Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

I love that we live in a time when we can view our medical lab work as soon as our physicians do.  Sort of, as I’ve been stalking my e-mail since I had my blood drawn on Friday morning.

It seems I’ve developed a case of Raynaud’s possibly with a side of something else. The word scleroderma was tossed out, but I’ve been assured that it’s pretty rare and more likely that I just have Raynaud’s. .. and not to stress as stress makes everything worse. That my friend’s is easier said than done.

My hand keeps turning blue, it’s cold and the other hand has decided to follow suit.  So I’ve been spending the last few weeks holding warm mugs of herbal tea, wearing mittens and trying to stay calm.  I like to bead or crochet or embroider for stress relief and that’s a bit of a challenge while wearing mittens.

I’m still around. I’m optimistic that after some of the  more serious things have been ruled out next week  that I’ll be given something to diminish the problem.

Barring that, Florida is sounding better and better…

Beaded Flower Bracelet

These were fun bracelets to make. I found the pattern in my copy of “Beads Accessories”, a Japanese Beading Book. I don’t read Japanese so this is my interpretation of the pattern.

Supplies:

1 tube size 11 metallic brown seed beads

1 tube size 11 metallic Turquoise seed beads

30 6mm faceted beads

5 4mm faceted beads

2 beading Needles

Fireline (6lb) or Fishing line

To start you want to make the flower for the clasp. You will need 5 4mm faceted beads and 10 size 11 metallic brown seed beads. I used fishing line to make the flower because I like to have a nice sturdy clasp. Once you get the flower made set it aside for now. Don’t worry about threading the beads through the center, we’ll get to that later.

Thread one of your needles with a piece of fire line. Use a comfortable length, once you make this motif you can trim the thread and use the remaining thread for the next one. String on 6 brown seed beads, leave enough of a tail to tie it off and tie  the thread together so that you have a circle of beads. Run the thread around the circle again to give it a bit more stability.  Do not clip your tail.

Run the needle through 1 more seed bead and then thread on 1 6mm bead, 1 brown seed bead, 1 teal seed bead and 1 more brown seed bead on to the thread.

We are going to work this flower in a clockwise direction.

Take your needle and run it back down through the 6mm bead. Then thread the needle back through the left side of the seed bead that you started with in the last step, plus the next seed bead in the base circle.

string on 1 6mm bead, 1 brown seed bead, 1 teal seed bead and 1 more brown seed bead. Take the needle and pass it back down through the 6mm bead, the last bead that you passed it through on the base circle and then through the next  seed bead.

Continue working your way around the base circle until you have added all 6 of the 6mm faceted beads. Be sure to snug it up as you go along.

Run the thread back around through the base circle of seed beads  until you get back to your tail thread  and pull everything together. Tie off your threads and carefully clip them.  I generally put a small dab of clear nail polish on the knot.

Repeat this process until you have made 5 flower motifs. 🙂

In my next post I will show you how I assembled the bracelet!

This post was originally posted in February of 09. During an update, my format became a jumble and this was shelved. I think I’ve figured it out, so I’m going to give posting it another go. Enjoy!

The last Tourmaline Bracelet

 

Colorful tourmaline Beads

Tourmaline Love

I really enjoyed making the tourmaline earrings and bracelet for my friend Tiffany.  I started dabbling with seed beads in an effort to bring down the cost of my hobby. Seriously, you can burn through $200 worth of stone beads and silver in an afternoon if you aren’t careful. I like silver, stone beads and pearls. Copper is cool too and I adore gold but I just can’t afford to go that route.

At any rate, I’ve got all of these seed beads,  patterns and kits just waiting to be made, but they just really aren’t me. Even if I ever finish making them, it’s doubtful that I’d wear most of them. I still haven’t worn Anne or Grace,  and while I have worn Waves of Pearls, that one is missing and it kills me. So much work, just gone.

But Stone beads? That’s my thing and once I got started with the bracelet, I just couldn’t stop myself. The three central beads in Tiffany’s bracelet, came off of a strand of beads that I bought well over ten years ago. It  was one of the first  strands that I purchased. The holes are deceptively small and many of them aren’t drilled straight so the beads have sat in my box collecting dust.  As it turns out, the DMC floss was the perfect fit for the beads, so in to a  necklace they went.

multi color tourmaline necklace

I love all the different colors of the beads.  The  strand of smaller tourmaline beads  that I used for Tiffany’s bracelet had multiple colors on it as well. I used quite a few of the pink and green stone beads to make her gift, so I had to add more beads to make a second bracelet long enough for me to wear. I went with silver..

I really like the simplicity of these pieces and I know that I’ll wear them over and over again. They also re-sparked my love of jewelry making. I have one more bracelet on my bead board that is almost done, it uses the remaining beads on the strand. It’s a beautiful range of blues and yellows, and is possibly my favorite of the three.

I’ve decided to go through my stash and make a few more similar bracelets from some of the other strands of gemstone beads that I have. I want to be able to layer different colors to coordinate with whatever I’m wearing that day. I should have the other one up tomorrow evening!