Fairy Chrysalis Tutorial and Bead Soup Sale

I recently updated an old tutorial on free form beaded pendants.  Ten years ago, I wrote instructions to show how to stitch a Fairy Chrysalis, a pendant designed to look organic and constructed from a wide variety of beads. You can read all about the tutorial here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/536288125/tutorial-fairy-chrysalis-beaded-pendant

If you would like a kit to make a Fairy Chrysalis, then you should visit my Etsy shop this Wednesday July 19, 2017at 5 PM Pacific time. I will be having a big sale of kits of bead soup.  I hand selected each lot, and each lot of beads is unique. You can go to Facebook to tons of photos of all of the lots before they go up for sale, with sizes and prices.

Lot #1 has a crazy lace agate with crazy cool banding.  Red and earthy.

 Lot #3 has an amazing piece of orange bumblebee jasper. 

Lot #4 includes a very flashy labradorite.

Which looks really different under different lights.

There are lots more lots. To see the rest of the lots that I will have for sale on Wednesday, see this gallery on the Bead Infinitum fan page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/beadinfinitum/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1516325788427996

Thanks for looking!

Beaded Swags: Part 3 of the Beaded Lace Adventure

I'm still having fun designing lace for my Beaded Lace Adventure.  I love lace, always have.  And with more elements to design with, I can create larger, more elaborate compositions. 

In my new pattern on Beaded Lace Swags, I show how to weave 9 different versions of swags, including these.  So you can make a beaded lace necklace with me!

The compositions here also include Beaded Lace Flowers and Swarovski crystals.  This composition is almost symmetric, but I realized that if I want to make a symmetric necklace, I better start making two of each sample piece.  

 

I did that for most of the flowers, but I haven't started making doubles of the swags yet. So these compositions are quite asymmetric, because that's all I've got.

You can read more about the Beaded Lace Adventure here on my blog, and please look out for more soon.  I haven't finished this necklace yet, and I've got more designs in my head, but I have to sit down and bead them first before I can show you.  So, come back later!  And as always, thanks for looking.

Organic Beaded Felt

This textile cuff bracelet is felted with fluffy cashmere over a core of mohair and wool, and silk fibers felted right in. Cashmere... this is so soft!  The colors are deep forest green and deep aqua. The shape is organized but organic. I added a ten beaded beads, woven around the felt, in green and silver seed beads.

Here is what it looked like before I added the beads.  With a mix of many different fibers, the colors in this are really deep and rich.

This is the only one like it. Deep emerald green cashmere with silk and beads... What's not to love?

Chaos & Order

Chaos & Order is done.

It now lives in Maryland.

The finished piece measures about 7" by 14" (18cm by 36cm).

It weighs 127.2 grams.

It contains over 50 different types of beads.

Chaos & Order Day 12

Remember the large wall piece of beading I started back January?  Well, it's done, but before I show you nice photos of the finished piece, I'm giving you a teaser.  This was Day 12.

Last time, I showed you a close-up, so today I'll give you the big picture. Here is my workspace.  It's a mess. Whenever I work on large projects, it gets messy. It's a waste of time to keep things too tidy.  I have used more than 50 different kinds of beads in this piece, and although I keep thinking I will organize all of those boxes by color, I haven't. I'll organize myself later. I think 2013 will be my year. That gives me almost 11 months to procrastinate.

Stay tuned, because tomorrow I'll show you photos of the finished piece.

Video on Mathematical Bead Weaving Talk G4G

I finally recorded a video of the talk I gave at the Gathering for Gardner in March, 2012.  My audience was mostly mathematicians and puzzle designers, and I created this talk with that group in mind.  I assumed that most of them had never seen bead weaving before; so I tried to make this a quick overview, showing a large range of mathematical concepts in the short time they gave me to speak.

Since there were so many speakers, the organizers gave most of us just five minutes, and they joked that you get a silver dollar for each minute under five that you used.  This video is just under six minutes, so no dollar for me.  I hope you like it.

Chaos & Order Day 11

Day 11. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Day 11.5. Because chaos is always easier when you bring a friend...  See the two little fishes?
Ittty bitty fishes in sterling silver.  I've had them for years, and now they have a nice place to swim.

Chaos & Order Day 10

Yesterday was a good beading day until I got to the end of the bottom right corner. I'm having a hard time gracefully joining the different patterns there. So I decided to put that off until another day.

In case you're wondering what I'm going to do with it, here is my first post.  I want it mounted on pins in a shadow box case where the bead work is removable. I need to hire a professional shadow box maker for that. Anybody know a skilled carpenter/ framer in the Bay Area?

Chaos & Order Day 9

Day 9. I made it to the right border. Now to just fill in the spaces...

Here is a link back to Day 8.

Felt Cuffs in Blues and Greens

Yesterday was cold and rainy, so I made felt cuffs.  I like making felt when it's cold outside because the wet felting process uses lots of hot water, and it warms me up.

I added a few seed beads to the first pair to give them a little more texture.  I am very tempted to keep these for myself because they go with half of my wardrobe, but alas, a girl's gotta pay her bills.  So they're in my Etsy shop.

I also made a lime green and aqua pair that reminds me of the colors of the ocean.  Click on the photos to go to the listings.

Chaos & Order Day 8

I'm still beading along on my commission.  I added some new stars on the bottom right.

Here's the lengthwise view.  It's approximately six inches wide here and maybe a foot long.  I'm about two thirds done.

Here is a link back to Day 7 and forward to Day 9.

Chaos & Order Day 7

I didn't get too much done yesterday, but there's a bit on the bottom right and top.

 Here's a close up of the super right angle weave in three different sizes.

Just in case you just showed up, here is a link to my first post about this commissioned piece for flat beaded angle weaves.

Here is a link back to Day 6 and forward to Day 8.

Chaos & Order Day 6

More super right angle weave...

Here is a link back to Day 5 and forward to Day 7.

Chaos & Order Day 5

I'm intentionally adding some negative space on the left, those two big squares. I also finished the edge on the right. I decided not to have too much of the lacy bits meet the edges. The denser stitches provide a border both visually and physically.

Go back to Day 4. Go forward to Day 6.

Chaos & Order Day 4

Here is my Day 4 progress on a commission for a large, flat, beaded angle weave art piece that I showed you a few days ago. I thought I'd try photographing it with a black background.

If it were a bracelet, which it isn't, but if it were, here is what it would look like.

Here is a link to Days 1, 2, 3, and an explanation of what I'm doing.
Or maybe you want to go on to Day 5.

Commission Jan 2012

I started working on a commission do a large, framed piece of flat beaded art. I started with free form hexagon angle weave, but not so free form as to loose the pretty patterns in it. I purposely started with a few odd bits, rings of 5 instead of 6 and a couple of 4mm beads just to make things challenging. Then, I spent hours trying to "fix the mistakes" by making adjustments so that everything will fit and lie flat. What results is a crazy patchwork design that is a combination of order and chaos, where one pattern drifts into the next as do the colors. I keep coming back to this theme. I think there are some nice metaphors there, about working around the problems, and that order and confusion can coexist. It's not done yet, but I thought you might like to see my progress.  Here is what it looked like after the first day of weaving.

Here is my progress, day 2. I included a dime so you can see how big it is.

Day 3: I added some super right angle weave and Kepler's Star. I think I've decided to make it sort of a rectangle shape, working on towards the left.

Go on to Day 4.

Fairy Chrysalis Bead Encrusted Pendants for the rock collector in you

Because sometimes you just have to let loose and go free form...
Each of these pendants starts with natural stone core beads that I encrust with tons of other beads.  A variety of natural gemstone beads and seed beads cover the surface, and a bail to hold a chain is woven right into the beadwork.

Blue Opal and Aquamarine core beads

Pink Muscavite core bead

Blue Sodalite core bead

Labradorite core bead

Although my technique is free form, I think you can see from the photos that it is not entirely without method.  Click on the photos to learn more about the individual pieces above.  If you would like to learn about the techniques I used, check out the pattern I wrote explaining a general method for weaving these free form Fairy Chrysalis pendants.

Three Gemstone Necklaces

Can I tell you how much I love natural gemstones?  A lot.  I covet them.  I regularly go into my bead stash and ogle over the sparkling treasures that lie within.  Occasionally, I make stuff with them.  Here is the Paisley Tourmaline Necklace with Two Strands of Sparkling Gems.

 Notice the tourmaline roundels on the edge of the paisley.

 The second is El Cubo Necklace with Peridot and Heliodore Beryl.

Just look at the size of those heliodore crystals!  By the way, heliodore is a type of beryl, just like emerald (green) and aquamarine (blue).  When beryl is golden in color, it's called heliodore. So, if these stones were a little brighter green, they'd be emeralds.

I also took some new photos of this Fairy Chrysalis Beaded Necklace -- Rainforest.  This photo of the front of the chrysalis really captured the golden flash in the labradorite and the rich colors of the sapphires that speckle the front of the pendant.

Here's the back of the pendant.
 

Many of the stones on these necklaces are chosen from the nicest in my bead collection.  I think if you make anything out of nice natural stone beads, it almost has to be pretty.  Doesn't it?