Head-to-Head Challenge Update

It's that time again: time to show my progress on the Head-to-Head Challenge Sonya and I are participating in. Except that I can't actually show my progress, because Sonya and I want to be surprised by what each other makes.

Which makes this update kind of silly. Whose idea was this updating nonsense, anyway? (Answer: MINE). Made sense at the time!

I'm going to show an itty bitty piece of my challenge WIP (work in progress), anyway (and none of my fancy photoshopping skills, either!)

You may recall that this is the ceramic bead we are designing our freeform pieces around:

This week, I made the decision to go ahead and design and attach the clasp to the piece, because the type and size of the clasp helps determine the finished length - sometimes I use clasps that can add 2 inches or more to the finished length of a piece! And I did NOT want my piece to end up being too long, so why not go ahead and design a clasp in the middle of the creative process? Why save it 'til last?

Here is what I came up with:

I chose a Swarovski crystal Cosmic Square in Red Magma, which perfectly matches the orange ceramic bead. I attached it using a square stitch "bail," for lack of a better word, and then stitched a matching bar using the same galvanized orange delicas.

Stay tuned - our big reveal is January 14!

And click over to Sonya's blog to see her progress!