Image – Page 12 – The Indecisive Beader

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…………….

Our Solar System

One of the best bits of winning an Etsy Beadweavers Challenge is that you get to choose a future challenge topic. The first time I won (with my Nasturtium Ring) I chose ‘Architecture’, which prompted some lovely entries. My second win, with my Wings Bangle for the ‘Abstract Painting’ challenge was last October and my space mad family chose ‘Our Solar System’ as a theme. Because we don’t run a challenge in December, and because January is always ‘Rising Star’ (for new members and those who haven’t won a challenge), the team have had plenty of thinking and beading time, and there have been a huge number of really fabulous entries. I’ve not entered because I did a Planets necklace a while back and was a bit stumped for a new idea – looking at the entries I wouldn’t have stood a chance anyway!

So, the brief I gave them was:

The Solar System

In our house at the moment we are completely obsessed with our Solar System. My husband has a new telescope which we’ve been using to look at the moon and planets, so he’s constantly coming up with new activities (last week we all watched the International Space Station whizz over us). Recently we saw a wonderful harvest moon, followed the same night by the lunar eclipse (so much better than last year’s cloud covered solar eclipse), and last week I opened my newspaper to see some extraordinary new images of Jupiter’s storms from the Hubble Space Telescope, so when it came to choosing a theme it seemed like the whole universe was shouting at me!

Anyway, our Solar System seems like wonderful inspiration for beaders – how about beaded beads making a necklace of planets, a scatter of rough natural crystals captured in freeform beadwork forming the Asteroid belt, or some bead embroidery inspired by the twisting stripes of Jupiter’s storms? And if you get stuck you can always watch our favourite song for inspiration, or if you are feeling more sensible have a look at the Hubble website’s gallery (don’t get distracted by the far off nebulae though, please stick to our own Solar System).

I gave them a link to Thomas (5) & Oscar’s (2) favourite song:

And to the Hubble Gallery.

And this is what they produced – extraordinary!

Here are links to the Etsy listings:

1. Floral Solar System – STARARTjewelry

2. STARWAY TO HEAVEN broochlace – KrisDesignFSP

3. Glam Alien Woman Pin & Earring Set – StudioNKM

4. NEBULA; A Star is Born – 4uidzne

5. Northern Lights – Beadditz

6. Northern Lights Bead Cuff – AngelqueCreations

7. Meteorite Cuff – enchantedbeads

8. Starlight Cuff – SamohtaC

9. Crystal Galaxy Solar System Brooch – beadn4fun

10. Solar System Soutache Necklace – CiraDesign

11. Solar System Goddess Beaded Painting – OfYourLove

12. The Solar System – SabinaJewel

13. The Sun and the Moon – WizardIslandDesigns

14. Portal to the ‘Verse Pendant – scarboro

15. Rings of Saturn – SpringColors

16. Comet Bangle – Crystalstargems

17. Spiral Arms – HannahRachel

18. Moon and Stars Sphere Necklace – ArtMasquerading 19. Rhinestone Star Brooch – BeadworkAndCoe

20. SunFlower system – BeadCatcher

Thomas (5) is completely in love with Kris’ Rocket (no.2) – who wouldn’t be, and dear husband loves the other Chris’ spiral galaxy (no.9). Apparently the fact that our solar system is shown in red is astronomically significant and that (as well as its’ loveliness) pleases his pedantic heart. Oscar (2) is far too young to choose a favourite (he just says ‘beads’), and I can’t really say because it would be a bit inappropriate (although I think those of you who know me could probably narrow it down to three based on past beady fawning). I’ll tell you all when the voting is over…………….

Anyway please, please do have a proper look through and then swing by the team blog before February 16th and cast your vote for your favourite – it only takes a second, and there is something for everyone. Follow us on Facebook or via the blog to keep up to date with all of our shops and to be inspired by the challenges (next month’s is ‘Masquerade’), and if you really love one of these fantastic pieces, why not buy it and have it forever?

2016 beady to do list part 2 – tutorials

So here we are again – next on the list some pieces which I’ve started the tutorials for:

Oscar’s Bauble

This is a variant on Oscar’s Rattle, which was my winter piece for the 2014 Stitch N Craft Challenge, and I think I’d started work on the instructions in late 2014 but abandoned them as it got too close to Christmas, thinking I’d get them done ready to launch in Sept 2015. I didn’t, so it would be nice to get this done in time for Christmas 2016.

Art Deco Needle Case

From my 2013 Stitch n Craft Challenge Chatelaine. I think I even started buying supplies for the materials packs for this one! This is the one I’m going to publish next, and the aim is to do it by the end of Feb.

Triangles Bracelet

Not so sure about this one, it has many features that I’m proud of (such as the counter sunk catches in the second version), and I love the rounded spars of the hollow triangles. I think this one may be changed to become part of a series of hollow geometrics, as I made a whole series of shapes a long while back which I’d like to write up and publish – to be honest the 3D ones maybe more interesting and unusual than this one?

And another pieces which I think would work as a tutorial with a bit of tweaking:

CRAW Ring

This was initially started for an Etsy Beadweavers Challenge with the theme ‘Game of Thrones’, but wasn’t done in time, and although I’m pleased with the design, the execution was flawed (mainly because I used too light a thread) so it wasn’t suitable for sale in this incarnation. It’s all 15 seeds, so not for the faint hearted but will I think evolve into a tutorial as it’s a nice wearable piece and useful for those looking to improve their CRAW and add some new CRAW shapes. It includes slightly tricky steps (such as splitting the CRAW), but I think if I work on them a bit more I can come up with some teachable thread paths. Perhaps I’ll do my working out in 8s rather than 15s though……

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.

SOLD OUT – Ruby & Sapphire

Standard – Scarlet & green

SOLD OUT – Fuchsia & Plum Iris 2

Autumn leaves

SOLD OUT Scarlet, Silver & Gunmetal

Pretty in Pink

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.

Great balls of spikes

Also known as Beaded Bead 6, Great Balls of Spikes is now available as a tutorial, with materials packs coming soon hopefully.

It’s available in all of the usual places:

PayHip

Etsy

And Folksy

When I have time I will be putting together some materials packs, so let me know if you have any colour requests. It would be helpful if I could break out of my current neon pink and violet obsession……….