Black and Grey Wide Bracelet and Earring Variations

I've been working with the color black a lot lately.  Usually I'm super inspired by lots of bright colors and, for no specific reason, black feels very cozy right now.  I do feel like my jewelry stock is lacking in black options and I'm having a tendency to lean toward a black base for my personal style as of late.* It layers with all other colors easily, so, I'm just following my spirit and letting my hands make what they want. 

This is what has come of it. First, a black, gunmetal and grey wide pearl clasp bracelet. In the past I have simply striped the colors with one full row of color at time for this style bracelet. This time I striped the strips every other row by row. I like the busyness of the patterning and I think it turned out stunning. 

Wide St. Petersburg Striped Strips Bracelet

Next is a pair of "huggie" earrings. I really like this style for work, it's simple, clean, a little bit flashy but not dangly. I think I meant to make them a little tighter to the ear but I always end up worrying that it looks too short between the post and the backing so I did an extra row and it made it a little longer and it doesn't "hug" my earlobe. I also have to remind myself that one can't account for where holes are in ear lobes so it may be loose on me but snug on someone else. In any event, I love wearing this style so I made another pair.

Huggie Earrings

Last, I decided to make a new pair of beaded blob earrings. I haven't made any of these in a long time and they're just fun to make and to wear. I hadn't done a pair in this color range, I feel like they always end up having some blue in them so here's a nice change for this style. 

Beaded Blob Earrings

Lets face it, I created this colorway for something new to wear at tonight for Midnight Madness in Ann Arbor. I'll be set up at my friend's meadery, Bløm Meadworks 100 S 4th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 from 5-11ish. This has been my one pop-up holiday show the past few years and even if I don't sell much I love the vibe, other makers and people that attend this event. A big thanks in advance to my friend Jenn for joining me as it's kind of a long day and it's nice to have company on the drive. 

*Sidenote, Bryan and I were laughing about this a fe days ago because when we first met, he basically only wore black and I barely had any in my wardrobe. I had never seen so many black tee shirts before! Now I'm wearing black a lot more often whereas he's been leaning toward more colorful outfits.

Flat Post Statement Earrings; Checkers, Stripes and Points

These earrings actually started with the beads I pulled to work with on our honeymoon. Most of this new set is in the previous blog post. Thee earrings get their own post since they are a brand new style for me. While I "researched" (aka Pinterest rabbit hole) current jewelry styles a larger post-style earrings seem to be coming back into fashion. I'm always up for a little test to see if I can create something with beads that plays with current styles. 

Of course I started with checkers. I wore them around, tried a different size, they fit well with a round plastic earring back to hold them flat against my ear lobe. The only issue I was having was more personal; they kink or curl up instead of hanging flat. It's more an OCD issue for me. Part of that reason they are doing this is because I'm wearing bandanas around my neck regularly for work so they graze my neckwear and kink themselves. They won't have that issue if they don't have anything they rub on. On the plus side, they are very light weight. That goes for most of the jewelry I make. The seed beads on these are some of the smallest and lightest that I work with.

All of the above earrings have made it to the Lansing Art Gallery. You can check them out at their Michigan Made Artist's Market, Opening Reception is November 10, 5-8pm

Below are a pair that I just finished so I'll have them for sale at Bløm Meadworks for Midnight Madness in Ann Arbor on December 2nd unless someone contacts me to scoop them up beforehand.

These are for sale on my website HERE.

2022 Spring/Summer Beaded Jewelry

I've had this bag of beads pulled since the beginning of April but I wasn't feeling like making jewelry for quite a while.  Then I had a baby shower to go to that I got to dress up for and made a new earring design for it. From there someone posted a cute photo of herself wearing a pair of earrings that she had purchased from me and it seemed to have lit the spark to get back to making some jewelry. 

I pulled out the bag of bead colors that have been sitting in my studio and went to work. First making some earrings...

Then I really wanted to play with stripes like I have been on the garage, so the above bracelet happened...

And I got carried away with leaves for a necklace:

The corals and greens are reminding me of past sets from Spring 2015. There were a lot of pinks used back with that grouping which I've apparently replaced with bright purple and lavender. I actually cannot get enough of this matte lavender tiny seed bead.  

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the above lavender crystal earrings but experimentation can easily move into other ideas so who knows where these could go.

I've been beading more than I guess I thought I had been. 

Spike Stripe Earrings

Lately I feel like I've been knitting more than beading, but when I was between 2 dresses for a baby shower I decided to come up with a new earring design that would work for them. Both dresses have stripes. I have been searching the internet for spike and punk designs a LOT while getting wedding ideas so I figured it was time to try my hand at a large spike drop.  

Black and White Spike Stripe Drop

This isn't a great photo put it shows the rainbow 

sheen in the white beads a bit better.

The black and white dress is the one I ended up wearing, it's been a while since I've worn it and it was fun to have these as a new matching piece of jewelry.

Navy and Silver Spike Stripe Drop

I've never really had a good piece of jewelry to match the other dress which is navy with white and orange-red stripes.  It's been really hard to find a real navy seed bead in the past and Miyuki seed beads has this wonderful deep navy color now.

Between these earrings and someone posting a selfie on social media wearing an older earring design I've been inspired to get into my jewelry pieces again. I have some fun new bead colors that are calling to me now that the weather is turning warm and bright with our gardens.

Diane R. Commission Leading into a new style Earring

I just finished my most recent jewelry commission (I know I said I was going to cut back on jewelry this year, but I still take commissions on a case by case basis), which made me get the little "make a new earring design" bug.  I've been looking at Pinterest a lot.  Like every other day, which is a lot for me since I'm trying to limit my social media. There are a lot of triangle-shaped earrings on my Pinterest feed, so I decided to graph out an easy design and knock a pair out while I still had the beads out from Diane's commission.

I wore them to work to see how I feel about them and got a number of compliments, my favorite is always that the viewer thinks its metal, not beads.  So I'm going to play with making a few more of these and maybe send one pair to each gallery/event I'm doing for the holidays.

I also snagged a few photos from Diane's commission.  This art deco set is a customer favorite.  Thanks Diane for the support!  (And to Mom for showing her my artwork).

Weaving Yardage....possibly never again....?

I have been trying to finish off some projects that are long-started and neglected for one reason or another.  This feels good to have it off my loom and Delilah folded up for a little bit to make room to finish other projects that are growing issues in my mind.

Back in August of 2013 I was taking a class with Mary Sue Fenner making a jacket out of our handwoven.  I'm not very good at prepping for classes (as I certainly discovered here!). I had decided maybe two months before to use up my hand-dyed rayon leftover from college and lord knows what other projects to weave yardage for this class.  Clearly, I did not get this fabric woven in time and then it sat and I picked at it. Over a year later I got this darn yardage off my loom.

I am constantly inspired by other weavers who weave beautiful fabric and then make it into wonderful clothing pieces.  Daryl Lancaster has been a source of inspiration since she spoke with the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild a number of years ago and she has been to the Michigan League of Handweavers Conference & Workshops....maybe this is ready to go for one of her workshops?  Or I'll find the perfect Vogue Pattern and be ready to go? Also, a Kalamazoo weaver Helen Duffy of Axtell Creek Designs is always making something cool. Bonnie Kay and Ellen Wilson of the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild create amazing pieces with their handwoven....just to name a few I can think of this morning....

This fabric is hand-dyed rayon woven in a weave pattern that involves breaks or recesses in the cloth, which is giving it's springy feel. (page 164, figure 757 in A Handbook of Weaves)  I wanted to use all 6 shafts on my loom...because I can. Its set is at 20 ends per inch.  

I now know that I could do this, I have the knowledge to go forth and do so, but all I've been thinking about is my next double weave pick-up wall hanging and the tapestry that I started in the Porkies.  This may not be for me, not right now anyway.

Confession:  I hated the idea of hand-washing 7.5 yards of fabric and I have a new washer that has a hand-wash setting.  I stitched the edges of this fabric down like Mary Sue had taught us (since I don't own a serger), crossed my fingers and threw it in the machine.  I decided not to put it on spin, so it came out sopping wet and I hung it.  I mean, if I do make this into clothing, I will be putting it in the machine, so it better hold up, right?

It held up, whew! After washing it, I love this fabric even more....maybe I will weave yardage again one day.  The light soft give to this fabric is already begging to be made into something. I'm already perusing the Vogue patterns I own and some online.

Older references to this yardage: Weaving it in January  &  a Video of this being woven