fairly certain that my jump rings are not the same size.
I started out assembling the dangles first. I struggled with the briolettes, but I think that my jump rings were a little two small. It was a tight fit!
This necklace is beautiful. I love it, it is much more my style than the seed bead items I have been making lately. I also think that it would be pretty with rose colored accent beads and sterling silver flowers instead of the shamrocks.
One UFO on its way to completion. Holy Moly did I bite off more than I could chew with this one. I ran in to a few obstacles with this project. Obstacles that probably wouldn’t be an issue for experienced beaders, but since I am sure that I am not the first overly ambitious beader I’m going to share my stumbling blocks.
I’m pretty sure that I had the same problem the first time I sat down to do this. I think that is why I pulled apart the 8 links that I had done. Ugh. Fortunately I figured it out after just one link this time!
I managed to make my first mistake in the very first step of the outer strips. The directions say to “start from the underside of each bezeled pearl”. Fair enough. What it wants you to do is decide if you want one side up over the other. If you do, flip it over so that your top side is face down on the board and start there. That way the waves curves down around the pearl. Basically you are working with the bottom side up. My first go round, I started from the bottom, but I kept the top facing up. So my waves curved the wrong way. I want to spare you from making that mistake, because I had invested hours and hours of my time doing it wrong.
I think this is how it is suppose to look once you get the outer strip finished. I won’t be absolutely sure until I get the other side of the wave done. Looking at the above photo, this is how it looks once I finished the stitches. However, this is the bottom side of the wave. The bezeled pearl is upside down. I think it looks neat, almost like an abalone. I’m proud of myself for sticking this project out even though I know it is so far out of my level of capability it is laughable.
As for the pattern, I had a fairly difficult time following it. (I’m not even sure that I did) I have a very limited understanding or peyote stitch. I don’t know how to count rows. That made it a bit hard when it said to repeat rows 3 and 4 (twice). I looked at it over and over again and decided to default to the drawing on the next page. This created even more problems for me.
In what I thought was row 3, the directions call for adding two beads. The first one is attached to the row before it. The second one you add, and then you attach it right to the bezel. Once you start row 4, the directions have you weaving back through the last bead in row three. The diagram on the second page back that up. Fair enough.
However, when looking at the diagram, when the rows are repeated that second bead is attached to the row before it. So you can’t really repeat row 3? Or at least if you do, it will be wrong. Again, I could just be reading this wrong because I don’t know how to count rows in peyote stitch. I looked it over and over for about an hour and then decided to re-write directions for myself, so that I could understand how to make my stitches look like the ones in the diagram. I’m still not sure if it is right, but my links look right and I’m not going to redo them. :p I really would have liked to have a good diagram of rows 1-8. The diagram on the next page shoes the entire outer strip, but that just made it more difficult for me to follow.
There are more than this. I think 13 total? I was playing around with them and I thought they looked pretty cool like this. I am so looking forward to finishing the project. I’ve committed myself to seeing it through, regardless of how it comes together. :p It was tedious though. I need to set it aside and work on some easier projects for a few days. I was hunched over for such a long time working on this. When I got up from my chair I experiences the worst round ligament pain I have ever felt. It seems you just can’t push a pregnant body as far as you think you can.
I know I’m not the only one that has these…. I’d love to see the projects you are working on. I have two UFOs.
Waves of Pearls
The first is the “Waves of Pearls” Necklace , by Miwako Nara that was in the December 07/January 08 issue of BeadWork magazine. You start out by making the bezel settings for the pearls. I do not recommend this project if you are trying to learn Peyote Stitch. Lol. It was an ambitious first project for sure, although I think I did ok on the bezels for the pearls.
I made a bunch of them! There were two obstacles that held up this project. The first was that I could not find the exact same color beads that they used in the magazine. This of course made mine look different and I wasn’t too keen on the direction that was taking me. I do think I’ve found some better colors now.
The other was my inability to follow the instructions. I spent hours trying to figure out why my project wasn’t doing what it was supposed to. Then I figured it out. However, at that point I’d been working with tiny seed beads for about 5 hours, my eyes hurt and the colors looked all wonky. I decided to step away from it and I haven’t picked it back up. I need too though, I’ve already got so much time invested in to it.
My other project was inspired by a photo I saw in a jewelry trade magazine that I saw about 8 years ago. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it looked like but it inspired this future necklace.
And this is the other side of the flower. Personally I prefer this side. I think that the hold up with this one was that I ran out of wire and I could not find a good match as far as gauge and color went. I think I am good to go at this Point. I’ve mixed together faceted turquoise and carnelian beads with some yellow beryl and an assortment of other stone beads. I have a couple of turquoise maternity shirts that this will look great with so I really need to finish up some time soon!
Show me what you’re working on!
