#MyBeadingYear How it's Going

At the beginning of this year I made sure to talk about how I try to make very loose plans and goals because I'm so hard on myself when I don't finish things "in time" or "fast enough" so I only hoped to get my current weaving off the loom this year, maybe finished. 

How's that going? 

I stitch a little on the beaded netting which will be the weaving's edge (this portion of the project sits in a 9mm case by the couch for evenings in front of the TV). I haven't been weaving a whole lot since it's been getting nice enough to work outside but I did notice that I'm just past half-way on "Is There a Thing to Which Brings Us Less Joy Yet We Devote More Time."  I've been feeling like I may be playing "yarn chicken" but at the end I'm sure I'll have enough rayon in the colors I had dyed.  Trying to match a dye years later never really works and I designed this so that the "Wi-Fi" pick-up design is repeated on the beginning and ending of the piece.

I'm also beading some ideas for wedding stuff. Lets face it, wedding planning if going to be the big part of my summer which will force me to finish the garage, reroof the shed, cleanup and add-to the door fence and get our gardens under control. My beading has turned to jewelry with spikes and leopard print for bridesmaid ideas; fishnet is also becoming more prominent in my styling process.

I am falling madly in love with the spikes that Swarovski offers. The bangles and dress details are really giving me that dressy-punk look that we're looking for.

So wish me luck on playing yarn chicken this year and getting all the beading done for our upcoming nuptials!

Metallic Pink and Black Jewelry

After I made myself some jewelry options with metallic pink, black and white checkers for NYE I couldn't seem to put away the extra shiny pink 15/0 seed beads. I wanted to use them in a gift for a friend, then I just kept going. I made a few pairs of earrings and then felt like the pink needed to be a "stripe" in a netting bracelet. Above is the base set that I feel goes together.

Lately I've been saying that jewelry just kind-of falls out of me and that's what happened with these.  My attraction to these metallic pink beads mixed with blacks just needed more attention. I keep saying that I'm trying to focus my time on my larger woven pieces but I always end up making some jewelry in between. I bead while winding down watching TV at night with Bryan  

I hadn't made a netting bracelet in a while and one of the cool things about this design is that it can be adjustable to whatever length I make it and smaller.  The loops for the design are also the loops for how it clasps.

My tiny pod earrings have been popular with both sales and I'm wearing them at work a lot.  They have a little bit of pop but don't get in the way of the masks, and they don't fight with patterns in outfits.  I love how these tiny beads allow for every stitch to look so delicate.  

I started thinking about stitches that I have used over the years...all the way back to the very first stitch I taught myself; the Daisy Chain. I recall grabbing a "how to" tear-off paper in the bead section at Frank's Nursery (remember that store chain?).  I was always attracted to beads and I was stuck on a thing I had stitched on a bead loom.  Not knowing how to get my first beaded piece off the loom I just kept playing with the beads I had.  I was in elementary school when I started teaching myself beads stitches.  I always recall the daisy chain to be simple because it was the first one I learned. I later tried to teach it to some girl scout groups and it wasn't as easy for them. Now that I really get into the stitch again, it's not that simple.  In this little stitch I learned a lot about the importance of bead and thread direction.  It turns out that stitching tons of daisy chains as a young person gave me this amazing base for my ongoing beadwork.  

So I decided to make a daisy chain from this bead combination and I'm in love all over again.  In the 15/0 seed beads it is much more delicate and will layer nicely with other bracelets and bangles.

Metallic pink earrings! These beads just look so wonderful stitched together.  I wanted some silver accent beads to go with them and the above and below pairs of came about.  I am always attracted to interesting-shaped polka-dot beads. In the above earrings I think the pink frames the center beads nicely.

Below I found these white and silver disc beads which I hadn't ever used. I started stitching around them thinking that the pink band of beads would hang vertically around the disc but it looked much better when I rotated it to have the pink band horizontal around the disc bead.  This was harder to bead then I thought it would be but I really like how they turned out.

I think I'm about ready to change up my evening beading to some other colors, but I have to say after taking the photos of this set today I may keep the pink out a bit longer and see what else comes about. 

Update for the Weaving with the Long Title: Edging

I decided that the title of this weaving should be a quote from Chris Thile when he was the host for Prairie Home Companion/Live from Here. It's a ridiculously long title and I hope to not make that mistake again but it fit perfectly how I feel about social media: "Is There and Thing to which Brings Us Less Joy Yet We Devote More Time."

We waste so many hours scrolling through social media allowing it to tug our emotions in a million different directions or distract us from what we need to be doing or would rather be doing. Weaving is what I would rather be doing so here's my visual on how I feel about the whole social media situation in my life. 

I've decided that I want the edging on this piece to be different than my other wall hangings. The netting stitch I use would complement this weaving's design as it's much more linear. So I started stitching my netting stitch before I thought to "audition" it with the weaving.

At first I thought it would look fine until I stepped back from it.  I had gotten almost 27 inches done before I took a look at tucked around the edge of the weaving and decided it's too big and too distracting. So that's been set aside for who knows what and then I made 2 smaller stitched samples.

Middle Size Edging open

Middle Size Edging around piece

The "middle" size that I stitched looks ok, but I wanted to check one more option: 

Smallest Edging Open

Smallest Edging wrapped around weaving

Bryan helped me confirm that the smallest of the nettings looked the best and were the least distracting,  so now I'm working on that (among other things as you'll notice on my Instagram) in the evenings while we wind down in front of the TV. 

Ultraviolet Leaves, Netting and Necklaces Set

This set started with the Pantone color of the year, Ultraviolet.  It doesn't hurt that purple is one of my favorite colors.  The wide netting bracelet has already sold, so I created a smaller one.  I hope to get these on my online shop sooner than later, but a lot of these are heading to galleries this month.  So if you see something you need to purchase, let me know!

This long necklace with the braid detail has been in my head for quite a while, I'm glad I got around to doing it, the braiding, pinning and stitching to make it lay right took me 6 hours alone. 

This leaf lariat necklace begged for a few extra leaves than I usually put on.  I'm looking forward to wearing it asap before it gets to go hang out in a gallery.

Cluster Leaf Earrings

Small Netting Bracelet with 3 Swarovski pearls, adjustable.

St. Petersburg Chain Small Loop Earrings, sterling silver earwires

Purple Netting Bracelet and More Tiny Earrings

I've continued to pick away at making some jewelry in between prepping for Bridgefest and Convergence®.  I was inspired by some of the purples I have in my stash to make a faded netting bracelet.  It's wider than I usually make them, but it turned out perfect.

Tiny leaf earrings have been popping off of my needle, so these are the two from the beads hanging around in trays after this bracelet:

 I'll hopefully get around to posting these on my shop too, but today is not the day.

Netting and Leaf Bracelet Experiment

Placing beaded leaves within my netting bracelets has been rolling around in my head for a while.  Then one day, it just happened.  

It's a start, I'm not sure if I like it or not or if I like it as jewelry.  I'm thinking of using this idea/technique in small wall-art pieces.  I suppose we'll see what happens.  In the meantime, I love how it feels more lace-like, and the shadows that it casts. 

Bracelet Commissions

If you know Liisa, you've probably noticed her wearing some of my work over the years.  She recently asked me to create two bracelets which I finally finished after the holiday insanity (and having to finish my niece's baby blanket).  I wanted to offer 2 options for the blue netting one since I had two different sized seed beads which could fit the bill.

The bracelet on the left is 15/0 beads, the one on the right is the usual size that I use, 15/0.

I haven't really played with my netting stitch in standard sized seed beads (I've always used smaller).  I've worn it a couple times and it still feels comfortable, it's a bit more stiff though and not as fabric-feeling as the smaller beads.

Liisa also has one of my St. Petersburg strand bracelets from an older color grouping and asked for one in whites and gold.  I'm going to show her this one, but the original was about half this size I think, so we'll see what she thinks.