For the Challenge, we could make anything we wanted, so long as we used all the pieces, and the focal was clearly the focal. Everyone made some beautiful pieces! Here's mine:
So, it is a Challenge, which means you need to go vote! Here's a link to the album on Facebook. Once you're there, you need to "Like" the photo! You can comment as well, and please do, but the "Likes" are the votes. :)
Okay, so I've been bead weaving for about a year, a year and a half, now, and I have to say, some stitches are pretty easy, while others are fiendishly difficult. But my favorite, as I've said before, has GOT to be the spiral rope. It's a very easy basic stitch, but is so, so, SOOOOOO versatile! The basic stitch is a 4-4 loop, and you add one bead to the core for each new stitch.
There's a pretty good video tutorial of this stitch here by Andrea from Beadaholique
So, now that you've seen a basic tutorial, I just wanted to show how you can step this stitch up. I have several different pieces, all bits of jewelry I've made, using this stitch, and embellishing it in different ways:
The basic weave, using the 4-4 ratio, but just changing up the colors as I went on...
A complete spiral set!
4-4 spiral attached to a hand-painted piece...
A teaser pic! using a 4-7 ratio. Gave it that nicely lacy look!
using bicones--a 4-5 ratio. because of the size of the bicones, though, it doesn't end up quite as lacy as the above... kinda cool and chunky!
a 4-4 weave, with evenly spaced embellishment rounds... I actually began this bracelet in the middle, by accident (that's the other nice thing about the spiral--it's very forgiving in length issues, and you can work in either direction from your beginning stitch...)
My latest piece! a 4-7 focal with the three teardrops, moving to a 4-5 ratio for the length of the necklace...
with turquoise rounds alternating with solid sand-colored seeds. The Beachcomber! Oddly chunky and delicate all at the same time...
Just a pretty, simple bracelet with the center focal. One of my favorites!
There you have it! All the same stitch, and yes, some obvious similarities, but such different and gorgeous pieces (if I do say so myself...)
Well, it took a good minute, what with all the, you know, real work and stuff, but I finally got a few new pieces up on my Artfire page. You can see them here. I'm in the middle of a rather major revision of my artfire page, and I'm aiming to spend the rest of my summer learning some new techniques, posting some new work, and trying to make a real go of my jewelry business. Which, if I really want this to be my life's primary work, I really need to get to work on!
So, the latest work... well, I have several more pairs of earrings, since earrings are something of a staple for me (I'm looking into making clip-on earrings, too, since I have several family members without pierced ears, so let me know if you'd be interested.) But I also posted a bracelet I'm quite proud of. The stitch is called the African Helix stitch, and I found a video tutorial for it on YouTube. With this stitch, it's relatively easy to master the basics, (you work with five beads at a time, so there's not too much room for damage) but I'm discovering new and different problems every time I make another piece. For example, this stitch is worked on a wooden dowel or pencil. I thought it would be a good idea to score the pencil with inch marks, so I'd know how long the bracelet was. Great idea, yeah? Yeah, I thought so, too... until I had to destroy the pencil to get the bracelet base off... oops! So far I've made 2 bracelets, and I have an idea for earrings.
[caption id="attachment_19" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This is the African Helix Stitch bracelet, done in a base of matte black, with transparent lilac accent beads."][/caption]
I've also made an awesome little bracelet for a good friend of mine who's moving back to Arizona next week. She's had a rough few months, but is getting back on her feet, and she collects bracelets, so I figured it'd be perfect (it was! She loves it!) My goal was to make her a "Beach Bracelet." She's lived here in Florida for 5 or 6 years, and doesn't really want to move back to Arizona, but at the moment, there's really no other option. So I wanted her to take a wee piece of Florida with her. Here it is:
I found some wonderful shell beads at Michaels, so that was obviously going to be the focal, since this is a "Beach" bracelet, and Florida definitely has shell-y beaches (unfortunately, we also have other icky stuff on our beaches now, too... boo....) And, of course, any "beach" bracelet must have it's water and sand! I used a spiral rope stitch (probably my true favorite, and the first I ever learned) that I modified a bit to include a bit more framing around the turquoise beads. This is just such a fun and bright little bracelet!
So that's my new news! More fun and changes to come!
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