Almost done with the Bead Embroidery Bracelet

This is one of those (hundreds of) projects that got started, and then put away and forgotten when other new projects presented themselves. I got about half of the stitching done last July, and, to be honest, burned myself out on it - the stitching goes on, and on, and on, and it feels like it is just never going to fill in.

But I picked it up on Saturday, and stitched all day long, and still felt like I was no closer to being finished, and at the end of the day I was tempted to just put all the beads away (it took almost 45 minutes to get the project set up!), but I knew that was part of the issue: when a project is such a pain to set up, it is much easier to avoid digging into it and trudging on. So I left it set up Saturday night, and there it was staring at me on Sunday, so I kept my promise to myself to work on nothing else until it was done.

I dragged my feet, though, and busied myself with other stuff (like snow! With the dogs!) and computer business, and finally started stitching around 1PM yesterday. And started to see the light at the end of the tunnel around 9PM, and actually stitched the last bead just a few minutes before midnight.

And packed up the whole thing to tote back to the shop, where I will hopefully be able to attach it to its frame and finish the edging this coming week.

This is my set-up as I started on Saturday morning - you can see the bracelet in the upper left, just as I pulled it out of the bag after putting it away back in July - less than half done, but enough of the pattern established that I had something to go on, but I also was somewhat limited by this, because, as beaders know, your stitching style and taste evolves and changes with time, so I had to go back and try hard to replicate what I had done back in July, because there was no way I was taking any stitches out!

I hope I have a finished picture of the bracelet to post before next July!

A couple of completed projects!

Just a little bit about 2 of my latest designs, both available in my Etsy shop:

This is a pendant I designed a couple of weeks ago:
It was largely created using various cold connections techniques, although I had to make the fused glass pieces in the kiln first. I then worked out a pattern on paper that would allow the glass to peek through a window in the copper, with a big focus on asymmetry, which I really love to play with.


This is a bracelet I created over the weekend:
I wire-wrapped hundreds of beads, including freshwater pearls, glass seed beads, and large aquamarine rondelles, to a sturdy bronze-colored frame. I love the blue, bronze, pink, and white palette - it is very soothing. The bracelet is easily adjustable to anywhere from a size 6 to a size 7.5 wrist.

And I actually have time this week to bead-weave, something I have really missed. I'm working on a freeform peyote bracelet, which I hope to showcase here this weekend.

A Pause for Nostalgia

This necklace is the very first piece of jewelry I ever made, back in April or May of 2007:



It was the second item I added to my Etsy shop, way back in November, 2007.

A lovely customer just came into my bead shop, and fell in love with it, and bought it - and I'm delighted it has a good home after all this time, but a little sad, it a funny way - it was my first!

Before and After

In my shop, there was a mannequin, who very helpfully displayed various necklaces. We would change her shirt with the seasons, and match her jewels accordingly.

But I got tired of looking at her, and decided to make a change last week.

Hobby Lobby, one of my favorite places, put all their floral stems and other flower-arranging stuff on sale @ 50% off last week, and I decided to put together this flower arrangement. It turned out to be much bigger than I had anticipated when I was buying all the stems, and when I looked for a place to display it in the store, the perfect spot was where Ms. Mannequin had been, so I decided she just had to go. I put my flowers there on a cute little table. I put a beautiful art glass fountain below it, and now I have the peaceful sound of trickling water all day.

And if you look closely, you can see my gold spiral necklace on the black wicker bust display.

I love the new look!

End of the Year Catch-up

Soooooo, my friend Lynn (half of the very talented GimmeBeads) gave me this hand-painted (by her) rock for Christmas - allegedly, it was inspired by and looks like me -

I love my picturesque rock! Although I'm not sure I have ever looked this good.

Visit Lynn and Mike's shop, soon to be known as "GimmeBeads, and GimmeRocks, while you're at it" - they're great peeps!

And now, back to the whining I was doing here.

This is the brown wire crochet necklace I made a few weeks ago - my first attempt at this medium. It includes both brown and champagne-colored freshwater pearls, pressed glass beads, Czech fire-polished beads, and seed beads. I finished it with copper cones and a copper toggle, and I am thrilled with it - it matches a couple of my outfits beautifully, and it was a lot of fun.

This is a close-up of my brown wire crochet necklace.

As I discussed last time, I decided to make a second wire-crochet necklace, this time using some gorgeous deep blue iolite chips, which I paired with some silver-blue AB Czech fire-polished beads and some white freshwater pearls.

But feeling it was a little plain-looking (I now realize this was because I used fewer, and smaller, beads than in the brown one), I decided I needed to improve on it somehow, and started adding fringe.

5 and 1/2 days of beading later, I finished the first pass of fringe, at 1:30 this morning.

This is a closeup of the fringed necklace, as it currently exists.

I keep saying this is the first pass of fringe, because the fringe is a little sparse to me in some places (I'm not saying this is a bad thing), but I feel like I've obscured the pearl and iolite framework that defined the whole thing, and even though I like the result thus far, I still feel it isn't quite right.

I clearly need my head examined - this has been 6 days of beading, and I want to do MORE??

So at the shop today, I decided to get a second opinion. I asked one of my part-time employees, who had popped in to do a little shopping. She told me I needed to remove all the fringe, and just leave the basic crocheted wire necklace.

Well I never. (As we say in the South)

And so I decided to keep asking for opinions until I got the one I wanted, as you do.

Later this afternoon, a customer who bead-weaves quite a bit came in, and I presented the whole situation to her, and she told me the fringe was absolutely perfect, and to just stop now.

So, I'll be getting a third opinion tomorrow.

As I have explained to the wise Carol Dean Sharpe, I often feel like my Etsy Shop has cooties. (Remember cooties, folks - back in 6th grade?) Anyway, my beautiful designs sit on the shelves of my poor shop, pining away for a good home, and I get a sale every 3 or 4 months, just to keep me hanging on.

But now that my designs are also on display in my bead shop, I sell 2 or 3 things daily that are also listed on Etsy - and these are the ones that sold today:

These striking magnasite rondelle earrings, accented with sterling silver and Swarovski crystals. The necklace that matched them actually sold from my Etsy shop over a year ago or so - and now the earrings have finally found a great home.

Then these gorgeous rose gold and sterling silver hoop earrings sold!

I just wish there was some magical way for me to mark all these things as sold in my Etsy shop, instead of just deleting them - I feel like it would be a truer reflection of my success, but whatEVER.

Happy New Year, everyone!

12-26-08

I decided to close the shop today, and enjoy a day off - I'm not one of those after-Christmas shopper/returners, and I really did not want to fight the traffic to get to my shop, plus I really didn't think most after-Christmas shoppers would be hitting up the bead shop.

So I'm home today with Bailey, doing some beading (that is, I'm doing the beading, Bailey's doing the napping).

This is my latest project:

I've been experimenting with silver crochet, and enjoying it.
In my first project I used a mixture of brown freshwater pearls, champagne freshwater pearls, several earthy, shiny colors of Czech fire-polish beads, and some taupe pinch beads.

It turned out beautifully, with a very organic look, and goes with a lot of my outfits, but it's just kind of plain, for me.

For my second attempt, I chose gorgeous iolite chips, white freshwater pearls, and 4mm silver AB finish Czech fire-polished beads. I love the colors, and the combination, but I just felt like it still lacked "oomph."

So the beadweaver in me jumped up and insisted that I embellish it with fringe. I should make it very clear at this point that I HATE adding fringe to stuff, and usually limit it to a few (as in less than 10) strands on a peyote bail, or some such.

But yet, this seemed like a good plan to me.

Emphasis on "seemed."

It took me maybe 4 hours to croched the necklace you see above.

When I finished, I picked some matching seedbeads, and started adding fringe. 2 and a half DAYS later, I had fringed 6 inches of this necklace, and realized that although I kind of like how it's turning out,

a) the fringe isn't full enough, so when I complete this pass, I will have to go back and add a second full pass of fringe.

b) this is going to take forty forevers to finish.

This shot shows the current status - the point where fringe meets unfringed,

and here's how the first few inches look - the fringe is just a little too sparse for me.

I worked on it for 2 hours this afternoon, while watching some "Bones" reruns I Tivo'd Christmas Eve. Then I just HAD to take a break.

Fringing is tedious.

I was going to work on it some yesterday, but then I got a reprieve - a friend called and invited me to go to dinner and a movie with her and her fiancee. She and I voted for "Marley and Me", but the fiancee voted for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," stating that "Marley and Me" was a chick flick, and he wouldn't be caught dead in a chick flick. And he figured Brad Pitt would never MAKE a chick flick.

So we saw Benjamin Button, and as we were filing out, my friend asked Mr. Macho Fiancee what he thought of it, and his snarly response was "Chick Flick". Of course, we were laughing hysterically at this, as he defensively responded that it was a "love story", and hence a chick flick. And that we should have seen "Valkyrie". Good grief.

Then we tried to find some place open for dinner at 10 PM. In Augusta, Georgia. Know what's open at 10PM on Christmas Day in Augusta? Convenience stores, and Waffle House. So we had a delicious post-chick flick meal at the Awful Waffle. Of course, the Waffle House near the theater was already packed, undoubtedly with like-minded movie folk, so we drove several miles to the next closest one.

Just a little clue for restaurants and bars, especially in this area - opening up for the dinner and theater crowd on Christmas evening = good for business... Just saying...

And now I have run out of excuses to not fringe, so I guess I'll go back to it.

I just gotta say...

Running my B&M bead shop keeps me hopping about 16 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week, but it's doing wonders for my "Etsy" sales, in a way.

Just today, these 2 Etsy items sold from my B&M bead shop -

This wire-wrapped dichroic glass pendant had been in my Etsy shop for at least a year, and had been featured in several treasuries.

This wire-wrapped ring had been in my Etsy shop for at least 8 months.

And in the past 2 weeks, these other Etsy items have sold from my bead shop:

This gorgeous beadwoven spiral necklace, listed in September '07, which was frequently featured in Etsy treasuries.

These Swarovski crystal "pinecone" earrings, listed in my Etsy shop last November.

This fabulous bronze peyote cuff, with its eccentric matte blue stripe.

This beadwoven spiral with a gorgeous turquoise heart focal bead was actually purchased by a bride-to-be to wear in her western-themed wedding! She wore jeans, a white long-sleeved button-down shirt, and this necklace, and rode up to the ceremony on horseback. She brought the wedding album in to show me, so that was really gratifying for me.

These cute purple lampwork earrings - but fear not! Their turquoise and their green siblings are still in my Etsy shop!

And this is just in the past 2 weeks... so tomorrow, I am hauling the rest of my Etsy stuff down to the shop, and putting it on display!

So if you've hearted, or had your eye on, something in my Etsy shop and find that it is suddenly no longer there, it may have sold here locally. Thanks Augusta (and Aiken, and North Augusta, and Lincolnton, and Thomson).

OR, it may have traveled over to my ArtFire Studio, where things have been selling within 24 hours of being listed - I'm kind of crushing on ArtFire right now. Not to mention, I got a personal phone call from ArtFire's Jessica today, trying to help me with a problem I had contacted them about. I would have been happy with an e-mail, but a personal phone call, on December 23 - what excellent customer service! Plus, while we were talking, she needed to ask Matt (the IT guru) a question, and told me he was just in the next room, and she actually hollered her question over at him, and I heard him answer!

Bailey is quietly snoring by my side (with his back to me, out of disdain for my prolonged computer time tonight), so I'm going to wrap this up, and cuddle a bit with him and watch NCIS. Yeah, it's a repeat, but I'd pretty much watch Mark Harmon read the phone book, so NCIS here I come.

Y'all have a great Holiday, OK?

PS - and if you want to see some out-of-this world wire-wrapping, go here. Girl's got some mad skillz!

Merry Christmas, Sharon!

Happy Holidays!

Grandma Marilyn put together this gorgeous Holiday-themed treasury, and included my Christmas spiral bead-woven necklace - take a look!

And while you're there, check out her lovely shop, too!

Thanks!





Business has been booming at my Bead Shop, especially classes - lots of beadweaving and beading class, almost everyday.

Today I taught a chainmaille class, and these are the earrings everyone made - lots of fun, and a great holiday gift.

If I get a chance to take some better pics, I'll have to list these in my Etsy shop!


Bailey and I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

I need to have a word with him - he's been a really lazy blogger lately!

Collaboration, Part 2

Here is the second bracelet I wire-wrapped with SandFiber's gorgeous peyote beads,

Carol Dean wove the peyote beads with emerald-AB delicas, although they look more teal than emerald to me.

I added sterling silver rombo spacer beads, and then crafted the wire-wrapped bangle with sterling silver wire.





This beautiful bracelet will fit up to 6.75 inches, and is lightweight and flexible.

I have to thank CD for this fabulous idea - adding handmade beadwoven beads to a wire-wrapping project was genius! These two bracelets turned out great!

The Mermaid's Tail

I finished my freeform peyote bracelet, and I absolutely love it. I think I have worn it everyday since I finished it! The beads on the band glimmer in the light, the colors remind me of the ocean, so I have named it "The Mermaid's Tail." I enjoyed making this piece, and may design something similar, but I will be keeping this one.










The teal biwa pearl I encorporated into the closure looks sort of like a tail fin, I think.

Abalone Spiral Redux

I finished my abalone spiral a few minutes ago (again).

This color combination is such an improvement over the last one I put together (below). I'm quite pleased with it, actually!

Too tired to get up and go photograph it for real though, for posting on Etsy, so will do that tomorrow.






Just too much gold in this one.

My Shell Spiral - the good and the bad

It all started when I found these fabulous matching abalone shell beads, and decided they would look fabulous as the centerpiece for one of my signature spiral necklaces.

Then I started matching the shells with the various beads I wanted to use in the spiral - I selected some gold freshwater pearls, some grey Czech fire-polished crystals, some beige delicas, and various other seed beads that picked up on the colors in the shells.

The beads I chose all looked good together, and they all complemented, in one way or another, the shell focals. Honest - they did.

So how did I end up with this mess? When the spiral was only and inch or so long, I held it up to the shells, and didn't like how it went with them, but I figured I just needed to stitch a little more, to get a more representative piece. When the spiral was 3 inches long, I hated how it went with the shells, but blamed it on the core beads I had chosen, and rationalized that the core beads would be basically hidden once this fat spiral was completed.

The more I stitched, the less I liked my creation, but for some reason, I just kept stitching - somehow convinced that a good selection of matching beads + beautiful, matching focals would = a beautiful necklace. Maybe because it was 2 or 3 AM by now? I don't know.

Maybe because I've never had one turn out badly before.

So I finished the whole thing (well, almost finished - I came to my senses before I put a clasp on it) and it just looked awful. Seriously awful. The woven necklace just did not go with those gorgeous shells at all. There was no more rationalizing this away.

So I sat down Monday afternoon, and ripped the whole thing apart, and separated thousands of beads into their respective piles, and put them back in their respective containers, and started all over.

I went with a more ecru freshwater pearl, and a mauve core bead, and some peacock colored cubes, and kept the beige delicas, grey Czechs, and rose colored 11s. I added in a beige-y Czech fire-polished crystal, and am much happier! This one looks really nice with the focals.

I have finished about 5 inches so far, and this one will be a

keeper.

I would be finished by now, but I have wasted a lot of time today playing on the computer, taking pictures, and chasing Bailey around the yard in my pajamas.

Before and After

Well, my instincts were spot-on about this bracelet yesterday. I took it to work today, where we were under either a severe thunderstorm warning or a tornado warning all day long so we had no customers, but the bead shop owner agreed with me that now that the focal bead is attached, it no longer works. The focal bead is just to large and too heavy for this delicate peyote stitch. The bead is going to slide around to the underside of the arm. Too bad. So this is how the bracelet looked at 8:30 PM.

And this is the after shot, at 9:30 PM, and I strangely feel much better.

Orange and brown aren't my colors anyway.

New Woven Bracelet

This is a beautiful new bead-woven bracelet, available in my Etsy shop ( http://sweetfreedom.etsy.com/ ). I enjoy tackling new patterns and stitches, and this one proved to be a bit of a challenge!

After stringing a row of core beads on SoftTouch, the beadweaving began. The base is multiple rows of size 11 seed beads, for which I chose seafoam green, one of my favorite colors. It took a couple of days to get all these rows laid down, what with having to deal with all the knots (I hate having to restart thread in a project, so I tend to use a really, really long thread!)

Once the base is finished, a sort of modified brick stitch is used to create a fringe (seen in metallic pink on this bracelet). This was where things got complicated. The opposing peaks of the fringe had to face opposite directions so that when the Swarovski crystals were sewn in, they would meet correctly. Not fun! Not only that, but the fringe had to be reinforced - meaning I had to go through all the 11s twice, so that they would stay on top of the seafoam green beads, rather than dropping below the thread bridges.

Now it was time to add the crystal embellishment. I had chosen beautiful sapphire satin Swarovski bicones, and I think the color combination is gorgeous. Each bicone was attached to the opposing fringe tips by going through these 11s for a third time - getting tight in there!

After embellishing, the bracelet was crimped, and a sterling silver toggle closure was added. The bracelet is surprisingly supple, for as many beads and stitches as it contains. And it surely sparkles!

I would be happy to re-create this bracelet in other color combinations, and to any length desired - just contact me through my Etsy shop.

Here's What's New

Happy New Year!

I decided to try a new beadweaving stitch called netting. I had never even heard of this stitch until the Etsy BeadWeavers November monthly challenge featured this stitch - I joined the group too late to hop on board that month, so I began my own personal netting challenge the week before Christmas. I found a couple of tutorials that were of limited use - it was like they assumed prior knowledge of the stitch in order to understand their instructions! So instead, I just followed the complex diagrams in the pattern, and 2 weeks (and over 120 hours of beading) later, this was the result:

This gorgeous cuff bracelet is 2.25 inches wide, and fits up to a 7.75 inch wrist. It's available in my Etsy shop right now. I probably will never do this stitch again, so this is a true one-of-a-kind for me! This just took waaaay to much time!

Here are pics of the Christmas commission I mentioned last time:

I think they're fabulous!

The colorblock herringbone bracelet I posted last time sold within 48 hours of being listed on Etsy! Very exciting! I am designing some new patterns now, and will be making some more herringbone bracelets soon.

Check out my websites - lots of great stuff! And I am always happy to take custom orders, too.

What's New

OK. Clearly I am not going to be one of those prolific bloggers. I can live with that.

I have been busy beading - I had a big holiday commission from a local woman, and I wish I could post the pictures, but since it is still pre-Christmas, I would hate for someone to chance upon the pictures of her Christmas presents here, before she gets a chance to see them and be surprised. I'm sure she'll love them, though.
I also have finished a gorgeous herringbone bracelet - this was a new stitch and pattern for me, and I love the way it turned out:

I'm so tickled with my abililty to pick up a new stitch, that I have started an even more ambitious one, and will post it here when I finish it.

Sales are picking up on my Etsy site, http://sweetfreedom.etsy.com/ , so that is very exciting. Take a look - there are lots of pretty things there!

I also have a part time job now - in a bead shop! Talk about letting the fox guard the hen house! What fun!

I have been featured in another blog, so take a look, and thanks, Robin Lynne!: