Birds!

I have two limited sets of my stick pearl necklaces to release tomorrow, and then all of my messes will have been cleaned up and I will be free to begin a new project.  Yay!  I am calling them "Kingfisher" and "Bluebird".

Both of these new colorways feature 2X AB Swarovski bicones instead of crystal pearls.  I love the flashes of color and mystery, plus, eliminating the line of pearls at the top of the yoke allows me to imagine the shape as a bird in flight with body, tail and wings.  When the stick pearls are not white, I find the design looses much of its wintery aspect.  These sticks are a luminous golden copper.  When I first went button hunting for them I found this, and loved the colors.

But it was too big and lacked any luminosity that might have equalled the pearls.  Then I saw a beautiful photo of a Dwarf Kingfisher Fledgling by Miguel David De Leon in the Philippines. And that led me back to the colors I had originally imagined.

I used Dark Topaz Matte AB in the yoke to hint at the beautiful depth of the wings, and tasked the 2XAB Topaz bicones with adding flashes of lavender and pink.  I can't effectively show you those flashes in still photos, and I did not try to get all the vibrant color in the finished product.  Well, actually, I did, but I personally would not have worn it anywhere, for fear of knocking observers eyes out.  I made four bezels before finding one I really liked and let it teach me about the rest of the work.  I love the necklace on white, black, and neutrals, and especially on an orchid sweater.  I think I got the essence of the beautiful bird without going too far over the top.  Here's a link to the Kingfisher kit:   https://www.etsy.com/listing/793566809/kit-only-for-kingfisher-a-hazy-shade-of

The Bluebird colorway is similar to this one.  But I had only 3 sets of stick pearls and only one of them has all 19 sticks.  The other two have only 17, so the result will be a 3/8" shorter necklace.  My Kingfisher sample (and most of my other samples) is made with only 17 sticks, so it would be similar to my Kingfisher sample in size, except for my using a 1" button for the Bluebird focal, instead of the 7/8" one for the Kingfisher.

I re-colored my illustration in what I think is a reasonable image of the finished piece.  Since I had only three sets of parts, I did not make up a sample. But I will , if you don't want them, lol!

Here's my color inspiration, with some of my bead selections.

And here's more of the beads with the stick pearl and button sets.

I colored the buttons for this version with Alcohol Inks.  They are not a perfect match for the sticks, but they have fabulous nacre and great rainbow effects.  The bezel beads reflect their gold and copper sheen and I think they will be lovely in situ.  The Smoke Topaz Matte AB Yoke hints at the birds reddish browns, while flashing a bit of blue, and Swarovski Smoke Topaz AB continues the flashes of blue and periwinkle. It's all mysterious blues and browns with hints of purple. Here's a link to the Bluebird kit in my Etsy shop:  https://www.etsy.com/listing/793453695/kit-only-for-bluebird-a-hazy-shade-of

I'll get my listings completed this evening, and all the beads packed up and will list officially at noon tomorrow.  I will mark down the two Bluebird listings with only 17 instead of 19 sticks by $5, and if you are quick, you can choose.  

The brown stick pearls are drilled through the flat part of the stick, so they are more likely to sit sideways instead of flat in the completed project.  Many of them have interesting character but not as much size variation as usual.

So.  That concludes the informational portion of this post.  But now I want to wish you all good health.  Please stay safe through the Covid 19 crisis.  Keep your social distance.  There will be a time to have your beautiful jewelry admired up close again, but this is not it.  There will be a time to wear it out to dinner, or to a concert, even though we can't today.  I have gotten to know some of you well, especially you repeat buyers, and I love you all.  Please take good care of yourselves and families, and I'll see you on the other side!

Pink Abalone Shell Buttons!

 Remember my mission to kit ALL THE BEADS?  I am in an interesting stage in my life, and trying to clean up all my messes.  This was a really pretty one to clean!

When I designed and wrote the tutorial for "A Hazy Shade of Winter" I got out all the stick pearls I owned, and imagined that I would use them for future "rare-just-a-few-of-a-kind" kits for this project.  I am now in the process of trying to clear all those trays and boxes of collected bits, and to focus on finding the perfect finishing touches.  I am really happy to be releasing 5 of these kits on Saturday, March 7th to noon CST.  I MAYBE will have one more, depending on whether an order I placed will arrive with enough supporting beads for one final kit.  When these are gone, there will be no more. Edited to say, the beads that arrived were a paler pink, so I made that last kit up for myself.  I LOVE it.  Very delicate and I sized it to sit right at the bas of my neck and barely dip into my cleavage with a black jumpsuit I own.  Yum. That is what you see above, and you can see the alternating color in the rice beads at the top of the yoke fringes.

The buttons are quite luscious!  They are made from Pink Abalone shell, and some of the nacre is just staggering!  In the photo above, two of the buttons are not catching the light as they could, but you can see a range of beauty in the four that are reflecting like they mean it. They are luminous, and flask from soft grey through peach and pink, with tiny hints of rainbow.

I have supported the pink in the nacre with Swarovski Rosaline Pearls, for H, J, and K beads.  I could find no 5mm in this color, so have subbed 6mm.  This K bead sits in the bezel fringe and also at the top center of the yoke.  If you have a wider neck, the 6mm should work nicely for you, and if your neck is more slim, then I have included an extra 4mm pearl in the K bag for you to use in that center yoke position. These push the pink a little, but feel like a nice choice when I view them situated in position.  The L beads are Czech drops, and transparent Rose with a rainbow finish.  What a good find they were!  They help to make the pinks and peaches and rainbow flashes all hang together.

The A and B (and one row of C) beads form the bezel, and I tried to emulate both the pearly finish and primary peachy-pink shade in the bead choice.  C and D provide sparkle (transparent with an AB finish) and are used as spacers in the yoke and the fringe.  For the majority of the yoke, I chose a flat matte silver bead, trying not to compete with or overwhelm the soft pinks.

I know I have missed the wintery season.  But this necklace with its delicate pink might be pretty spectacular at Easter.  And for what this is worth, as a Northern Girl, I have made Snow Bunnies (like Snowmen, but with ears!!!) for Easter on more than one occasion. So there is still the potential for Winter for at least some of us.

I am hunting beads for one more version of this piece, and hope to bring it to you soon.

Icicles for the Neck!

I designed "A Hazy Shade of Winter" originally for an Etsy Beadweavers Challenge, many years ago, and sold the resulting work promptly.  I have always wanted to replicate that piece.  I wanted it for myself!   In the process, I have written a tutorial and assembled kits for you too.

The glorious stick pearls that make this necklace look so lush and wintery are sadly becoming harder to find than they used to be.  Most pearls are grown in China, and according to one supplier, the Chinese government is taking increasing control of the pearl industry, deciding what will be grown, and in what quantity.  I tell you this because I do not know how many more of these kits I will be able to assemble.  I have worked through my own stash, and managed to produce 32 kits.

Let me tell you about the Midnight version first, because the Dusk and Dawn colorways both employ the same design ideas.

 The piece was inspired by the Paul Simon song, but the elegant poetry of the title was most exciting thing in my mind as I worked.  The fact that where I live has experienced a freezing Polar Vortex and set an all-time record for the most snow ever in any Minnesota February has helped and encouraged the imagery along.

I worked to make all components take a supporting visual backseat to the pearls and the focal piece, a button cut from the mussel shell that grows these pearls.  As you can see below, they have fantastic nacre, and beautiful rainbow effects and shine.  Each one is unique and I have really hunted to find the best of what is available.  I have the buttons in two sizes, 7/8" and 1".  I am planning to pack 7/8" buttons with the Dawn and Dusk kits and the 1" buttons in the Midnight kits.

I LOVE the big 6/0 beads in the Midnight yoke.  They are a Miyuki Jet Matte with a rainbow finish that has a HUGE color range.  There are teals, blues, purples, hints of green, and a little bronzy brown too.  I wore this necklace yesterday with a coral sweater, and it worked beautifully,  I think the possibilities are endless.

Partnering with the matte beads in both the yoke and bezel are shiny transparent Black Diamond AB finish beads used as thread covers in the yoke and in the fringe.  The transparency provides a hint of the dripping snowmelt that creates icicles in eaves and branches, along with the drop beads I have hunted down for each color way.  In the Midnight, the drops are Black Diamond AB.  You can either position the AB finish mostly up where it will be a bold part of the whole, or down, so it behaves more subtly.  The tut tells you how to get either result.   I also adore the drops I found for the Dusk version.  The supplier calls them "Moonlight" and although they are Czech pressed glass, I think they have a lovely feel of Moonstone or Opalite. Some are translucent and a few, milky opaque. 

 And then, there are the stick pearls themselves.  I have organized and strung them all into sets for you,  gradated in length, and matched in pairs for drill hole depth.  Each set contains 7 sticks strung together for the focal fringe, and two sets of 6 sticks for each side of the yoke.  I worked hard to make the best possible sets out of the materials in my hands, and I hope you'll love them!

A bit more about the Dusk colorway. I try to design jewelry that can be work by normal people in their daily lives.  I realize that this is a little more statement necklace than I usually design, but for me, Dusk is the demin version of the piece.  Not to say it could not be worn for a dressy occasion!

But it pairs quite nicely with my stone wash jeggings and a soft blue sweater, and looked good earlier on a grey knit dress.  There is lots of this beautiful soft blue in the stores right now.

Which brings me to the Dawn colorway. Because OMG, there is so much of this glorious orchid color in the mall windows that I am having a really hard time walking there without drooling. This sweater was a closeout at Nordstrom a couple weeks ago, but honestly, there is something of this color in every store, including Gap, and menswear shops.  And it truly is the color of many beautiful winter dawns.

And while I think the piece looks great on white and cream, it is really just perfect on this glorious orchid.  There are some deeper richer blue-pinks around in the stores too, and I think they might be equally delicious. I am having a really hard time taking a good photo of this color because of the drop beads. They are Alexandrite Czech drops.  Their particular magic is color-changing in different lighting situations.  In daylight and incandescent, they are dreamy orchid.  In flourescent light, (and in my light tent, which has new, fancy "balanced fluorescent lighting") they are lavender.  In fact, my camera just does not want to see them another way, no matter how I set my white balance.   They end up looking like this:

The lavender look is not bad, but it's also not what my eye sees, and I want to make that clear. So please, do not judge harshly because of my incompetent camera work.  This color is my personal favorite.  Like the Midnight version and the Dusk version, the yoke and bezel are matte rainbow beads and the fringes are transparent orchid, with the same focus placed on the beauty of the pearls accomplished.  There are enough different soft blue pinks in the necklace to make it wearable with quite a range of those colors.

I hope you'll love this design and these kits.  As I have said, I don't know how many more of these I I'll be able to create.  I do want to mention that I have one strand of bright gold sticks, and I am planning to make a few, maybe 5? kits from those this fall.  They look like honey or amber to me, and I might pair them with some purple for autumn.  I also have just a few pale pink sticks and a pale gold, and MAYBE enough grey sticks for a couple necklaces, but I may have to switch for keshi pearls to make that all work.  But my point here is, don't wait, these may not last very long!

Happy Winter!  It's been a fun one here, with crazy cold and tons of beautiful sparkly snow, and all that really made creating this tutorial and these kits special for me.