New Kumihimo Necklace with Picasso Finish Seed Beads

We recently received these new Miyuki Picasso finish seed beads at the shop, in 2 different sizes and colors. As soon as I saw them, I wanted to make something with them immediately!

Blue Picasso 11/0 seed beads from Miyuki

These are the blue ones; we also received a gorgeous greenish brown color. These are 8/0s, and they are stunning. But as pretty as these are, you should see how the colors show off in the 6/0s!

The blue ones were calling my name, so I walked around the store trying to decide what to make with them, but couldn't find anything. So I headed for my bead stash, and there was the perfect lampwork bead! Of course - I know which beads to hoard!

I didn't want to dilute the impact of the Picasso finish, so I decided to make a kumihimo rope with the seed beads. I used copper findings to finish the 2 pieces of braided rope, and here's the result:

Blue Picasso Seed Bead Kumihimo Necklace

And here's a detail shot of the beautiful lampwork bead (sorry for the reflections - glass is so hard to photograph!)

richly colored and detailed lampwork bead

So now I want to go order the Picasso seed beads in ALL the colors and ALL the sizes!

And on a completely unrelated note, 2 weeks ago I managed to contaminate my brand new, large capacity Lortone tumbler AND all 6 pounds of stainless steel shot. But I didn't know at the time it was contaminated, so I let it sit, with the contamination and shot inside, until yesterday, when I decided to tumble a few chainmaille pieces to shine them up for wearing. They came out absolutely black and sticky, which is making me cry. Just hoping that if I ever get the tumbler and shot clean, I can clean up the sterling chainmaille again. I cannot believe how black it is! But I dunked one of the bracelets in vinegar briefly yesterday, and the tiniest bit of black came off, so I'm hopeful I can fix all of these. But what a mess! I have been trying to clean it for a day and a half now, using either vinegar or pickle, and tumbling away in 30 to 40 minute cycles (or longer, when I get distracted), and every time, black water goes down the drain, and there's just no end in sight! The barrel comes clean after just 2 cycles, but then when I try to clean the shot, it seems like I make no progress at all. Argggghhhhhhhhhhhh!

So, in between tumbling cycles today, I'll be weighing out and tubing 15/0 seed beads for the shop - I ordered every single iris blend available in 15/0s after being frustrated when trying to find exactly the right shade of 15/0 for a project I was doing 2 weeks ago. 

Oh yeah, my new Picasso Lampwork Kumihimo Necklace is available in my Etsy shop!

Happy Holidays!!

Semiprecious Gemstone Lariat now available on Etsy

The semiprecious gemstone lariat I created for last year's BSBP is now available on Etsy:

Semiprecious gemstone kumihimo lariat with enameled beads

Detail, gemstone kumihimo

This one-of-a-kind lariat is 35.5 inches long, made from colorful amethyst, blue topaz, aquamarine, citrine, and peridot, plus my own enameled beads and cones, is available in my Etsy shop!

Kumihimo variations

I am crazy about Kumihimo - I love its ease, its portability, and the finished result!

I have been experimenting with using different beads in kumihimo, and after a failed attempt to make size 8/0 Delicas into a kumihimo rope (the cylinidrical beads just wouldn't braid together niceley!) I realized that I have made a lot of different kumihimo variations. Here are some of them:

Kumihimo variations - different bead and fiber types

I like seeing them side-by-side like that, but here is a little better detail:

Kumihimo variations: 3-cut 6/0, 8/0 (3-color and 2-color), 11/0 triangles, Long Magatamas

 Kumihimo variations: Long Magatamas, 4x7 lentils, gemstone chips, various yarns

Do you have a favorite technique that you find yourself turning to time and again?

Gold and Silver Kumihimo with Long Magatamas

I put the finishing touches on the long Magatama kumihimo necklace this morning:

Gold and Silver Kumihimo necklace with Long Magatamas

As I feared, the long Magatamas made the rope too thick for any of the beadcaps I had readily available, so I set out to make some.

I have hundreds of these little metal floral caps (the bronze one in the center is their natural color) - they enamel beautifully, but lacking any silver or gold enamel, I had to go to plan B. Gilder's paste. Not my favorite: it's messy! I hate mess!

I tried both the silver and the gold Gilder's paste - I really wanted to use silver, but it didn't give a nice shiny finish like the gold, so I went with the gold.

I topped the caps with sterling silver Origami-style beads (I don't know why, but I call these beads "tumbleweeds") and a 5 mm gold round. I added sterling silver chain and a sterling silver S-hook around the back. The chain has a nice open weave, so the necklace is fully adjustable up to 20 inches.

I love how these Magatamas produced a beautiful texture, and a nice spiral.

It's available in my Etsy shop!

Kumihimo Rope with Long Magatamas

Just finished (almost finished)! 5 minutes ago I wove the last long Magatama into this kumihimo rope:

kumihimo rope with long Magatamas

This is the first time I have worked with the long Magatamas. For this rope, I used:

• 400 long Magatamas: 200 in galvanized silver, 200 in galvanized gold (this equals 25.5 grams of each color).
• size 8 Griffin Silk cord.

The resulting rope is 11.5 inches long. So if you're wondering how many Long Magatamas you need for your kumihimo project, there you have it (for an 8-warp braid; I put 50 beads on each warp.)

Now I just need to figure out how to finish it. The Magatamas made the rope pretty thick (although it is light as a feather!). It is not quite as wide as the one I made with the lentil-shaped beads,(although a heck of a lot lighter). Another similarity to the lentils: for the lentil kumihimo rope, you have to take great care to position all the Lentils inthe same direction as you are braiding, or the rope looks wonky, with the Magatamas, you must initially string all of them so they are "pointing" in the same direction. If they are strung properly, they'll pretty much orient themselves correctly as you braid.

Detail:

detail, kumihimo rope with long Magatamas

I need to do some beadweaving projects with the long Magatamas before I decide whether I like them. I don't dislike them at this point, they are just OK. Though they really added great texture to this kumihimo!

But don't get me started on the Superduos - my current passion! I love those little two-holed beads. So far, I have only made one project with them (a necklace/earring set) - but I can't wait to do more. They fascinate me!

reversible bracelet/earrings made with Czech Superduos

[This reversible bracelet/earring project is featured in the August, 2013 Bead & Button.]

Beaded Kumihimo Rope with Fossil Turritella Agate Pendant

I taught a kumihimo class last Saturday, and even though I didn't want to start anymore new projects (gotta finish some of the ones I have going already!) - it is much easier to teach the class if I am actually creating a piece of my own, that I can use for demonstration.

Here is the piece I made - I chose this piece because I had the stunningly beautiful fossil turritella agate bead, just sitting there, and if no one else was going to appreciate it, I sure as heck was! This stone (comprised of agatized fossil turritellas, or sea-snails), is so gorgeous that I felt a simple beaded kumihimo rope would be perfect for it:

I decided to hang the stone from a front closure (of Vintaj Natural Brass) simply because I needed a little bit of variety from typical necklaces with a front pendant/rear closure.

I enameled a couple of cones to cap the beaded rope.

Here is a close up of this beautiful fossil gemstone:

I used size 8 seed beads for the braid, in gold-fumed gray and opaque sand:

Detail:

It's available in my Etsy shop!

Kumihimo Necklace with Japanese triangles

Furthering my adventures in kumihimo, I wanted to try another interesting bead shape - the Japanese triangle, size 11. (Remember the lentils? - that gorgeous necklace is still available on Etsy!)

kumihimo rope with 11/0 Japanese triangles

This necklace started out to be a simple kumihimo rope, with that gorgeous teardrop lampwork pendant as the focal. But that plan got derailed rather quickly.

Stringing the 11/0 triangles was no easy feat, but nothing compared to the braiding. When I do kumihimo, I like a lot of tension on the braid, so in addition to the weight I suspend from the bottom of the braid, I also grip the braid tightly between the 4th and 5th fingers of my left hand (the thumb and other 2 fingers are holding the disc) - and squeezing the sharp triangle braid as it lengthened was pretty painful on my tender little fingers!

So after about 4 inches of it was braided, I realized I needed a plan B. I attached the focal pendant, braided an equal length of kumihimo on the other side, and capped the braid on both ends. And put on my thinking cap.

The blues in the focal and kumihimo braid go so well with green, and of course, with white pearls, that I fell back on that color combo, and strung a multistrand necklace with green and white freshwater pearls, kyanite, dumortierite, and Swarovski pearls. I had a beautiful sterling silver branch and leaf box clasp that deserved to be showcased in the front of a necklace, so I put the closure in front, and added some dangles. I love how this piece turned out - it is much more interesting than if I had gone with plan A!

multistand pearl, gemstone, and Kumihimo necklace

And, it's available on Etsy!

Speaking of Kumihimo...

Yesterday, I showed you the kumihimo necklace I started in the kumihimo class I taught last week.

One of the customers in that class just brought in the necklace SHE started in the class, and then finished at home - look at this beautiful "Clemson Kumihimo"!

orange and purple Kumihimo necklace

look at the cute ceramic tiger dangle!

Carmen is a huge Clemson fan, and created this beautiful piece in Clemson orange and purple. She added sterling silver cones, some beads I had enameled in matching orange, Swarovski crystals in orange and purple, and a sterling silver toggle. Then she found the cute ceramic tiger hidden (in plain sight, I swear!) in my shop, and decided this would be a front-closure necklace. Naturally!

She did a great job!

Kumihimo Lentil Necklace

Remember the kumihimo class I taught 10 days ago, where I decided to try kumihimo with lentil beads? The lentil beads gave me a bit of trouble, and I ended up taking the whole thing apart and starting over, but now the necklace is finished, and I love it!

beautifully behaving lentil beads in the kumihimo braid - such a gorgeous texture, like a pinecone!

poorly behaving lentils - twisting, turning, and disappearing into the kumihimo braid - before I took it apart

I capped the braid with some metal cones I enameled a rich black color, and then I used matching Picasso Cathedral beads, tourmalinated quartz, and hammered, soldered sterling silver links to finish off the necklace:

detail, showing jet black glass toggle and hammered sterling links

This 19 inch necklace is available now in my Etsy shop!

BSBP Deconstructed: Kumihimo Lariat

For those of you looking for my BSBP reveal post, it is here; I hope you'll click and look at the whole reveal! (one post down).

THIS post is the first in a series of posts giving the gory details on my BSBP journey. Thanks for visiting, and if you like design minutiae, this is the post for you!

The first piece I made for my recent BSBP (Bead Soup Blog Party) reveal was the kumihimo lariat, using semiprecious gemstone chips.

When I first opened my generous bead soup, I saw so many delightful elements, but knew I wanted to work with the "wing." toggle.

I was drawn to the wing toggle on the right

I wanted it to be front and center, so I turned my thoughts to deciding what I could create with a front closure. I love lariats, so I looked to the box of treasures I had received from my partner, Kate, and latched onto the semiprecious gemstone chips - and decided I would try to make a kumihimo lariat with them. I envision a long mulitcolored gemstone kumihimo braid, with the wing on one end and the toggle ring on the other - when worn, the wing would drop through the toggle ring and hang down.

I knew I would need to sort the chips by color, because I am far to anal to have them all randomly mixed up in my kumihimo. I separated them into 4 piles by color, and soon discovered that I didn't have nearly enough chips to make a kumihimo lariat, because kumihimo eats up a lot of beads! So I went digging in my stash, came up with more chips, (and I had to make an emergency run to Michael's to supplement my own meager chip stash!) Kate's gemstone chip strand consisted of amethyst, aquamarine, citrine, and peridot. Michael's didn't have any aquamarine chips, but they had blue topaz, which was very close, and once I had combined the aquamarine and the topaz, it was impossible to tell which was which.

I wanted to make a clear boundary between each separate gemstone in the kumihimo, so I enameled some large-hole beads to match the gemstones:

For those of you that are into enameling, these are the colors I used:

For the amethyst gemstone chips, Iris Purple enamel was a perfect match.
For the citrine, I blended  a base coat of pumpkin, followed by 2 coats of nut, then 2 coats of egg yellow.
For the peridot, I blended 2 coats of egg yellow on top of 2 coats of spruce green.
For the aquamarine/topaz chip mix, I used 1 coats of transparent turquoise on top of 2 coats of transparent aqua.

I got off to a lot (a LOT) of false starts on this project. Finding a stringing material that was long enough for the lariat, and thin enough to go through the chips, was a challenge. I finally settled on size 4 Griffin silk cord. It already has a needle attached, so it didn't have to be doubled to do the stringing, and it's fairly strong. I tested it on a few random chips, and it was a good fit, going through without too much difficulty.

The amethyst was my favorite of these 4 gemstones, so I decided it would be the beginning and end segment of the lariat. I started stringing the chips (tedium!) - and it took a couple of days to get all 8 warps strung, with the chips counted equally on each one. Plus, I was guessing how many chips to use in each color segment, because I couldn't find anything published about the number of chips per inch for kumihimo. And I wanted the different segments to vary in length a little, just to be a little bit random.

I placed the warps on the kumihimo disc, braided the first amethyst segment, and got ready to add my first enameled bead. I had chosen large hole beads, thinking that I would braid a little bit of silk cord without any beads to end the segment, and then cover this with the bead, and then start braiding the next color. I knew I would have to add the bead very carefully, so as to not disturb the braiding pattern. But I had neglected to think this through very well - there was absolutely no way those strung warps of chips was going to pass through the hole in the enameled bead. Duh!

So I had to unstring all the unbraided chips. Very sad face!

I added the first enameled bead, restrung JUST the chips for the next segment, and completed that segment, added a bead, and moved on to the next segment. Soon, the third segment was done, and it was time for the peridot. These chips were about half the size of the others, with, (duh!) much smaller holes. And I hadn't tested the silk cord on the peridot. For awhile, I was afraid I would be starting all over again, switching to #2 silk cord, but I eventually discovered that some of the peridot would go over the needle if forced (and some wouldn't - oops!), and by going back to Michael's and buying even more peridot chips, I finally had enough chips with large enough holes to complete the lariat. Yay!

I think I took the kumihimo apart a total of 7 times before it was done - the last time, because my plan had been for it to be twice as long as it actually is. I wanted it to drape around the neck twice. I figured I was ingenious enough to figure out how to add another piece of silk cord to each warp, covering the knots up with those large-hole enameled beads, because the 2 meters of silk I started with wasn't long enough for the 60 inch lariat I envisioned. I knew I would have to add cord. I kept braiding until I ran out of cord, at about 45, 46 inches of lariat. With considerable trepidation, I carefully added the next length of silk, tying knots, using glue, etc - then let the glue dry over night. The next day, I cut the ends close to the knots, and began the process of feeding the next enameled bead (the all-important knot-covering bead!) onto the lariat. I got it over 2 strands, then over the 3rd, and then discovered that there was no way that even this large-holed bead would fit over the jumbled, glued mass that was my 8-warp knot. So I started manipulating the glued knot with my pliers, squeezing it, trying to make it smaller, breaking off little hunks of glue, pulling the strands, pushing the bead, and after about 20 minutes, when I was trying to get the very last strand inside the bead, the knot gave way, and the newly added strand came flying up into my hand. Oops. Insert bad word of your choice HERE.

So, plan B. Or, plan E, or F - I've lost count. I decided the lariat would no longer wrap around the neck twice! I cut off a lot of the already braided kumihimo, arriving at the final length I now have.

At this point, I felt like the silver colored wing toggle was too much contrast for my rich, jewel tone lariat, so decided to patina it to match the amethyst. Details of the patina process are here. However, one last little change in plans - the toggle ring that went with the wing wasn't wide enough to accommodate the amethyst sections of the lariat (which were slightly wider than the citrine and topaz/aquamarine, and a lot wider than the peridot.) So I switched rings with the other toggle Kate sent me:

I think the wing goes nicely with the scrollwork on this toggle ring.

I also enameled a couple of filigree cones with the iris purple.

So there is the saga of the gemstone chip kumihimo lariat - it actually took a couple of weeks from start to finish, what with all the false starts and do-overs along the way.

kumihimo braid detail

this picture shows the disparity in diameter caused by the sizes of the different chips

the wing that started it all!

Stay tuned - I'll deconstruct another BSBP project tomorrow!

Go with your gut!

Yesterday, while teaching a kumihimo class, I started a kumihimo rope with Czech lentils. I love lentils, but have never used them in kumihimo before.

Here's what I learned: the lentils do not automatically fall into position with the widest part of the bead facing outward. Not sure why I thought they would, but I did.

After I had braided about an inch, I checked the forming braid, and discovered that it for the most part the lentils were lining up as I had assumed they would, but in a few places it looked like a bead was missing, or turned sideways - and this is where the lentils had oriented themselves so that their widest part was inside the rope instead of outside. For every 15 or so that line up correctly, 1 or 2 get in there backwards. It was an interesting look, but not what I had envisioned.

Two thoughts occurred to me as I contemplated starting over (mind you, I had only braided about an inch at this point):
1) It's an interesting look - it adds texture. Let's leave it!
2) I don't want to freak out my students AND look like I don't know what I'm doing by sitting here and taking all this out and starting over!

So I kept braiding, thinking "It will look cool once it is longer."

I kept on braiding, finishing about 5 more inches during class. I took a break for lunch and checking e-mail, then decided to work on it a little more. I looked at my 6-inch long braid, with its catawampus beads, and wasn't all that happy with it. But I decided it was "interesting" - there's that word again - and decided to go ahead and finish it.

You know what was talking here? Fatigue. But I didn't recognize that (because I was so tired!). I worked on the kumihimo for about another hour, and went home for the evening.

And proceeded to stew and overthink the whole thing, and reached the decision this morning, driving to work, to undo the whole thing and do it "right" this time. The freshness of a new day helps a lot with clarity of thought!

This is not even the first time that I have not been happy with a beading project, but convinced myself that if I just "made it longer" it would magically look better! You'd think I'd learn to trust my first impression! It's a lot easier to take out 1 inch of a doomed project than 7 inches!

Here is a pic showing the crooked beads:

The red arrow shows one of the crooked lentils, and the blue arrow shows a gap amongst all the other well-behaved lentils; the gaps was created when one lentil decided to line up completely backwards in the braid, with its widest portion facing inward.

So I will click "Publish" on today's post, and head over to my workbench and start unbraiding the crooked braid, untwisting tangling threads and bobbins, and start over! I don't mind at all (although I'd rather have done it correctly to begin with!) but I swear it takes longer to take one apart than to braid it - what with all the tangling!

Wednesday Worktable

Today isn't a normal workday, because today I'm teaching a Kumihimo class.

The students will be using 8/0 seed beads, but I will be making a kumihimo rope with these gorgeous black Picasso lentils:

I have been branching out with my kumihimo lately, using a variety of different sizes and shapes of beads, and this will be my first one with lentils. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

A finished project

I finally, finally finished this kumihimo necklace - it is gorgeous, and it was a lot of fun to make, but I am NOT a knitter (not that there was any knitting involved) - it's just that I have always been fascinated with this "eyelash" yarn, so I used 3 different colors of it in this necklace (which contains between 18-20 different fibers altogether) - and I quickly learned that after every single half kumihimo stitch, I had to take the beader's awl and tease out all the eyelashes, or else they ended up woven into the inside of the rope - which pretty much defeated the purpose. So I would do a half stitch, then spend 15 minutes teasing out fibers, and then do another half stitch, etc., etc - After about 2 hours, I would toss the thing down, and would take me a week or 2 to get up the courage to start it again.

Sorry - everything looks yellowish in this picture with the mannequin. She is too large to fit in my photo tent, and the light in the room where she is is terrible (or maybe she has jaundice.....)

This rope is the perfect way to show off this huge lampwork bead that I have owned for almost 3 years, and had NO idea how to use - the rope is thick enough to support it while keeping it from sliding around, yet very lightweight - everything just worked out perfectly in this design.

Which is now available in my Etsy shop!

And sometime over the next couple of days I will try to catch everyone up on Gumball, who is doing well!

Kumihimo

Kumihimo is my latest venture. I took a class 2 weeks ago, and instead of choosing to do the 18-inch necklace that the other students chose to do, I had my mind set on a lariat. A 60-inch lariat, to be exact. Naturally.

If I had fully understood the implications of this, I might not have been such a rebel.

Kumihimo is a lot of fun, and though it was a little difficult to get the hang of at first, once I figured it out, it turned out to be relatively easy. And it is completely portable once it is set up on the disc.

This is the kumihimo disc - it is made of foam, and is maybe 8 inches in diameter.

The most tedious part of Kumihimo is the set up. At least 8 different strands of seed beads have to be pre-strung and then wound onto something that will hold them - plastic bobbins work well. The number of beads needed on each strand to complete a necklace varies with the length of necklace desired and with the size of the seed bead, and when using size 8 seed beads, it takes about 10 beads per inch.


So for an 18-inch necklace, I would have needed to string about 180 - 200 seed beads on each of the 8 braiding cords. But for my 60 inch lariat? Yeah - I could not even start learning the technique until I had strung almost 600 seed beads on 8 different cords. That's a lot of seed beads!

The other students finished stringing their cords, and there I sat, still trying to fit the tiny beads on the thick braiding cord. Ultimately, the other students pitched in and helped me get set up, and we all started braiding.

And here is my finished lariat, with the fringe I added at the ends.

And back to my point about portability: once all your beads are loaded on the bobbins, the whole shebang fits in a Ziploc bag, disc and all. And the notches on the disc keep your strands in place, no matter what. Trust me - they do not come out of the notches, even when thrown in a tote bag with a bunch of books, or tossed around in a car, etc. And once you are all set up, there are no needles, no tools - so this is an ideal project for air travel, or car travel: you hold it in one hand, move the strands with the other; it is lightweight - I love it. It doesn't hurt my hands at all!

Of course, you can also do Kumihimo without beads, or with a combination of fibers and beads - so I love its versatility.

I've purchased some pretty textured fibers to try, and I am anxiously waiting for my square Kumihimo disc to arrive. The square disc supposedly makes a flat braid, and I already have my colors picked out for my first project on the square disc. A 60-inch beaded lariat, of course. Because apparently, I never learn.