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.

Thong, tha thong thong tha thong..

So my mother's birthday is coming up. She said no presents, which she says every year. But she never turns down anything I send her. :)

Anyway, I decided to make a book thong out of some leftover materials I had laying around. The round beads, you may recognize from my recent purchases Queen Bee II in Akasuka-bashi (Tokyo). The focal is a flat brushed aluminum link that I picked up at a Michael's just over a year ago. The charms are from Artbeads, if I recall correctly.

Basically, I took 12 inches of beading wire, made a loop on the end using a crimp bead, put some heavier beads on the end, then strung 15/0 seed beads that I had leftover from some other bracelets. The trick is, in theory, to have at 10-12 inches of thin or flat stuff in the middle, so some people use thread (waxed 4 ply seems to pop up a lot), or ribbon instead. I put the heavier dangle on the side I imagined to be the lower side. I'm not sure that really matters.

We can ask my mom her opinion on how practical the design is after her birthday. :)

Inspiration?

Remember the Artbeads.com contest?  I decided to do some sort of necklace related to some recent photos of lava flowing into the sea...

In all honesty, I don't know precisely how I'm going to capture this in a necklace.  I was thinking of using a modified lattice in blues and blacks with red czech top drilled teardrops and maybe a light silver chain?  My stash already contains a large number of seed beads and Swarovski crystals in various sizes, shapes, and colors, so the challenge is to keep the design manageable.

Anyway, one of the conditions is that 50% of your components must be from Artbeads.  Again, not a problem because I buy most of my staples from them and Fire Mountain Gems.  However, it was a great excuse to get more stuff... hehehehehe.  And my order arrived today...

Bugs in the Garden

Here's another memory wire bracelet I made during naptime. Boy am I going to miss that quiet time when it's gone!

This one was a variation on the cosmo pattern I tried selling. (Everyone always commented on how pretty it was, but no one ever bought any.)

If you look closely, you'll notice that one of the wires is actually shorter than the other. I did that on purpose so the butterflies wouldn't be all over each other, fawning for attention. :)


The trick to this style, more or less, is to figure out which beads have holes big enough to pass both wires through.

The artistic intent of this bracelet was to remind us of the bugs in the garden!

Whimsy for the Girl

Here's a quick bracelet I made for my toddler during naptime.

It's fairly simple, just some beads and jelly bean buttons I picked up in Japan... and strung on memory wire. The girl loves to play with my glass bead memory wire bracelets. Since she's two years old, she more or less breaks any of the larger glass beads.

So, this one has plastic bugle beads, silver spacers, Czech fire polished glass, and plastic buttons. It took me a while to figure out a pattern that didn't put the jelly beans all bunched together.



The other reason I like memory wire for making play jewelry is because it's easy for little ones to dress themselves- no clasps to worry about. Not to mention that a quality memory wire doesn't lend itself to breaking very easily and since you can't make one out of sterling silver the wire itself is relatively inexpensive.



Here's a shot of the bracelet on my very accommodating model.

:)

Cute enough to eat!

More sewing...

It's soccer season... my son's team is in first place, which is the first time that's ever happened in his life. That's exciting but some of the games happen right during naptime. So I decided to make a little quilt for the toddler to sleep on while her brother embarrasses me with his smack talking.
It's a little quilt, only 2x3 feet. As always when I quilt, I draw out a much larger pattern, then end up only doing a piece of it. Anyway, the concept here are 12 inch squares of randomly sized strips. Not too complicated, and made of materials already on hand. If you look carefully on the left side of the picture, you can tell I was about 4 inches short on the pink fleece binding and patched in a piece of white.

Don't ask me why the standard increment in prepackaged binding is 3 yards, when there is no quilt or blanket you would ever make with only 3 yards of binding, but I bought these packages on sale years ago...

My carpal tunnel is acting up, so beading is difficult... but I can do machine quilting. :)

The next project I want to try is an "I Spy" quilt, and then maybe a T-shirt quilt.

Artbeads "What Inspires You?" Contest

Artbeads just announced their first ever ‘What Inspires You?’ jewelry contest! There are two categories, necklaces and other beaded designs for this contest. Voting will be open to the public to determine the top 3 winners in each category. A picture of the inspiration and design will allow the voters to see how each entry is represented.

The Grand Prize Winner in the Necklace and Beading contests will each receive a $500 Artbeads.com Gift Certificate, the 2nd Place winners will each receive a $250 Artbeads.com Gift Certificate and the 3rd Place winners will each receive a $100 Artbeads.com Gift Certificate.

This is a contest of originality, design, and vision. All entries MUST be an original design. At least 50% of the beads and components in a submitted entry must be purchased from Artbeads.com. Participants must upload one picture of their design and one of picture of their inspiration. This contest is open to beaders worldwide, aged 18 and older.