Day 329 - Shaggy Dagger Bracelet

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Shaggy Dagger (not yet complete)

Wow the days are speeding by!  I got to spend a week in February at the home of fellow beader/blogger Sally Anderson in Houston, TX!  You all will know Sally by her blog Wild Sally Road, and I bet most of you have received a comment or two on your posts from her!  Sally and I have been beading, talking, emailing, texting, sending cards, etc for a year, so it only seemed logical that the next step was to fly from PA to TX to finally meet her and spend a few glorious days doing nothing but beading!  And thanks to Kent, Sally's awesome husband who treated us like queens, we barely had to leave the beading chair!

The first day we signed up for a class at Beadoholique in Spring, TX.  I don't know what I expected, but this shop is huge!  And has everything and I mean everything you could want in the bead world.  And, to top it off the staff is charming and helpful.  We were the only two in the class that morning and we decided to take the Shaggy Dagger bracelet class taught by Donna Montez.  What a great experience, Donna is a great instructor and the three of us talked the whole time about, well you guessed it, beads.

The Shaggy Dagger bracelet is gorgeous!  It looks a little intimidating at first glance, but turned out to be so easy that even a total novice would have no trouble (especially if Donna is teaching).  It looks much like the very popular Dragon bracelet that was on the cover of Bead & Button last year, but uses dagger beads instead of magnatamas.  If you live in the area stop by the store, take the class, and say hi to Donna for me.  You could also say hey to the bundle of money I dropped there, hee hee.  Oh, and I was told they do ship if you see something you like.  If you don't leave in the area, they have some cool classes, I don't know if they sell their patterns, but it would be worth it to inquire!

Shaggy Dagger, conquered!

Day 328 - Interweave Stitch

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Interweave Stitch

Yes it's me, you aren't imagining things!  I will get through these last 30+ days I promise that to you and to me!

I have to tell you I feel like my creativity has become stagnant because I wasn't taking the time to learn anything new anymore!  This project taught me sooo much soooo fast, I need to keep it up to keep learning from all of you out there!!!

Today's lesson is from the tried and true Indian Bead-Weaving Patterns by Horace R. Goodhue.  I have tried many of the stitches in this old book but found a few that I totally missed or totally ignored for good reason.  This is a great book but ole' Horace didn't make things any easier sometimes with his drawings and directions.  This stitch is called Interweave and is listed under the section called "Fancies", as in fancy stitches I think.

I'm not even sure I have done the Interweave stitch correctly or created some kind of mutant.  I'm not sure if the stitch is supposed to be flat or tubular.  Is that weird?  The directions don't exactly say tubular and the stitch explained before it is tubular, but the stitch explained afterward is not.  Who knows???  Really, who knows??? Kate in Denver, I know you and ole' Horace have become intimate over the years, do you know?

I made mine tubular and found the stitch in general easy but time consuming.  The way it is stitched, flat or tubular, makes the beads turn in opposite directions on the ends.  It is cool looking, but think it would take forever to do it the way I did,  even for a bracelet!

Interweave Stitch, conquered!

Day 327 - Diamond Chain Bracelet

Monday, December 5, 2011

Diamond Stitch Bracelet

Today's project is a free pattern from the archives of Beading Daily, it's called the Diamond Chain Bracelet designed by Vanbeads.  I have done a diamond stitch before, but not a diamond chain.

This little chain worked up very quickly, using 4mm bicones and 11/0 seed beads.  It honestly didn't look like much from the picture that they have with the pattern, but switching bead colors really made a difference!  As I was doing this one, I was thinking what a great basic stitch!  You could go up or down, or sideways, just as you would with RAW.  I think I am definitely going to experiment with this stitch especially with different size beads, hmmmm...it's got me thinking.  :-)

Diamond Chain Bracelet, conquered!

Day 326 - Lilac

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Those of us who get the free pattern updates from Beads Magic (awesome resource for patterns) could not have looked at today's necklace pattern without saying "what the heck?".  The pattern is called Lilac and was posted by the admin so I'm not really sure who to give credit to for the design.  Immediately when I saw this big fluffy necklace, I swear that is the only way to describe it, I thought of those frilly plastic leis you get at parties with a tropical theme.  

Lilac
You can see I started out a mess, but
soon, with my tips, the tube
started to firm up and hold it's shape.

It's not quite my cup of tea, but I was really interested in how the heck it was made.  The only instructions are two diagrams with a lot of numbers more or less going around in a circle like some crazed solar system.  Literally when I first looked at the pattern, my mouth dropped open and I uttered some weird sound that sounded like "pah" in a somewhat surprised tone.

The diagram, designed to help the beader as much as possible, first shows you the number of beads to start with, the color of beads to string, and finally the thread path you should follow.  There is a lot going on here!  However, if you can take a minute to suck the "pah" back in your mouth, you'll see right away that the pattern is very simple.  I dont' know if there is a name for the stitch or not, but it is a tubular stitch that works in repeats of three.  You'll also notice that all the beads in the diagram are yellow except the beads the designer wants you to go through on each round which are orange.  How hard can that be?

In the last row (teal) you can see the
 three 3 bead stretches and the three 5 bead
petals.  The purple beads showing are
from the previous row.  The petals where done
around them.

Apparently pretty hard, or maybe I should say confusing.  When you start the first 2 or 3 rows of this stitch it is a mess.  Although whatever you are using for your orange beads are certainly apparent, it is very, very (did I say very) hard to figure out what row you are even on.  It all looks the same.  The start of my sample is a loose jumbled mess.  Let me give you a couple of tips on this one.

First, if you can count to three, forget adding the different colored beads as markers to put your thread through.  If you can't figure out what row you are on, they won't help anyway!  My suggestion is in your swatch (we all do a test swatch right??), make each ROW a different color (I used three).  This will help you  immensely when you start the next row.  Because it is a different color you will be able to see it right away.  Just remember to pick up 3 beads and go through the center bead of the next 3 bead stretch.  I am calling the 3 bead sections "stretches" and the 5 bead loops "petals".  When stitching, the 3 bead stretch sections should be on the inside, while the 5 bead petals should be pushed to the outside.  On each row there are 3 of each.

The second tip, until you  get the pattern going is a mandel!  It really is a tubular stitch and it will be much easier to see the round this way.  After a few rows the work will start to hold it's shape and you can ditch the mandel.  I'm assuming that the way the necklace gets fluffier in the middle, is that more beads are added to the 5 bead loops, and then gradually tapered back to the end.

If I made a bracelet with this I would probably set the with small like it starts out, but I might put a 3mm crystal where each orange bead would have gone.  Now THAT would be cool!

Lilac, conquered!

Day 325 - Heirloom Netting

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope everyone got beads in their stockings!

Heirloom Netting

Today's lesson is from Bead & Button's Easy Does It Series - Seed Bead Chains.  Nice little booklet, there are a few chain stitches I had not seen before, but for the most part the 11 projects in the book are pretty basic.  A very nice beginner book I would think.  One I had not tried is called Heirloom Netting.  I'm not a huge fan of netted necklaces, but decided to give it a try.

Must have been the NOG...or maybe the totally disastrous couple of months I've had, but it took me a while to figure this out, although it's as plain as day once you finally get it.  The samples in the book, show the stitch in all seed beads, in seed beads, crystals, and drops, and finally all seed beads, but different colors which brings out a cute little flower repeat you don't even know is there.

I just used what I had on my table which where 8/0 triangles and 11/0 seed beads.  More than half way through I changed the colors of the 8/0 triangles hoping the pattern would show up better but it really didn't do much.  This is a very dainty chain, but when crystals were added in the book sample as the "connector" beads and 3.4 mm drops were added as the fringe edges, the chain looked much more substantial.

At first when I finished my sample, I wasn't that enthusiastic about using it again, but then I started to look at those nice little alternating diamond shapes, just wondering what I could fit inside there. And could I forget the fringe edges and just make the netting wider, and what if......!  hee hee.

Heirloom Netting, conquered!

Post Script:  To all the friends who contacted me over the last few days, this one is for you!  Namaste!

Day 324 - Wonder Dome Ring

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Wonder Dome Ring

Still in the "Beadwork Creates Jewelry: 40 Beaded Projects" book, I decided to try the Wonder Dome Ring, designed by Susan J. Manchester.  THIS, is a cute ring!  Half of a dodecahedron is made, a faux prong is added to the sides, and the band is done in two drop peyote.

So cute, so easy!  The pattern calls for 4mm bicones, but I used 4mm pearls instead .  Either way it is a really nice ring!

Wonder Dome Ring, conquered!