February 2015 – The Indecisive Beader

I’ve been making another Fortuneteller, but this time with size 10 delicas. I used my previous one as a template, measuring the various distances as I beaded along and at first it went well. However, as it grew it became clear that the bigger beads meant that the thickness of the MRAW band made the inner layer significantly smaller than the original, and finishing the joins between the small horns was definitely going to make it unwearable by me at least. So rather than hoping for a tiny handed customer, or giving it to one of the boys (boy 2 is very keen on bangles) I’ve made it into a rather splendid bowl and I like it. Which is just as well…………

Recipe

Size 10 delicas in three shades of red, one orange and silver, 26g in total.
Size 3.4 drop beads.

Tips

Unless you actually want to make a bowl, I’d suggest a starter MRAW band which contains six repeated ‘Vs’ with 9 units on each side of the V (not the 8 units I used).
To get the colour effect I used, start the MRAW band with the silver, using one of the reds as the fill bead. Add a drop bead as one of the inner beads on any increases or decreases (you may want to miss them on the decreases – I chose to leave them in as I like the look of the drop nestling in the V. Then change red/orange every row. As you approach the horns, start adding the odd silver in, then more each row until you are just using silver. I chose a random pattern, mirrored on each pair of horns, but kept it identical for each round so that the graduation was even across all the horns. Then gently fade the reds back in, and finally as you approach the final tips work the silver back in again.
Size 10 delicas are still quite hard to get hold of in the UK. Stitch n Craft are expanding their range gradually, and as usual offer probably the most competitive pricing (assuming you spend enough to qualify for free postage, which I never fail to do), although their colour range is still quite limited. Charisma have a good range of colours, as do Fine Lines.
Finally, with this kind of work, especially with larger beads, you really can’t make any mistakes as they will be very obvious on the finished piece. I made quite a few as I was very tired, and the lovely push pin and eraser combo I was sent by the lovely Jean Power with my copy of Geometric Beadwork 1 was worked quite hard. I can’t remember having to break out this many beads for ages.

Other than my general incompetence it worked really well with the size 10s, and in many ways it’s the best use of these for geometric beadwork that I’ve tried before. I will have a go at an actual bangle once I’ve got all the other things on my beading list moving along.

The boys have a picture book filled with photos of pigs. Piggies sleeping, piggies leaping, piggies guzzling, piggies nuzzling, and piggies kissing. So when I finished my new bezel, which surrounds a luna soft cabochon with facing pairs of two hole ‘Piggy’ beads, no other name would do. The bezel came about because at the last Big Bead Show I found myself ambling around with nothing to buy – it’s more of a stringer’s fair than a beadweavers, and although there are some great teeny bead suppliers in between the big bead stands, I wasn’t really seeing anything new. So I started looking at all of the new bead shapes which I had hitherto resisted – the two holes, the funny dragon scales, rullas & pellets, and I picked up a pack or two of each, (discovering along the way a new supplier, The Old Bicycle Shop, who I can heartily recommend for their interesting selection, £1 postage and quick delivery). Then they sat in my stash for a few months whilst I dealt with going back to work, Christmas, and sickly children.

Kissing Piggies - Copper - Sarah Cryer Beadwork — Kissing Piggies – Copper – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Finally a couple of weeks ago I dug out the piggies, some superduos and a lunasoft cab and made myself keep trying until I came up with a decent design. I’m pleased with the finished design, it’s nice and simple and should be suitable for beginners who’ve tried a bit of RAW and peyote and have tension sorted. That said, it took a fair few attempts and a good many failures to get to something that would work as a tutorial (or work at all), so banning myself from doing anything else until I had mastered it was definitely necessary! I had the picture in my mind of the snuggling pairs from the beginning, so started from the outside and worked in – I can safely say that this does not work as a method, it was only once I gave up on that and designed a bezel that would have space for the piggies that things came together (although arguably without trying the outside in approach first I wouldn’t have known how much space to allow…..)

Eventually with the help of an MRAW starter (thank you again Contemporary Geometric Beadwork beaders – Jenny Sangster explains it very nicely on her blog)I mastered it, and it’s finished, written up & checked. As usual I’ve stuck with diagrams rather than just photos (as I find it’s worth the time to draw the diagrams to ensure that everything is absolutely clear, and it helps me check my placements and thread paths as I draw them), and every step is also written out.

Kissing Piggies - Jet Azurro - Sarah Cryer Beadwork — Kissing Piggies – Jet Azurro – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

So anyhow, it’s available now as a tutorial – instant download from PayHip & Etsy, and e-mailed from Folksy, all at £6. And in a fit of extraordinary organisation, I even have materials packs ready to rock and roll from Folksy and Etsy at £10 (UK only, sorry but I can’t get to the Post Office for overseas posting at the moment, and I think you’d find it uneconomic for a £10 pack anyway). It beads up in around an hour, and uses nothing smaller than an 11 (and only three rows of them) so nice and relaxing. Stick Sewing Bee on the telly and get beading!