beads – Page 4 – The Indecisive Beader

Materials Packs for Great Balls of Spikes

I’ve been meaning to put together some Materials Packs for my Great Balls of Spikes Tutorial for ages, and on Saturday I had the time (well I had the energy to stay up late to make the time). So here they are – I hadn’t realised quite how many Spikes & Gumdrops I’ve managed to collect whilst ‘meaning to do this’, so there is a nice variety of colours and finishes to suit all tastes. I’ve really dug around in my stash to find some interesting finishes for the seeds and fire-polished beads, and am parting with some really nice ones which I’ve been hoarding. My favourite is the Magic Orchid Spike colourway, because the spikes are gorgeous and really sing with the Zest, Fuchsia and Magic Orchid seeds and Magenta Metallic fire-polisheds, and quite frankly if someone doesn’t buy it soon it may mysteriously disappear.

Anyway, here they all are – if you click on each photo it should take you through to the correct listing in my Folksy shop. If you’d rather use Etsy, then the brights (Magic Orchid, Cornflower, Frosted Crystal) are here, the darks (Matte Black, Jet Copper, Blue Iris) here, and the Gumdrops (Magic Blueberry, Jet Slipperit) here.

And finally, the tutorial itself is available for instant download via Etsy here (VAT will be added if you are in the EU), via PayHip here (no VAT), or if you don’t mind waiting for me to e-mail via Folksy here (no VAT).

The Sting

I’ve been working really hard on a competition piece recently, and after a month’s solid discipline I fell of the wagon last week and wandered off into other beading. I’m sure the break will be good for me, but none of the other beading really worked and that made me rather antsy. When this happens, there are two options – have a night off beading, or do something which can’t fail. I didn’t want a night off, so I turned to my stash of digital patterns to find something by a designer who never lets me down – Sabine Lippert. Just before Christmas she had a pattern sale, so I had a little splurge on a few patterns, including her pendant ‘Sting’. This looked like something which would be achievable in an evening or two, so I pulled some beads and got going.

It was a good decision – as always with Sabine’s designs this piece went together very nicely. It took around 3.5 hours – I’m used to Sabine’s designs so can usually work them up quite quickly, and I found this one pretty easy, with everything just slotting together perfectly for a contented evening’s beading. It’s given me my beading mojo back, and with some child free time off the day job coming up, I feel refreshed and ready to get some of those long awaited tutorials finished and launched soon.

Recipe

15 seed – Miyuki Duracoat Cranberry 4211
11 seed – Miyuki Matte Silver Grey 2012
SuperDuo – Jet Gunmetal Pearl
Delica – Miyuki Matte Pewter 321
3mm Crystals – Swarovski Paparadscha AB2 (slightly hard to find colour in 3mm – I got mine at a show from Gemstone Boutique)
Spikes – Dark Bronze. I have no idea where they came from!
3mm Round – I didn’t have any in the right colour, so I used some Saturated Fuchsia firepolisheds from Robin’s Beads, which worked well.
6mm Round – I used an orange FP, this can’t really be seen so you just need something that tones in.
14mm Rivoli – Chinese (not as fine a finish as Swarovski or Preciosa, so they don’t work with a tighter bezel, but a fantastic colour which neither of them offer and worked for this project – from the Southampton Bead Shop)

The ribbon (I know it needs a press, it’s been lurking in my stash for ages) was hand dyed by Stef Francis, a fantastic space dyer who I came across in my sewing days.

Tips

I usually find my tension too tight for Sabine’s pieces, because of the 3D embellishments and layering. So I relaxed things a bit, but unfortunately I shouldn’t have done as this is one which requires stiff tension to create a solid rod of peyote, so it came out a bit floppy. However, I have stuck a head pin down the middle and it’s fine!

Sabine does warn you about this in the blurb on her site, but not in the pattern. Because I’d bought the pattern a while ago, I’d forgotten what the blurb said, but to be honest a beader of my experience should know that if you want to make a peyote tube rigid you’ve got to do some pretty solid stitching, and use a suitable thread – Sabine recommends Fireline explicitly in the materials list (which should have been another clue) but I’ve gone off it a bit, so I used KO which is clearly not going to give the same rigidity. So entirely my fault, but a useful learning experience (just when you think you have things sussed…..), and it still looks fine. If I make this design again, which I probably will, I might perhaps stick a cocktail stick down the middle for extra stiffness anyway (the head pin I used is after all flexible).

Colours

One of my resolutions this year is to include more neutral colours in my beadwork – I have a tendency to chuck colour at things, which sometimes gives me an amazing looking piece which is completely unwearable. I try to avoid beading with black as it’s hard work, and anyway I wear a lot of navy blue rather than black, so I’ve been using a lot of 401FR and similar to give me a navy base. I’m also getting really into pewter, and other matte, mid greys, as they work well with the etched beads I’m currently obsessed with, so for this piece I chose a selection of those tones for the base beads, and variations on a dark salmon pink for the main colour. I toyed with a few different spikes (which you can see in the materials picture), but in the end the dark metallic chocolate worked best. This was going against my instincts, which were to pick out the fuschia and orange of the stone, and maybe chuck in some zest, but I think it’s worked well and given me a striking but wearable piece, proving that this is a good resolution!

Conclusion

A lovely piece, well worth buying and trying. Rock hard tension and the correct thread would have helped keep the main shaft rigid, so always read the instructions. I’m going to get back to my own work for now, but next time I need a break I’ve got Sabine’s Toggle Ring tutorial to try.

Playing with forms

For years now I’ve been eyeing up my children’s tiny plastic toy animals – surely I could bead around one and make something really funky? But I’ve been put off by two things- firstly they are really small and it would be fiddly (I know this is ironic coming from a beadweaver) and the ‘spare’ ones here are all creepy crawlies and I really don’t like them. We do have a giant octopus just crying out to be beaded but he is much too big.

So when I was in the local art shop (gorgeous Cass Arts) the other day and saw some small Decopatch creatures I thought ‘aha – they look fun’. So I now own a lovely Brontosaurus – she’s small enough to be achievable, but big enough to allow me to work out some techniques in sensibly sized beads. She’ll be an ornament rather than something to wear, but if she works I can try a smaller form next time – I’m seeing a range of necklaces made of tiny beaded T-Rex’s already…………….

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………….

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 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………..

Secret Beadalong – Day 4

Domestic commitments yesterday mean I am no longer working a day ahead! So here is day 4, just in time. This one was quite fiddly and took a while to complete, but I like the results. As a set they are looking rather splendid.

I have also done half of day 5, which went together more quickly, but want to check placement of the second half, so will wait for Jean to post her picture tomorrow……….and it is way past my bedtime anyway!

Secret Beadalong Day 1 – Fringetastic!

I’ve finished Day 1 – have you? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, have a look here or here! See you tomorrow for Day 2………

National Beading Week

Here in the UK the Beadworker’s Guild’s National Beading Week will begin tomorrow (25th July). There are lots of activities all over the country, at Bead Groups and in shops, but as I am a bit constrained by work and it bring the school holidays, I’m joining the beading community remotely in a few different ways. Firstly, I’m taking part in Jean Power’s Secret Bead Along – I’ve completed my prep work which you can see at the top of this post with my beads all ready, and a bit of day 1 (a bit early but I couldn’t wait, photos tomorrow). As you can see I have chosen very subtle colours.

Anyway, you can read all about it on Jean’s site or read my blog post containing the details here. I’ll be popping a quick blog post out every day to show progress, and you can follow lots of other beader’s work on the Secret Beadalong Facebook group which Jean has set up. Over 4000 beaders worldwide have signed up for this, which is absolutely amazing – Jean has done an amazing thing and it’s really very exciting and inspiring taking part. For me the lovely thing is knowing that so many other beaders will be working on the same piece at the same time. That includes that my little sister Susie Hoad, who I taught to beadweave a few years ago and got hooked on Jean’s work. She is now a designer and teacher in her own right, and we plan to finish the last day’s beading together next Saturday, which will be just lovely. Being Susie she is doing two colourways (but she is a teacher so I guess she has nothing to do now school has broken up – or could it be that indecisiveness runs in the family?).

Secondly I’m going to kick off a project for this blog to celebrate the awesome range of beadweaving going on around the world – ‘Beading Beaded Beads’. I’m going to be coming back to one of my original reasons for blogging – to show, review & comment on tutorials and patterns by other designers (as well as writing about my own original work). I’ve put together a range of beaded beads, some from books & tutorials I already own, some from free tutorials, and some of my own designs, and the idea is that over the coming months I will focus on beading them. I’ll be working from my stash, so I’m going with two colourways (as even my stash won’t accommodate the range of beads required to complete the various designs in one colour scheme) – bright fuchsia, lime, scarlet and orange, and fuchsia (again), indigo, cobalt and a bit of silver and gunmetal. Hopefully I will end up with two very spectacular necklaces. You can see the initial cut of designs on a Pinterest Board here, if you have any suggestions (or designs you’d like me to road test) then comment here or on Facebook and I’ll give them a try too.

I started beading earlier this week, and was hoping to have the first beaded bead to show off for the start of National Beading Week, but sadly the first beaded bead did not go well. Out of fairness to the designer I’m going to have another go before I post about it………….probably just me being tired and being a bit of a tight beader.

Secret Bead Along

The utterly fabulous Jean Power is holding a Secret Bead Along for National Beading Week. It’s £5 to participate, or if you either subscribe to her newsletter (recommended – always interesting, you hear first about new designs and usually get a discount code for patterns) or are a member of the Beadworker’s Guild its’ FREE. I have my instructions for the pre-work, and am currently faffing about what colours to use (normal for me I know, but worsened by not knowing what I’m actually working towards)! Hopefully my sister Susie Hoad will also be participating – we are off on holiday together towards the end of that week and it would be great fun to finish off together. I don’t get to bead with other beaders in person very often, so I love the idea that so many of us will all be beading together around the country (or perhaps the world), and even if we’re not in the same room it will be supercool to see what everyone produces.

Above is a picture of one of Jean’s designs (beaded my me) so you can see just how exciting her work is!