Final Rose Hips Kits

You bought me out twice, so I have pulled together one last set of 10 kits for Rose Hips Necklace. 

I am NOT complaining about sales!  But I believe I may have purchased all of the Czech drop beads in the neck strap that exist.  So, this is likely the last chance, if you want the kit.  

I have considered replacing the hips with buds and an opening rose flower for a springtime version...  but my next year is a little in limbo just now.  More on that later.  But if you are one of the many who have the tutorial in their shipping cart, and were waiting for kits, here they are!  

I will be vending at the Upper Midwest Bead Society tomorrow, December 2nd, in the evening and hope I might see some of you there.  

Happy holidays to all!

"Aflame" and Friends

I have been playing with chenille stitch and gradation for over a year, and find there is a nice depth in working with the same idea over an extended period.  Part this work is the rope above, published in the October 2016 Bead & Button Magazine.

I submitted the project with a maple leaf pendant, employing the same gradation, but only the rope was chosen for publication.  One nice thing about working with Bead & Button is, although you cannot publish your accepted project anywhere else before they do, afterward, you may submit it for publication elsewhere, or self-publish, which I have done in my Etsy shop.  I have published a tutorial for the leaf, rope, and bail here, as well as a kit in the "Aflame" colors shown above.

I think they play nicely together, and really like the flame-ish aspect of the whole.  I tried to combine both the colors of the leaves I pick up on my daily walks, with the colors in the bonfires I find so appealing in my fire pit in the fall.  I love the crisp cool air on my back and toasty toes, and the blue-purple embers at the edges of the fire.  I tried to roll all of the juicy goodness of Autumn together into this work.

I worked up two other colorways to include in my tutorial.  I realize that "Aflame" is a very bold piece with bright colors.  So I did a much more subtle version.  This is "Singe". I made up jest a few kits in this color group, since the investment in the 24k beads is substantial.  They are available here!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/484089195/kit-only-for-singe-leaf-rope-and-bail

It represents the leaves of the Silver Maples that fill my yard, which go almost directly from green to coppery topaz, bypassing all the reds and oranges of the Sugar Maples in the neighbor's yards.  They always seem a little burnt to me.  But they have their own beauty, and the colorway has more a feeling of proper jewelry, (a bit less fantastical than bold "Aflame") given the 24k gold edges and accents in the rope.

And then, there is "Psychedelic Scarab".  OK, get out the mushrooms. This might be a tribute to my coming of age in the early '70's. I had a few Scarabeus Green Swarovski beetles left over from a dressmaking project, and the color in that little piece of glass was pretty awesome.

I added a beetle to the bail, and despite the "tripiness" of the colors in the leaf, this baby looks awesome worn with either of my two cobalt blue tops, and turns heads. Ladies who share my table while I am sipping my tea at the farmer's market demand I take it off for closer examination. I have to admit, it might be my favorite.  And the ROPE!  The kit for this color is here in my Etsy shop.

Both pieces (rope and leaf) could also be worn separately, and I have made a few leaves as samples for another, larger project, which I am also selling in my shop.

These leaves use the same pattern, MOSTLY.  I have scaled the bail down for the thinner rope. As you might notice, I take liberties with the exact placement of the beads as I work this pattern.  You can bead both sides symmetrically if you like, but in my world, it looks much more natural if each side is a little different.  I suggest in my pattern that when you lay out the second side, you use the beads I suggest, but switch a few with their neighbors.  In my samples, I have fiddled further than that, and changed a few edges a bit, but it's nice to know that once you have the shape established, you can play with color placement to your hearts content.  I really look forward to seeing what you all will do with this pattern.

I hope your will enjoy the curly-edged, ripply-centered, funky shape of this project too, which also keeps the leaves looking realistic!

Happy Autumn to you!  I hope you will enjoy making your very own leaf pile!

White Lilac Tutorial - Too Stubborn to Quit and Proud of the Results

OK, this one was a huge challenge!  I am very proud to announce a new tutorial in my Etsy shop.  I have been asked for instructions for making my Lilacs more often than anything else in my repertoire. So, in this, my year of learning to write and illustrate, I decided it was time.  Please help me welcome "White Lilac."

I have not made kits.  There are myriad possible colorways, and my Facebook research informed me that people would prefer to use their own beads and choose their own colors.  So the beads I used in making this model are given, along with brief advice about choosing your own colors and beads.

The tutorial is 48 pages, and includes 122 diagrams, (if you count each step I illustrated separately) and over 10,000 words.  It will take around 25 hours to make this necklace.

You will learn to make the individual flowers that combine to make the blossom.

You will learn to assemble them on a supply unique to this work, and available in my Etsy shop 

for $1, and with the purchase of the tutorial I will refund your shipping to almost anywhere in the world.  You can't make the project without it.  

You will learn to make two sizes of three dimensional heart-shaped lilac leaves.

You will learn to make a supple, fringed Triangle Weave Yoke 

to support the lilac blossom and leaves.

And finally you will learn to make a floating connection between the blossom, leaves and yoke that  allows the finished work to fit any neck, and has the potential to be a choker or V necklace.

You can find the tutorial here, in my, Etsy shop, and I hope you will check it out.  For the first week of this listing, (through April 12th) I am offering a 20% discount on the tutorial, and everything in my shop as well.  Just use the coupon code WHITELILAC at checkout to get your discount.

This has been a tremendous learning experience for me, and the next time I approach a project this substantial, I will be armed with many new skills.  I have contemplated both starting over, and giving up many times.  But I believe the tutorial is descriptive and enabling, and that we must all move forward from where we are, rather than backing up endlessly.  

So I pass the baton (or maybe the branch?) to you.  I hope you will give it a try and let me know how it goes.  It is challenging, and labeled as an advanced project.  Like me, you may need to be too stubborn to quit.  I hope you'll be very proud of your own results!

From the Forest of Fairy Tales

I am proud to present my 2nd Place Ribbon Winning Bead Dreams 2014 entry, in Ms. Maddie's Fabulous Florals category, From the Forest of Fairy Tales!

I had pretty much given up on this beading project.  I love doing big pieces, but it is always a challenge to wedge them into my evenings and weekends.  I had a really tough fall and early winter due to accepting more costume projects than my schedule allowed.  Finally, when all the ballgowns were dancing around the competition floor, I got back to my beading bench in late January. 

I had originally been inspired by a fall trip to Yellowstone Park.  I love how completely wierd the park is; unexpected, unreal, and sometimes just insanely beautiful.  The colors are rich and intense.  I don't know if you have ever seen any of the geyser basins and thermal features but they are pretty amazing.  This particular one (Grand Prismatic Spring) is a really good example of the incredible look and colors of the place.

I tried to get that amazing range of hues into the work.  I wanted to capture the vibrant aqua of the water and the sulphur orange edges, the golden stone framework (they call it YELLOWstone Park for a reason!) surrounding everything, and the dark, prickly outlines of the forest, with the understory of autumn color beginning to appear beneath the blue spruce trees.  It is so different from autumn in a deciduous forest!

So I chose some Swarovski jewels and some Lunasoft cabochons, a yummy druzy, and used some "yellowstone" 24k rainbow gold bezels and made a little prickly, color-shifting understory!

In the dead of Winter, when I got back to work on this project, I happened to see a trailer for the new Disney movie, "Maleficent."  The film is a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story from the perspective of the uninvited fairy, who curses Princess Aurora at her christening party. You can see the trailer here, if you like.  I was both terrified and entranced by this fairy-gone-bad character as a child, and in my mind, she fit magnificently into the wonder and weirdness of Yellowstone.

The idea of adding Maleficent to the inspiration pot for this piece was so exciting I went directly to my costume studio after seeing the trailer.  I got out a piece of pellon and drafted and draped a shaped collar I thought might suit the maladjusted fairy.  

Then I raced back upstairs and pulled out all the bead backing I owned.  None of it was a perfect base color, so I fused some jade lycra to it, chopped out my pattern, (which happened just to fit on the backing...loads of serendipity here!) and stitched the thing together, without any particular consideration for how I might embellish it.

Fortunately, the jewels I had been working with sat nicely on the collar, and the cluster of components I had already finished  looked good dangling from it, with the drusy resting neatly in the center of the chest, representing Maleficent's once beautiful heart, turned to stone.

Then, as I thought about how to embellish the collar, I was reminded that I have relatively little experience with bead embroidery.  Probably not the best choice for a competition piece, but it was also liberating.  Ignorance really can be blissful!  Also, had I not done my Crazy Quilt Cozy Collar, I don't know if this idea would have been so accessible and appealing to me.  I made up means to suit my purposes as I went along.  For example, I wanted the embroidery-applied jewels to look like the beadwoven-bezelled ones in the dangling focal cluster, so I did the bezels the same way, working just the tops, and then stitching them down on to the glued-in-place jewels and cabs.  I don't think that is your typical bead embroidery bezel process, but it achieved the effect I was looking for. As I worked, I also dropped the central pendant cluster a little lower, to further feature the edges of each component.

Finally I set out to fill in much of the remaining space with Maleficient's enchanted fairy tale forest, attempting to capture the prolific abundance of nature.  I sought "overgrown", "dangerous", and "beautiful" imagery in my work, keeping Yellowstone in mind.  I dug out every flower and leaf bead I owned, and ran out to buy more in appropriate colors.  I made more of my thorny beadwoven leaves too.  Their shape happened to match the curves I had created for the collar, so they became the spines of the collar points.

A last battle with how to stitch together the lower component was resolved with some little bits of foam rubber, to hold the elements in place while I worked. I wanted it to be the case that only a spider web held that stone cold heart in place.  (Check the final photo for the results)

And now for the final results...

I ended up moving the lower component even further from the upper to allow room for my spidery-looking flower tassles, and to keep the shapes of the edges clearly visible.  Not sure I love the connection, which I did several different ways over the last week of the time alloted.  I don't know if a better solution could have been possible without a re-design of that area, and that was not an option.

The back features some purchased (and heavily embelllished) Dritz frogs as a closure.  I think they work nicely with the piece aesthetically, but two of them have fat knots and are hard to open and close.  Sigh.  They work, but I wish they all worked as easily as the bottom-most one. Perhaps I should learn to make my own beaded ones, eh??

I am pleased with my little spiderweb structural connection in the lower component.  :)  In retrospect, I wish I had backed the jewels and Lunas with the same leather as the collar, but they were finished before the collar was designed, so the original ultrasuede will have to suffice.  I do not have much experience working with leather, but was glad I remembered seams have to be glued open, or it would have been impossible to stitch the backing in place.  I'd love to do this again and perfect the structural ideas and techniques.