pointsetta

Hello, I'm going to have a go at coming back to blogging.  I still have lots to show you... lots of things that wonderful mum and I did together.  I want to thank you all for the lovely messages of support on my last post.  It's been tough adjusting to life without my best friend, my wonderful mum, but messages of support really do help to comfort in times like this.  I won't forget what you all did for me.

The last workshop at The Bead Shop Nottingham was before Christmas and was a poinsetta flower beadweaving project.

This project was HARD!  It is odd-count peyote which is confusing enough, without the fact that most rows are increase or decrease.  I struggled with this.  I managed to get 4 of the outer petals done in the class and did the fifth at home shortly after.  Since then I've attempted to do the inner petals at least 6 times and ended up cutting out each attempt.  You can't unpick odd-count peyote due to the complicated thread path.

Here is as far as I can get.  I wanted to show the completed flower, but I think this project has defeated me!  

I've found lots of mum's WIPs around her house (and I haven't even started investigating her craft stuff properly yet) and some of them I will finish in her honour.  I won't be finishing her poinsetta!

I won't be posting for the 3-weekly SAL tomorrow as I haven't touched my embroidery at all.  I will try to get back to it ready for the next update.

checkerboard bracelet

Happy Boxing Day!  I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and have eaten and drunk far too much?

Today's post is a bracelet I made at a workshop at The Bead Shop Nottingham last month.  I wore it on Friday and realised that I hadn't blogged about it.

It's a Right Angle Weave bracelet made of fire polished beads.  The class sample was a single colour, but I wanted to make a checkerboard effect.  The photo above was taken in the class and shows a range of sample edgings I was adding as I'd finished it quite quickly.  I made a few, then decided on one and so undid it.

The bottom edge is the same as the pattern that Steph wrote for the workshop.  The top edge is my own design, I think it looks like lace.

I love the fire polished beads, I wish I'd bought some now!

Finishing things off

Hello my lovely readers.  I am back.  I think I'm back, I suppose that remains to be seen. Thank you for your wonderful messages of support on my previous post, it's so lovely to know that people care.  My situation remains unchanged, some days are OK, some are horrible.  I'm struggling to differentiate what is grief over the end of my marriage, what is me missing Mr Ex-CA and what is depression/BPD.  Anyway, enough of that!

I've made plenty of things recently. I've been to a lot of classes (including 4 at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show), however I've completely failed to take photos.  I'm going to remedy that soon, but in the meantime...

I made the clear and black version of this necklace in a class, a LONG time ago.  I then bought the components to make the aqua and black one.  A couple of years ago, as I was putting on the aqua one, the thread snapped and the beads on one side fell off.  Another day, the clear pendent fell off the necklace.  There they sat for years... I think it took me 20 minutes to fix them both!

I also finally took the time to hang some of the wall hangings I've made.  I bought some dowel which I cut to size and sanded with my Dremel.

This quilt got pride of place over the fireplace.  I love seeing it up.  I wish I'd put it up months ago as maybe Mr Ex-CA needed reminding of what I was going through...  (see the quilt here)

My large blackwork sampler went on the wall in the living room.  I felt I needed a narrowish space to hang it due to the shape.   I apologise for the photos, however there's no natural light in my house (I have film on the windows to stop people seeing in) and this was the best I could do.  (Much better photo of this piece found here)

Harry ended up on this wall in the dining room with a picture I bought for Mr Ex-CA and (just out of shot) one I letterpressed for him.  I'll be removing them at some point so Harry might move.  (See a post about this quilt here)

This hanging was placed next to my ceramic hearts in the first floor landing.  I can't get a front-on picture as that would involve me falling down the stairs...  Again, it's pretty murky and the hall (along with 70% of my house) really needs doing up!  Any keen DIYers who fancy coming round? (Better picture of the quilt here)

This post was quite painful to write (though I don't really know why), but I'm glad I'm blogging again.  I'll be back soon.

frilly flowers

Today's post is about a beading class we took at The Bead Shop Nottingham with guest tutor Kerrie Slade.  It took place during National Beading Week which was at the beginning of August.  I'm definitely not one of these bloggers that makes something in the morning and posts about it in the afternoon!

We learned to make these lovely daisies.  They are made using 8mm Swarovski pearls in the centre, we brick stitched around them using size 11/0 delicas which are cylindrical beads so sit together really nicely.  I couldn't make my mind up which colours to use, so used them both!  The daisies weren't too difficult, but were quite time consuming and I only got these three done in the class.

You might be able to see the loop on the right.  In the pattern there is a loop on each end of the bracelet and it is fastened with a ribbon.  This is really not a look that I like, so I decided to put the loop on one end and make a toggle for the other.

I made a toggle using the delicas and following instructions in one of Beth Stone's excellent books.  I much prefer it like this.

Luckily the toggle fits nicely through the loop and neither is too big.

The class sample had 6 flowers, but was too tight for me, even though I have quite small wrists.  I made 7 flowers and it has enough dangle in it.

I have to confess.  The class may have been in August, but I didn't actually finish this until the end of September!  At least I got it done though!

Bugling

I know it seems like I'm only posting stuff that I've made in classes over the last few months, but that's all the making I've been doing.  I'm seriously worried that my creative motivation has upped and left me for good.  I can concentrate in a class, and really enjoy it, but crafting in my own time just doesn't happen.  

So today is the result of another class, this one was at The Bead Shop Nottingham and involved a bit of bead weaving using bugle beads which I've never used before.  Bugle beads are the small, long, tubular beads that you see a lot.

You can see them in the picture above.  On the left are silver 11/0 sead beads, then the blue bugles and then Swarovski bi-cones.  Aren't those bugles a beautiful colour?  Steph, the tutor, had made a sample using those silver and blue shades with red bicone crystals.  I chose to use the same colours as I love them, though I changed the crystals for purple ones. 

I finished this in the class, but it took longer than it usually would.  I just couldn't get my head round it.  I think this class was just after I'd had a change in medication and was suffering from terrible brain fog.  I saw someone on Facebook recently sneering at the term "brain fog" but actually it's a thing and it's really unpleasant.  

I really love the design of this bracelet, I think it's quite Art Deco and I really love the Art Deco style.

It's finished with a toggle clasp, which is my favourite kind of clasp.  Instead of attaching a metal one, we used an empty diamond and made a toggle to pass through it to fasten the bracelet.

More craft class news coming up, and feel free to try to kick me back into crafting, I really need it in my life and feel a loss because of it.

Needlecase

During the summer wonderful mum and I took a class at the Bead Shop Nottingham to make a needle case.  I've often admired beaded needle cases but I've never made one and I didn't understand how they work.  

It turns out they have a little wooden needle case inside them, like the one in the picture below.  This picture shows how far I got by the end of the class.

It was peyote stitched, so the technique wasn't difficult, but it was difficult following the pattern and remembering when to use the correct beads!  The pattern I followed was one made by Steph as I loved the design and colours.

A few weeks after the class I finally sat down to finish it - it only took about 20 minutes, more senseless procrastinating!  All I need to do now is glue the beadwork to the tube.  I have a stack of almost done projects waiting for some glue before I show you!

I've just realised I don't know how big this is.  About the length of a long beading needle?  Probably about 6cm/2 and a bit inches long.

This was a nice, simple, enjoyable project.

netted rivoli bracelet and some of the worst photos I've ever taken

Wonderful mum and I took another class at The Bead Shop Nottingham and afterwards I took some of the worst photos I've ever taken and I'm going to inflict them on you!

In the class we made a bracelet made of small components joined together.  There is a rivoli in the centre of each one (it's like a crystal with a pointy back so the light shines through it) and we used a netting stitch and size 11/0 seed beads to make the cages to trap the rivolis in.

I took a few different photos trying to find a decent shot.  Didn't happen.

The other item is a larger rivoli of the same greenish colour.  I wanted to have a go at making a larger cage for the larger rivoli to make a pendent.  I was just experimenting here and I haven't finished it off.

In the class Steph, the tutor, was making a pendent from some of the larger rivolis, and I bought some clear ones to take home with me to make a similar design.  I chose some gorgeous sage seed beads and beaded up the necklace...

Blerghhh!  OK, so the photo is terrible, the lighting is off as I took it at night, but I think you can still see how insipid and dirty looking and just bloody dull that colour is!  I ripped it back.  I'm now having a (quite long) think about which colours to use instead.  

beadwoven flower

Since I've been off sick, I haven't done much crafting, so a class at The Bead Shop Nottingham was good for me, it meant I actually made something.

It was a beadweaving class using a crystal rivoli (the sparkly bit in the centre), number 11/0 seed beads and mini duos.  I used two colours of the duos.

As ever, it's hard to get a good photo of sparkly jewellery, but this will have to do!  Instead of showing you one good photo, I'll show you several mediocre ones.

It was a fun pattern and quick and easy to do.  The bezel is in right-angle-weave rather than the usual peyote so it was nice to learn a new bezelling stitch.

This is a photo of the back so you can see what the back of the rivoli looks like.  As you can see, it's pointed, I'm not sure why, perhaps that makes it easier to capture in a bezel than if it were flat backed?  I now need to decide what to string this on, I think I perhaps need to make a bead-woven necklace.

Beads everywhere!!

Kheops beads are small triangular beads with two holes, one either side of the point.  The jury is out as to how to pronounce the word!  Back in February we went to a beadweaving class at The Bead Shop Nottingham to make a design called Kheops windmill.

I love to use colour so have very few neutral necklaces, other than silver pendents.  For this necklace I chose dark grey and light silver Kheops, silver size 11/0 seed beads and Scabacious green Swarovski crystals.  The colours in both these photos are really off!

It was quite a quick pattern to weave and I would have finished it in class if disaster hadn't struck.  I had a bead stopper on one end of the necklace, but not on the other.  I held it up to my neck to see if it needed to be longer or shorter and dropped the other strand.  Beads everywhere!!  I rescued the crystals and weaved it again.  This time I didn't drop it and put calottes on both ends.  Then I went to put it on and one of the calottes fell off.  Beads everywhere!!  I haven't had the heart to mend it yet...

Beadweaving stars

Wonderful mum tracked down another source of craft classes for us.  There is a local textile group called Living Threads who run a series of workshops which non-members are invited to attend.  There are various textile and embroidery classes and also some bead weaving ones.  We're booked on to some of the embroidery ones later in the spring.

Our first class with this group was a bead weaving class with Patti McCourt,  we attended a class that she ran at the Bead Shop last year.

Patti had made up a load of kits for us, so we just had to choose the colour scheme.  The one I chose was mint, aqua, copper and red.  Not a colour palette I would have put together myself, but wow, does it work!

The pattern uses pearls, twin beads and size 11/0 seed beads and I think it's a beautiful pattern.  I'm really pleased with the necklace that I made (and I did finish in the class!) and have worn it quite a lot.  

Craft Book Review - Seed Bead Chic

The generous publishers at GMC sent me another book to review.  Although the book was provided for free, all opinions are my own and I was not told what to write.  The book in question is Seed Bead Chic, which you can see on Amazon here.

This is a beautiful book full of gorgeous projects.  This is definitely not a book for the beginner, some of these projects are pretty complicated.  A few that caught my eye are:

This Art Deco brooch, I think I'll make this one at some point.

This tube necklace.  I had intended to make this, but didn't get round to searching for the tubular material it's strung onto.

This lovely summery piece which I may well make, but I'd probably make it in copper as I'm not a fan of yellow gold.

This lovely bracelet.  This is actually the project I chose to make, but I made it into a necklace.  See below for more details and pictures.

This is another one I intend to make at some point.  I don't like the giraffe print beads much so I need to find a nice alternative.

I decided to make the bejewelled barrel bracelet as a necklace.  It required 2mm Swarovski rounds (as do a lot of the projects in this book).  I did some searching on line and bought some from Mail Order Beads / The Bead Shop Nottingham, not out of loyalty but because they had the best price on Swarovski.  I paired them with white 15/0 seed beads and clear 11/0 seed beads.

The actual necklace is a copper herringbone tube which was really easy to do, though it took a while!  The barrels are stitching in place so they don't all clump together when wearing it, as I'm going to prove in the next photo.  Oh yes, a photo of me.  In fact, my very first selfie!

I love this necklace and have worn it a lot.  The instructions were really clear and very easy to follow, I didn't have any false starts or any moments of "eh?  What does that mean".  Though remember, I do have some experience bead weaving so can't vouch that a beginner would be able to follow the instructions.  The weaves themselves are set out at the beginning of the book with easy to follow diagrams and written instructions.  Overall, I like this book and think it's a great addition to the library of intermediate to advanced bead weavers.

Let's finish off with another selfie:

Product details Paperback: 128 pages Publisher: Lark Books,U.S. (7 Dec. 2014) Language: English ISBN-10: 1454708174 ISBN-13: 978-1454708179 Product Dimensions: 28.2 x 21.6 x 0.9 cm Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

another Kheops necklace

I see my last post was on the 28th October, so it looks like I totally forgot to blog this week!  My memory is getting worse by the day.  I wonder if I can remember any details about this necklace to tell you?

I remember I've made one before, and blogger backs me up - you can see it here.  This is the same pattern in different coloured beads.

The dark blue beads inside the silver squares are alternate denim blue Swarovski crystals and petrol blue Swarovski pearls.  I like the different textures.  I took about 30 photos trying to get a close up, but, alas, they all came out blurred.  So here is a blurry one for you!

Oh no!  I've trainer bombed the photo!  And not just any trainers, my filthy backyard trainers which are covered in bunny poo!

kheops bracelet

Another jewellery post about another workshop at The Bead Shop Nottingham!  We had a flurry of classes recently and there were a couple I still hadn't told you about.  As I was away last weekend I had to write these posts in advance as I knew I wouldn't have a chance later to had to go with what photos I had.

This bracelet is made with Kheops beads, I don't know if you remember me showing them to you before when I made a couple of necklaces?  They are paired with size 11/0 seed beads and 4mm crystals in this bracelet.

It's pretty striking, I think.  I also love the closure. One of those bars pulls down onto the other to close it, ingenius!

Bezellling with Khoeps - not the pyramid

As this is a jewellery post, you can probably guess that I went to another workshop at the Bead Shop Nottingham.  I do have ideas of my own for jewellery, pieces half done, patterns I want to try, but my illness/condition just seems to get in the way a lot of the time.  I know I've mentioned it a few times recently, but it is a big part of my life, like it or not (and I don't), and I've stopped being so scared of people finding out that I'm depressed.  Anyway, back to the subject of the post.

The workshop was to create a pendent or brooch using Kheops beads bezelled round a Rivoli.  Did that sound like I was speaking Greek?  I'll break it down.

These are Kheop's beads:

Before you start thinking my photography skills have improved, the photo is stolen from the Bead Shop's website, but I give them so much free advertising, I'm sure they won't mind.

This is a Rivoli:

It's a round crystal made by Swarovski, (photo stolen again).  We used an 18mm diameter rivoli in the class.  It's rounded on the front, but kind of pointy on the back.  This allows you to encase the sides in a beaded casing and it'll stay put.  Oh, here we go, I've stolen a photo of the back:


Bezelling, or creating a bezel, is the way that you encase the sides of the rivoli, holding it in the middle of a piece of beadwork.  What I've done below is made a bezel round the rivoli, then added rows of Kheops and Swarovski bicone crystals.

I just couldn't capture the colour very well.  The Kheops I used are the same ones as the first photo on this page, the sead beads are clear and turquoise, the crystals are turquoise too.  I've added a couple of size 8 beads on the back so that I can add a piece of silver beading wire through and hang it very simply.  You never know, in a few months when I get round to it, I might even post a photo!