My Entry in the "What Inspires You?" Contest

I decided against rushing the necklace and entered my best selling piece.  This ring is a real pain to make.  Pearls tend to have very small holes, shells are very fragile (read: large, irregular holes).  The other fun part is with the ring.  The original ring was made using a Thai Silver embellishment ring, and although I've since learned to make a very similar ring using wire, it is a bit challenging to make them exactly the right size. 

If you feel inclined, please vote for my ring in the contest!
http://wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/61138/voteable_entries/10392896

Quick Sundress

It's coming up on Thanksgiving but we can still wear sundresses here.  :)

 So anyway, while I try to figure out what to do with the necklace, I decided to whip up this cute little dress for my daughter.  I started out with this tutorial from Martha Stewart's website and a yard of cute pink and green plaid.

Anyway, as it turns out, since this dress is basically one large rectangle, I really only needed 1/2 yd for a cute knee length dress.  However, there were these super cute skirts on all the girls in Japan which were using plaid in layers (like a shorter peasant skirt) but alternating with the pattern on bias (diagonal). 

So anyway, since I needed about 16 inches of length, I decided to make the top 12 inches with a 4 inch ruffle on the bias.  It took about 2 hours to make the dress from start to finish.  There is plenty left over for patch pockets and some additional things like a sash or small purse.  (I might end up making new shoulder ties- we'll see how hard they are to tie as is.  I really hate to have long dangly ties on my own clothes, so I deliberately made these short.)  Also, thanks to smocking, the dress can eventually be used as a top with some jeans.

We'll see if we can get the girl to wear it.  :)

Creative Paralysis

As you may recall, I'm working on a necklace to enter in the "What Inspires You" contest for Artbeads.com.   I'm done with the Right Angle Weave "base" for the collar, and decided to embellish using some leftover beads from one of my flat spiral bracelets... so there are two toned 4mm fire polished Czech beads and 5mm Swarovski bicones.

What comes next?  Well, there are a couple of design problems.  First of all, I ran out of the magatama beads so I can't make the choker base any longer.  It's approximately 10 inches long, so I need to figure out something decorative to attach the collar to the clasp.  If I ordered another batch of beads now, they might arrive in time to lengthen the collar but not in time to plan the scalloping. 

Which brings my to my next problem.  The original concept was to use 4x6mm red teardrops to represent the lava flowing into the ocean... which seemed great at first but when I laid it out there were just too many other things going on.  The scallops need to have larger accent pieces.  I actually have larger red teardrops which look better, but I haven't decided whether to incorporate red or to stick with the black/blue/gray... I do have some terrific briolettes in my stash, including labradorite, moonstone, and quartz.  I can't decide... but I guess I'd better make a decision soon since I have to get the piece submitted next weekend.  :)

Inspired???

Remember the Artbeads beading contest that I decided to enter? I decided to do a necklace loosely based off of this idea:

Instead of doing a simple scallop, however, I wanted something a little more significant as a choker style with scallops and drops. I've never learned to do the right angle weave, but I know how to sew, so I decided to try this Embellished Right Angle Weave using a tutorial I found from Auntie's Beads on YouTube.

The thing that caught my eye about this RAW pattern is that it forms a grid using seed beads.  There are all sorts of variations you can do with that base.  So anyway, I modified her pattern here by using 11/0 Miyuki Delica seed beads and also 3mm Toho Magatama seed beads.  The cool thing about the Magatama beads is that the hole is not centered, so it gives a little more random look to a highly structured pattern.  I have some 5mm Swarovski bicones that I scored on sale at Ben Franklin and two toned AB 3mm Czech beads that are left over from a flat spiral bracelet I made last year.

Anyway, the result looks great so far, but it's kicking my butt!  It takes me about an hour to cover 3/4" and since I want to do a dog collar type of choker, that sucker ought to be 12" with an extender chain but as it turns out, I only have enough Magatama beads for about 9 or 10 inches.  (Darn.)  So then I have to figure out some additional stitching on either end of the right angle weave. It also takes a long time to add thread since there are multiple passes through beads to begin with and the fact that I want to err on the side of caution with the weight of the finished piece... if I ever finish, that is.  My hands cramp after about 2 hours so you can do the math.  I've got about 6 inches done on the base.  At this rate, I'll be lucky to finish in time.

The original plan was to do a picot edge on the top of the choker and sort of a lotus type scallop on the bottom, like this pattern.  (With more and smaller scallops.)

I sure hope that part goes faster than this right angle weave.  At my current pace, I'm going to have to start working during my lunch breaks at work.