procrastination – The Indecisive Beader

Fresh cabochons

I’ve had a big push this weekend to finish, photograph and list all of the cabochons I have made, to clear space for the next batch.

They’re largely from three pouring sessions – the first working with reds and oranges, and for half of the batch, opaque salmon pink; and the second and third working with a cream base and trying a variety of different colours to complement the cream. These were poured quite recently to make a custom cab for an old school friend’s up-coming wedding. Her piece is under wraps for now, but I’ve begun another bridal piece with cabs from the batch, and you can see cabs from the brighter batch in some of my other finished work, such as my Autumn necklace.

All of the batches are available in my Etsy shop, grouped into listings based on the colours and techniques used. There is one set which is too perfectly matched to break up, and the rest are all available in singles as part of my 5 for 4 discount offer. Click on the images to go straight to the listings on Etsy.

Oscar’s Bauble

Oscar’s Bauble was originally made as a fully beadwoven babies’ rattle. It formed the winter part of my entry for the Stitch N Craft Challenge in 2014. In 2013 just as I was working on the piece our second son Oscar was born – a winter baby, the beads I had to incorporate for the challenge were soft cream opals, palest pinks and blues, and they matched his lovely delicate skin tone, so I made him a rattle. It has a tiny bell, a cellini spiral candy cane handle with lovely pink opal chatons at the base, and the main body is a dodecahedron made of hexagonal gumdrop bezels.

Whilst I don’t think I could repeat the rattle as a whole (there was a particularly challenging join to the handle involving a 20 bead hole needing to meet up with a 7 bead spiral), the bauble works really nicely on it’s own, with gumdrops or spikes, so I’ve finally written it up as a Tutorial which is now available in my Etsy shop. Hopefully in a week or so I will also have some Materials Packs for it as well – it’s taken nearly 4 years to write up the Tutorial though so for now I’m just focussing on getting it published!

Techniques – Circular Peyote

Difficulty Level – Intermediate. Knowledge of 3d beading is useful, and you’ll use the concepts of ‘step ups’ and ‘point rows’ so if you already know about these that will help.

The finished bauble measures 5.0cm in diameter made with Gumdrops, and 6.5cm with Spikes.

What will you need?

12 qty Czech Gumdrop beads 7x10mm, or Czech spikes 7x17mm

11A 11g Size 11 seed beads, colour A (main colour)

11B 8g Size 11 seed beads, colour B (highlight colour, forms the petals/star)

15A <1g Size 15 seed beads, colour A (although these are not seen so you could use any colour).

Something to hang the bauble with – fine chain, thread or fine ribbon or cord.

Beadweaving needles, thread of your choice, scissors.

Finished in the nick of time.

Why is it that I work so much better under pressure? Or is it that I just think I do because I am a hideous procrastinator and it makes a good excuse? Either way I have had nearly a year to get my four pieces done for this years Stitch ‘n’ Craft Four Seasons challenge, but with a week to go I was still faffing around with the construction of Autumn. Pretty fundamental stuff…..

Anyway, I gave up at about 10.30 on Friday night, and in the cold light of day (OK the very warm and humid light of yesterday) I’m reasonably content with the pieces as a whole and my final work on Autumn is just fine. I can’t show you any of them properly as that would spoil things, but there is a taster above. All peyote pretty much (have reverted to my beadweaving roots), and only one piece using delicas (so running away from my roots there). I labeled them up last night while dear husband was at a glamorous party, so tomorrow morning I need to scribble a quick note about presentation (‘please put necklace on bust, looks a bit odd otherwise, don’t really mind about the rest’), and then pack them up ready for posting. And then I am free – at least for a couple of days and then back to prepping for the Folksy featured shop and coping with the school holidays.

So for this year at least I can bid a fond farewell to the four pieces that took over my beading life – adieu to ‘Crystal Garland’; ‘Tumbling Leaves’; ‘A ********* for Oscar ‘ (sorry, can’t give you the full name because it spoils it); and ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. Bye Bye.

PS I rather suspect dearest husband would rather I didn’t enter next year – something to do with stress, obsession – not sure? He may be right because it does rather completely take over, but I’m reserving judgement until I know what next year’s challenge is……….sorry darling, and happy 7th wedding anniversary my sweet. XXX