Tuesday Tangle: Mosaic Ammonites

"Mosaic Ammonites"

This zentangle was inspired by "Not Atoll," a mosaic by Sonia King. I love her mosaics, and this particular one had elements I thought would translate well to zentangling. (Her website was down at the time of this writing, so here is an alternate link to "Not Atoll").

"Not Atoll", a mosaic by Sonia King

Unfortunately, the pic of my Zentangle doesn't show the effect I achieved by using Sargent Art Metallic Markers for the blue and silver - they gave a wonderful metallic shine to the piece!

Here's a little recap of my weekend full of "Possibilities:"

Naturally, beading won out. No surprise there. I had taken home a pattern from an old, old Beadwork Magazine - I had torn the page out of the magazine way back when it came out, and the page doesn't even have the date on it. Sorry!

So this is how I spent Sunday afternoon: The pattern is called "Beaded Pillow Beads" - and basically calls for stitching up 2 peyote/herringbone triangles, and then stitching them together to make a puffy beaded bead.

This is the same pattern I played with weekend before last, but I had chosen galvanized beads, and the colors were coming off on my fingers (leaving no color on the beads!) - so I had chosen some non-galvanized beads this time.

Here is my bead:

The pattern called for making the triangles have 13 rounds; I stopped at 11 (it has to be an odd number of rounds, in order for the triangles to stitch together properly). I'm glad I stopped at 11, and didn't waste any time making these any bigger, because I'm not real thrilled with the result.

It's cute, and a clever idea, but if you look at the pics, you can pretty quickly see that these "beads" don't have any holes for stringing.

My plan had been to make 5 of them: 1 larger than this one, 2 this size, and 2 smaller, and then string them as the centerpiece of a beadwoven rope. But I don't want to mess with trying to string beads with no holes - I know it can be done, I just don't choose to. Plus, the triangles are really tricky to sew together; if you look at the last pic (click to enlarge), you can see my thread showing at the lower left, where the corner of the bottom triangle (the dark blue beads) meets the middle of the side of the top triangle - I should have pulled harder and reinforced this stitch, but I didn't see it until this macro shot called it to my attention!.

So I have a little, lone, novelty peyote puffy bead.

But wait .... there's more!

I naturally spent several hours Sunday and Monday morning on Pinterest (which was on my list of possibilities). Check!

Sunday afternoon I made the bead. Check!

Monday afternoon (hold on to your hats...) I vacuumed and mopped my whole downstairs. That's a big deal for me. I wanted to do the upstairs, but once I had finished the downstairs, I was over it.

Clean house - partial Check!

Then I spent several hours finishing my Zentangle. Check!

So I was surprisingly productive! I even squeezed in a little reading. Yay!

Now, back to work on my freeform netting, which is almost finished - double yay!

Possibilities

Aahhh ... what to do today?

I'm sitting in my warm bed, under the electric blanket - all toasty! Drinking my White Chocolate Raspberry cappuccino, pondering my day. I have 2 full days off stretching in front of me!

I slept in - an extra 90 minutes. Great start!

Got up, let the dog out (after a 5 minute search, blind, for my GLASSES - I really need a clapper for the damn things!). Made the cappuccino. Back to bed.

Turned on GMA (thank you, DVR!) - only to discover that today's "news" is all basketball, all the time. That isn't news, folks - it is sports. Yuck. Fast forwarded through all of it.

It is nasty cold and rainy outside.

I am just a few hours away from finishing my latest freeform beading design, but because it involves about 40 individual piles of the various beads I am adding to it (I was bored on Friday, and I counted - 47 piles!), it is not really portable, so it is over in Georgia, sitting on my beading table at the shop.

I brought home a new project, one I tried to start last weekend, but the galvanized beads I had hastily chosen on my way out the door last Saturday evening were being naughty: As I worked the project's first few rows, my fingers started turning purple, and the purple beads starting turning silver. Hmmmm. I have never had that happen with galvanized beads, although I have heard about it. I decided I didn't want to waste time working with those beads, so I scrapped it. Now I have some non-galvanized beads to try, but I'm not as thrilled about the colors - but anyway, beading is a possibility.

I started a new Zentangle last night, so I could work on that.

I could read. I have hundreds of books on my Kindle that I'd like to read - especially the excellent one I'm in the middle of right now: Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore!  I discovered this book on my friend Karin's blog - and it is excellent. It is truly one of those "can't put down" books - I want to know how it ends, but I will be so sorry when there is no more of it to read!

Mr. Penumbra - one of the best books I've ever read

And of course, I could waste spend the entire day on Pinterest ...

Here's what I NEED to do: clean the house. Ugh. 2 whole days? I could really make a dent in it!

Possibilities:

• bead weaving
• zentangling
• reading
• Pinterest-ing
• cleaning house

4 of my 5 choices allow me to remain in my warm bed, in my PJs!
1 is comparable, in my mind, to getting a root canal while listening to an endless loop of fingernails on the blackboard.

So, how should I spend my day?

Tangle Tuesday: Moo(ka)lips - Happy Spring!

Mooka is a challenging tangle pattern for me, because of the curving lines: curved lines are hard for me to tangle with - they want to go everywhere except where I want them to go!

When I look at mooka, I see flowers; tulip buds, to be specific - Mooka looks like a tulip, waiting to unfurl. I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to use Mooka as actual flowers, and this is the result:

"Moolips"

I call this one "Moolips"- tulips made of Mooka!

Naturally, I wanted big, bold, red tulips! Tulips are my favorite flower ever. When I lived in Indiana, I used to plant hundreds of tulip bulbs every year, adding to my growing tulip explosion in the Spring, but here in the South, they just do NOT come back every year, because our winters just don't get cold enough, so I ultimately gave up (after trying for a few years). I miss them! But I still have my daffodils!


In addition to Mooka, some of the tangles I incorporated into today's Tangle include Toeter and LinQ.

green parrot tulip - do you see the resemblance to Mooka?

Freeform Netting Necklace Update

This is how my freeform netting necklace (WIP!) looks this morning (it's my first attempt at freeform netting; I started it a couple of weeks ago):

freeform netting WIP

freeform netting detail

The embellishment beads I'm adding are citrine (in about 7 different sizes, shapes, and colors - look at those gorgeous faceted citrine rounds in the pic above!), hessonite, and freshwater pearls.

The necklace is in the "ugly duckling" stage right  now, where I'm not loving it too much. I still love the colors, but the stitching just isn't there yet. But I know if I keep working with it, it will turn out fine! It's funny how freeform pieces almost always go through these "ugly duckling" phases!

I haven't been able to work on it as much as I'd like, so this project is stretching out, time-wise. I have to regroup and gather my thoughts on this one every time I sit down to work on it, because it's been so long since the last time I worked on it! I hate when my beading gets interrupted!

I somehow got the piece twisted yesterday as I was stitching the last row; I ended the row at the stop bead, instead of on the opposite side. Oops. I looked to see if it made a difference, and I couldn't really tell, due to the wandering freeform stitching I had been doing in the middle section (the embellished section). This wandering stitching was what let me lose my place to begin with, and it's what makes me love the look of freeform, but since this happened at the end of the day, and I was tired, I need to take a fresh look at it this morning. I'll either half to take out half a row (no big deal with netting) or I'll just pick up where I put it down last night, and keep stitching.

I need to make the side pieces a little wider, so they are more proportional to the clasp I plan to stitch for this piece. Then I'll embellish the sides, and continue working with the front.

When I finish this necklace, instead of putting all the beads away, I'm going to make a freeform bracelet to go with it (hopefully, accompanied by one of my beady bloggy friends!). I am really crazy about these neutral colors!

Tuesday Tangle

I'm still exploring all the tangle patterns out there - this one looks like a quilt to me!

I wanted to use all new (to me) patterns, but found myself falling back on some old favorites, too.

Patterns I used in this tangle:
paradox
beadz
W2 (variation)
Double Deez
crescent moon
web (do you see the spider?)
strircles
tempest blockz
fern
amoeboid

A Trip to the Gem and Mineral Show

The Augusta Gem and Mineral Society is hosting their annual Gem and Mineral Show this weekend, and I closed the bead shop yesterday so I could scoot downtown and scope out the goodies!

Ostensibly, I was going so I could find some unusual things to offer for sale at the shop. Truthfully, I knew I was going because I love to look at all the fossils and gemstone specimens. Just looking, mind you - I would never buy any ..... says the woman with cabinet after cabinet after cabinet of fossil and gemstones in her home!

The good news: I found a few cabochons and other focals for the shop (and for my own silversmithing).
The bad news: I was behind 4 school buses as I approached the venue, and since it was 10AM, I had a sneaking suspicion where they were headed. Sure enough, they pulled in right in front of me, and discharged some 425+ school kids for a field trip to the Gem and Mineral Show. Ugh.

It was loud, and super-crowded in there, and very hard to get to the tables and displays. The headache that I already had soon blossomed into a Super Headache.

But I saw so many gorgeous rock and gemstone specimens. I wish I had had my camera with me (I purposely didn't take it, because I wanted my hands free for touching!) I saw many unusual specimens that up until yesterday, I had only seen on my Pinterest Gem and Mineral Board!

Here are some of the rocks that followed me home:

A fossil trilobite (in matrix);

Trilobite - Andalusia. Devonian Age, Morocco

 I think the back is almost as pretty as the front!

What you can't tell from these pics is that this specimen is 12 inches wide - it is basically the size of a small serving platter. I love it!


Citrine:

Citrine in matrix - unbelievable golden color!

This side view of the citrine specimen shows the crystal morphology and growth pattern.
This citrine was another large specimen - about 9 inches across. Absolutely stunning.

A gorgeous amethyst geode, 10 inches tall:

 amethyst geode

And as if this geode weren't lovely enough, all on its sparkly own,  if you look closely at the above pic, you can see some dark brown circles coming around either side - these are what make this piece special to me:

These brown circles represent an orbicular agate, growing alongside the amethyst (or, one is replacing the other - I don't know. Doesn't matter - they are together in this pretty specimen!) In this particular picture, there are some brown crystals visible mixed in with the amethyst; these are probably smoky quartz.

Elestial quartz:

Elestial quartz - mixture of clear and smoky quartz

This is a new one for me - never heard of it! The lady who owned the booth filled me in on its metaphysical properties (I just picked it out because it was pretty!) - I Googled it, and learned that elestial quartz consists of multilayered or etched quartz crystals with many small terminated crystal formations all over it; the most common elestials are smoky quartz, clear quartz, and citrine. Amethyst elestials are rare and ametrine elestials even more rare. Mine is a mixture of clear and smoky quartz.

This stunning opalized ammonite:

 Opalized ammonite, with brilliant gold, orange, and green fire.

Can you see the incredible fossilized leaves in this specimen? - I took a more detailed shot, just in case - this was breathtaking, to me.

Look at the fossilized leaves in this ammonite, and the flashes of opal fire!

Fossilized sand dollar; whole, intact clam; and sea urchin:

fossil sand dollar, clam, and sea urchin

Some quartz points (which didn't photograph well) and aqua aura points for wire wrapping:

aqua aura points and quartz points

More ammonites (sorry - the pic is over-exposed) - for wire wrapping, bezel setting, bead weaving, etc.:

ammonites

Some colorful dyed agate slices (I can think of so many cool ways to use these!):

 Dyed agate slices

They may not look too impressive in this photo, but look what happens when I hold them up to the light:

I love how you see the delicate veins in this blue one!

I love the colorful blue ruffles on the edge of this one!

Last, but not least, the cabs:

clockwise from top left: turquoise, sodalite, charoite, charoite, larimar

clockwise from top center: banded agate/quartz geode, rainforest jasper, magnesite, chrysoprase, rainforest jasper, and chrysocolla (center)

top row: dalmatian jasper; middle row: lapis; bottom: opals

I really scored, right?!

If I had an unlimited budget, I would pretty much have a house full of rocks - I have no idea where I am going to put these new ones!!

My Freeform Peyote Collar is now available on Etsy!

This gorgeous statement collar/neckpiece has been on display in my bead shop for the past few weeks, and I've had a lot of compliments, comments, and questions about it. Some of the more "interesting" remarks include: "Did you glue all those beads on there?" and "I hope you ask at least $100 for that."

So it is now available on Etsy, for slightly more than $100. Enjoy!