Beadwork – Page 12 – The Indecisive Beader

My 2016 beady to do list

After my obligatory blogger’s 2015 review, here’s my equally obligatory 2016 look ahead! Thank you to my sister Susie for the apposite mug – it is sadly true as I spend a worrying amount of time thinking about what I want to bead. This is probably because I have so little time to actually bead, so this year I want to make a plan and sort of stick to it, so I can always have something on hand ready to work on (rather than sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike because I’ve forgotten that really good idea I had three months ago).

So to begin, the projects I started in 2014 and didn’t touch in 2015 – the dreaded ‘unfinished but not quite a UFO yet’ box.

Planned for me to wear at my friend Jane’s wedding in the smartest venue imaginable. Abandoned when I decided the dress was too short for said venue. This was going to be a series of arches to mirror the digital print of the Ted Baker dress, and I think I’ll continue trying to work it out as it’s a lovely dress. That said, when I pulled the bits so far to take a snap I wasn’t very impressed…….so for now this is back in the ‘maybe’ pile.

Planned for me to wear at same wedding with smarter outfit, just as a simple short necklace. Abandoned when I realised said outfit now too small. I have plans to turn this into a shoulder covering cape of bezelled stones, connected by a cobweb of antique gold 3mm fire polished beads, but it could take a while to bezel enough stones for that! The stones are a mix of vintage and new Swarovski, and were a very good exercise in working up similar bezels in lots of shapes and sizes. I’m a lot more confident in this one though, so it’s high up the list to actually do. It would be a good holiday project as I’d only need the gold beads and chatons (not my normal case full of random pulls).

These are a variant on Jean Power’s Geometric Secret vessels – only with triangles instead of hexagons. They’re lovely shaped things, but the one in 15 delicas (at the front) is rather more succesful than the one in 11s as it holds it’s shape, but I’ve never quite known what to do with it as a triangle is not a very wearable shape – it sticks out rather. It could make a nice pendant hanging below a suitable bosom I suppose? Not sure what to do with the other one? Back on the ‘maybe’ pile.

This one may not make it – I was playing with twin beads to make a flat weave, but I’ve run out of the twins and can’t remember where I got them. Luckily I do in theory log all my purchases (so I can cost up work/kits), so I should be able to work it out. If I finish this it will have a long or box clasp and sit as a snug cuff, and I’d like to as it is my colour. I’d say there is no more than an hour’s beading left to do once I’ve sourced the beads, so stays on the ‘to do’ pile.

Maybe I should have included a section on ‘pieces where I’ve run out of beads’ – this one qualifies as well……..it will be a necklace once I’ve worked out how to elegantly extend it to a normal length (or tracked down some more beads). This would make a nice beginners tutorial as it is super easy, but I think there are already quite a few similar ones around. On the ‘to do’ pile.

This is a barely started Jean Power Affinity Bangle – using very cool rubber coated rondelles from my now defunct local bead shop. I think I have enough to get me through it (I kept buying more in their drawn out closing sale), and I’ve made one before which was a joy, so I want to get going on this soon as the colours are more winter than summer and I think it will be lush!

So, that’s the really old stuff out of the way – just tutorials, last year’s unfinished pile, my long list of unstarted patterns and of course a ‘to try’ inspiration list to go. This could be the longest set of New Year’s resolutions I’ve written (hopefully I’ll be better at sticking to them than I normally am). Tune out if you get bored………….

A year in beads

I’m sorry I’ve been a bit quiet here lately – Christmas is rather a busy time in our house and we’ve had quite a few concerts and other seasonal events, plus of course the extra work and activities which having children bring. I’ve managed to find some time to bead, but sadly not much time to blog, so apologies. I will endeavour to do better in 2016 (more about that tomorrow).

Anyway, as is the fashion in the blogsphere at this time of year, I thought it would be nice (and also quite useful) to have a look through all of the pieces I’ve finished this year. I did start writing out a long spiel about success, failure, regrets, plans, but although it’s probably a useful exercise for me, it’s a bit dull for you (you know what Ive been doing, I blog about it for heavens sake). So instead here is a gallery containing every single finished piece from 2015, even the ones which didn’t make it into this blog or onto Facebook because they were pants or a secret. It has made me feel better about the amount I’ve beaded (even if there are quite a lot of beaded beads, and not as many big pieces as there ought to be), and the quality of the finished work is reassuring!

Enjoy, and see you in 2016!

Hollow Dodecahedron – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Anemone beaded beads by The Indecisive Beader

Nasturtium Ring by SarahCryerBeadwork

Kissing Piggies – Brights

National Beading Week 2015 Secret Beadalong, designed by Jean Power, beaded by Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Conway Beaded Bead – Gwen Fisher, beaded by the Indecisive Beader

Great Ball of Spikes – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Great Ball of Spikes – Turquoise, Silver & Neon Pink – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Modified RAW Cuff – Neon PInk & Pewter

Great Ball of Spikes – Black, White & Neon Pink – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Baby spike bezel, before the cab fell out.

Zuzana by Spirala Beading – beaded by Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Bead embroidery by Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Cluster Beaded Bead – Gwen Fisher

Conway Beaded Bead – Gwen Fisher, beaded by the Indecisive Beader

Blue tits and friends, before the brooch backs fell off.

Some beaded beads

Great Balls of Gumdrops – Bruised Gunmetal – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Sabine Lippert Stars

Kissing Piggies – Jet Azurro – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Icos Pendant – designed by Jean Power, beaded by Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Parrot Feather Earrings – Cobalt to Fuchsia

Volcanic Ring

Kissing Piggies – Copper – Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Baroque Tape Measure for Mum

Little Beaded Box for Granny Eva (Design by Julia S Pretl)

Shell Bead from Beaded Beads

Parrot Feather Earrings – Silver to Gunmetal

Etched Farfalle RAW Cuff

Anemone Beaded Bead necklace – Blues

Spikes – Sample 3

Polaris Dagger Ring by Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Pair of Blue Tits

Craft not chaos

The lovely people over at Folksy are running an alternative take on the Black Friday/Cyber Monday phenomenon called ‘Craft not Chaos’, with lots of gorgeous shops offering discounts today or over the weekend. So if you’re looking for gorgeous hand made gifts, toys, clothes, jewellery, furniture or just things that are generally lovely why not pop over and have a look here?

And I’m taking part by offering 10% off finished beadwork until Monday 30th, using the discount code BLACKFRIDAY. Because Folksy can only discount my whole shop, I’ve had to hide my tutorials and materials packs while the discount is in place, but beaders don’t panic, you can still buy them via my Etsy and PayHip shops, and they’ll be back on Folksy on Tuesday.

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

How not to succeed in beading……

All this talk of tape measures reminded me that I haven’t actually made one of my Baroque Tape measures since I released the pattern. So rather than finishing some more materials packs so other people could make them, I had a go myself. I’ve been wanting to do a more multicoloured version for ages, something a bit huicholly. So I pulled some beads, got the pattern up on the iPad, and started beading. It did not go well.
Changing colours this often just doesn’t work with this design – you loose the shapes formed between beads and by the beads themselves.

And even worse, I started the netting out of the wrong row of the peyote bezel, meaning the rivoli sticks out way too far, so all in all not good. Below you can see the ‘wrong’ version next to my later correct version – the rivoli bezel now forms part of the netted surround, rather than the surround looking like it’s been tacked on.

So that version was abandoned, I took an evening off to make those Materials Packs, and then I tried again. This time I paid more attention to my own instructions, thus avoiding the bezel error, and I changed seed bead colours only every two or three steps, rather than every step as before. And hopefully you will agree that this looks much better.

There were still a few things I’d forgotten since I’d done the original design:

Firstly, back then I didn’t use Fireline. Now I do, and it does noticeably alter my tension (to the extent that I’m actually thinking of stopping using it). This was worsened when I lost the reel I’d been using (small people move stuff), and grabbed another reel which turned out to be one of the faulty ones from a while back. So lesson learned – netting suits a thread with a bit of give, like the lovely Miyuki threads, and in addition, using a poor quality thread will slow you down and make a good finish all the more difficult. So use the best you can, all of the time. Throw the rest away so you won’t use it by mistake.

Secondly, I should have used a coloured thread that matched the tape measure – that way you can relax your tension without worrying about gaps between the beads exposing the thread, and the pattern will still work fine but be much more pleasurable to bead. Honestly, it’s all basic stuff………………

Thirdly, I ignored my own instructions to stop adding the firepolished beads when you get to the tape hole – I worked around it (just as I did in the early prototypes, before I worked out how to cope with the hole properly), but I’m annoyed with myself as it’s just not as good. Read the instructions woman!

Finally, I had a go at working with a messier bead tray – all my beads muddled up together instead of carefully kept in separate piles. This was partly because I’ve read a few articles recently discussing how different headers like to work, so I thought I’d try the mixed up way, and partly because unpicking the failed first side left me with muddled up beads anyway. This was not a good move – it drive me completely crazy, I hated not being able to just pick up the bead I needed, and as I had multiple sizes of the same colour out it led to mistakes. I am quite confident that it would have been quicker to re-sort the beads into piles first, as it really slowed me down. Never again.

I still need to add a beaded bead of some sort for the pull tab, so I’ll have a delve around my stash of previous work and interesting beads (I’m sure I have a red tea pot somewhere – not very Mexican but fun anyway). But it has been a very useful learning experience going back to it, and I have another one planned as a Christmas gift now (which will hopefully be a bit better).

Yet more materials packs

Do you know I have now put together 28 different colourways, many of which can be seen here.….? Anyway, another set are available now, including some using a new, transparent tape measure.

U.K. Buyers can order from my Folksy or Etsy shops.

Standard – Scarlet & green

SOLD OUT – Ruby & Sapphire

SOLD OUT Scarlet, Silver & Gunmetal

Autumn leaves

Pretty in Pink

SOLD OUT – Fuchsia & Plum Iris 2

I’m often asked by overseas buyers if I can send to them, so in case you are one of them,so I thought it would be useful to stick one of the replies I sent to a lovely US customer here where you can all see:

I don’t normally ship overseas as postage outside the UK is so ridiculously expensive even for small packages, that it doesn’t really make the packs very good value for customers. Postage to the US would be £10 (just over $15), so whilst I’m happy to do it, you may be better off selecting the beads yourself locally/from your stash and spending that postage money on even more beads! However, everything I include in the packs should be readily available internationally – below are some tips on tape measure & bead selection, and an exact list of the pattern’s requirements with quantities to help you decide.

Tape measure – they are pretty widely available from craft shops and online (for example http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/150CM-RETRACTABLE-TAPE-MEASURE-60-SEWING-RETRACTABLE-TAPE-MEASURE-UK-SELLER-/321086910860?nav=SEARCH or http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/Retractable-Metro-Coloured-Round-Pull-Out-Tape-Measure-Metric-Imperial-150cm-/160975946906?nav=SEARCH. I have found the ‘metro’ brand are better quality, but pretty much all of the others available are fine size wise.

The beads themselves are all standard stuff – you can substitute rounds for fire polisheds and vice versa, and even change colour more often in the seeds. The only ones to watch out for are the drops, which are 2.8mm rather than 3.4mm (they have a very slender stem compared to the 3.4, so you can’t swap).

In terms of colourways, there are infinite options, but there are pictures here of some of the ones I’ve sold in the past (scroll down to get to the right tutorial): https://theindecisivebeader.com/materials-packs-shop/.

The exact requirements are:

2qty 14mm Round Rivoli

3g Size 15 Seed Bead Colour A

10g Size 11 Seed Bead Colour A

3g Size 11 Seed Bead Colour B

47 qty 3mm Fire Polished Beads

46 qty 4mm Round Beads

98 qty 2.8mm Drop Beads

B 32 qty 3mm Bicone Crystals

Tape Measure, 50mm diameter, 10mm thick.

Beadweaving needles, thread of your choice, scissors.

So I hope this helps you understand why I keep to the UK only with the packs – do contact me though if you have any problems sourcing the items.

Wings……

I’ve finished my latest Contemporary Geometric Beadwork influenced piece – a large pointy bangle. The idea with this piece was to work with the ideas from CGB, but for the first time to ignore their finished pieces and patterns and see where I ended up. I also wanted to work with a tube of sweepings from Stitch & Craft, to free myself up from the hours I tend to spend selecting colours!

I started with a MRAW band which I thought would be roughly the right size for a bangle (I was wrong – it was huge), then added some increases and decreases to form a zig zag. I beaded that for a while, then added some increases halfway along each side to start to form peaks which I thought I could join together to start to shrink the piece down and make it human (rather than elephant sized)! I planned to add some crystals to join the peaks together, but when I tried it they didn’t work, and left the piece a bit too wobbly. After some unpicking I decided to stick to delicas, joined the peaks and beaded across either side of the join to make continuous lines and curves, surrounding the whole piece with a dark magenta metallic outline.

At that point I decided the original MRAW band wasn’t sitting correctly – the alternating zigs and zags meant that it needed to point in different directions so I couldn’t turn it into a CGB skirt to firm up the shape and make it smaller. So that got unpicked from the inside out, and I added a couple of rows of peyote in fuchsia metallics, and the decreases sorted the sizing out.

So it’s all done, and available in my Etsy shop. It’s also my entry for the Etsy Beadweavers Team October Challenge – ‘Abstract Painting’. If you’ve got a moment pop over to our blog and have a look at the other entries (or search ‘EBWC’ on Etsy). And if you could take a few seconds to vote for your favourite we’d really appreciate it.

Time……..

I don’t know about you, but I always feel like I don’t have enough time – enough time to work, clean, play with the boys, rest, relax, and above all, I don’t feel like I spend enough time beading in a productive way. When I’m at my day job, I start a task, move through it, maybe edit my outputs a bit, but generally I can just get on with it. And at home, I can just get on with things, albeit with the distractions of two small children to contend with.

But when I’m beading, even after years of practise, I still seem to spend more time unpicking than creating, and this bothers me. But why – as I unpick and redo endlessly surely I’m learning something, making my design repeatable for others (rather than bodging to make it work once), improving my own knowledge and technique? So why do I find it so frustrating? At this point I should say, if you’re reading this hoping for the answer to avoiding re-work, or learning from your mistakes, I don’t have it – I’m just putting the question out there for now.

Some things I do know though which can help with this:

If you bead tired you will mess up. I always bead tired as I only get to bead in the evenings once the boys are asleep and I’ve cleaned up, cooked dinner and faffed around for a bit deciding what to do. This could be why I always mess up.
Get a good light. Then you won’t get quite so tired.
Don’t bead in front of University Challenge – you will either get an embarrassing number of questions wrong, or mess up your beading.
Don’t expect every piece to turn into a repeatable unit – I made a lovely bezel base for a neon pink Lunasoft cab last weekend. I then used that base to make a ring using gorgeous daggers and another Lunasoft cab, and it went together like a dream. When I returned to the original pink cab ready to add some dinky spikes to my oh so clever bezel I realised that they wouldn’t fit. After an evening going backwards and forwards I finally finished with a pretty clever arrangement only to realise that the spikes are far too small for the cab. I have of course learnt from this experience, and will no doubt dig out a smaller cab but how annoying, and don’t I wish now I’d gone to bed an hour earlier?

Have a place to keep nearly finished pieces – the brooches waiting for a brooch back, the components looking for an inspired construction. Then when you have a quick 30 minutes you can batch finish several – yesterday I remembered where I had put the glue and completed two brooches, a bracelet and a ring! OK, I finished the actual beadwork on them ages ago, but the real sense of achievement kicks in once they are done (and not sitting at the back of your mind nagging you).

If you feel like you’re not getting stuff done, keep track. This morning I grabbed all of my recently finished pieces and .was very pleasantly surprised. OK many of them were started many months ago, but they are done now so I can move on.

If it’s not working, stop, go to bed. Yes it may be better to carry on straight away if you can see a possible solution, but then again it might not, so you may as well get some sleep and try again fresh tomorrow. Or indeed try again next month.
And finally, unpicking is OK. Beading is way too slow a process to put up with something you aren’t happy with, particularly in the big pieces. I started my latest CGB work with a MRAW band which then didn’t work as the piece started to fold, and really started to vex me. So I finished the outside of the piece, put it away for a bit and then when I felt strong enough, took a deep breath and unpicked the beginning. I then added a new inside which also then began to annoy me, so I put that away for a bit longer, got it out again yesterday, unpicked it again, tried something slightly different (and a lot less clever) and now at last the damm thing is finished. Third time lucky – hopefully the luck will hold out as it’s my entry for the Etsy Beadweaver’s Team October Challenge! You can see more pictures in the Etsy listing (click on the image below).

Abstract Reflections - beadwoven statement bangle — Abstract Reflections – Beadwoven Statement Bangle Sarah Cryer Beadwork

Of course the test of all this is going to be whether I can take my own advice. Reading it through again I’d have to say it seems unlikely……

Beaded Bead 7

Wow, seven already. This is a variant on Bead 2, using smaller 4mm pearls, size 8 seeds and colour lined crystal 3.4mm drops which look very silly and lovely. I was actually intending to use lentils rather than the drops, which is why I deviated from my usual colour scheme but they simply didn’t work.

Recipe

4mm cerise glass pearls (picked up randomly on my beady travels)

Miyuki 3.4mm drops Hot Pink Lined Crystal (colour 23)

Galvanised Zest duracoat Miyuki 4205 size 8 seeds

Beaded Bead 4

And so to my stash of patterns. I sat down just after I started this project and looked through my various beading books, bookmarking all of the beaded beads I thought would fit in. And my, there are a lot. And then I turned to my digital library of beading magazines, and remembered that Beadwork had done a series of Beaded Beads a couple of years back. I tried some of them at the time, but didn’t have quite the right beads in my stash, and have had more success this time. I’m not going to do the whole set of 5 (as this is a stash only project and I don’t think I’ve got all of the larger beads needed for some of them), but here’s the first one anyway.

Cluster Beaded Bead - Gwen Fisher - Beaded by Sarah Cryer Beadwork — Cluster Beaded Bead – Gwen Fisher – Beaded by Sarah Cryer Beadwork

It’s from the April/May 2012 Beadwork Magazine, and is by Gwen Fisher – Cluster Beaded Bead. It’s a super one, goes together really nicely and quickly. I don’t tend to have many 8mm rounds knocking around though, so I will need to order some more if I want to repeat this one.

Recipe

8mm rounds – Neon Purple (BeadsofBohemia)

3mm Fire polished – I substituted 3mm rounds, Neon Ocean Blue Matt (Robin’s Beads)

15 & 11 seeds – Miyuki 1051 Galvanised Silver

8 seeds – Miyuki 356 Purple lined Amethyst AB

Tips

None really, nice pattern, clear instructions. I mainly worked off the illustrations rather than the written out steps, which is normal for me, but the steps seem clear if you’re more comfortable with those.

This has inspired and helped me with Beaded Bead 6, although I see now looking at the diagrams again that I used a significantly different thread path and set of steps for Bead 6, even though I thought I was doing something similar………..

Beaded Bead 6

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that this isn’t exactly running in order – that’s because some of the beaded beads are easier to blog about than others. For example beads 4&5 are photographed, but I need to pull out the references and links needed to give the designers proper credit. Bead 6 is one of mine so less digging needed.

Bead 6 is actually a set of samples which will hopefully evolve into a new tutorial – not quite there yet, as in samples 1 & 2 there’s a size 11 placement which annoys me, and the spikes in sample 3 are rather wobbly. But I will persevere.

Sample 1 was born of beading lots of different beaded beads, and getting one of the possible structures so stuck into my brain that I had to try it in spikes. It uses 12 spikes, woven into a kind of a cube with trios at the corners. At least I think it is – looking at the finished ones I’m no longer sure (best take some step by step photos of sample 4).

Sample 2 uses gumdrops (they are often interchangeable with standard size spikes as they have the same size base – 7mm). It switches to 11s from 15s in some places, but as you can see above still has 11s in the trios and they don’t sit right.

And sample 3 is back to spikes to try and iron out some flaws in 1&2 by just using 15s. Still not right though, the spikes are more wobbly than 1. One more combination left to try I think……..