Battle Reveals

The Battle of the Beadsmith  pairs are finally going up and I am so GLAD I was placed in group C as those have been the first to be revealed. My partnered beader was Patrick Duggan from the other side of the world. Patrick's piece is named Katerina referencing Catherine the Great of Russia, and is a very stylish necklace with medallions with military vibe:

I love the colour of the central red stones in particular, and it does seem as if it would be lovely to wear!

Another outstanding piece within group C is the Phoenix Collar of Helena Tang-Lim, based on Peranakan wedding costume:

I adore the way that the design elements have been used in a modern, fresh way. I'd like to include more ethnographic aspects in my own beadwork some day.

So you can see the incredibly high standard of beadwork in this contest! I shook in my shoes! For more examples pop over to the Facebook group page and go straight to 'Photos'

Anyway, without further ado I'd like to present my own piece. 'Oceanides Purse'

Photo: Andrew Davis, Model: Melissa Dokarry

The Blurb I wrote for the entry was as follows:

I am a 48 yr old beader from the UK, originally from London but now residing in Norwich. I have a full time job in plant science research, and my piece is loosely inspired by microscopic life forms of the sea (diatoms, phyto- and zooplankton, their geometry and diversity).  I like to combine the scientific with the artistic in my beading. I love organic, freeform and beadsoup. Beading is my therapy and relaxation.

1) Name of your piece: Oceanides Purse

2) Name of stitch, stitches used: Bead embroidery, Peyote, Right Angle Weave, Herringbone, Appliqué, Couching

3) Name of products used, size and material: Seed beads, Swarovski rivolis, dentelles, chatons, fancy stones and bicones, Swarovski and Preciosa cupchain, freshwater pearls, glass pearls, moonstone and labradorite, pressed glass and firepolished beads, Ultrasuede. vintage flatback glass cabochons and nailheads, heavyweight interfacing, upcycled satin purse.

4) overall size of piece: Worked area is 31.5cm x 19.5 cm. Finished purse dimensions: 20cm x 11cm x 5cm approx

5) time to complete 90+ hours

Here is a close up of one of the motifs, I bezelled a 27mm Swarovski stone using RAW and peyote and then applied it to the embroidery foundation, then embellished with the matte gold firepolished, and then couched down the 'rays' while making the first round of embroidery

Photo Andrew Davis

I think Helena and I had the same colour muse working with us, and possibly the Geometry muse was with both Patrick and myself.

Public may vote on the Group C battles within a limited time frame, and using a spreadsheet format downloadable under files on the BOTB '13 group page (click the logo at top right of this blog)

bag blag blog

I am continuing to make bag progress, it is just a bit slower than I'd like! After a meal out on Friday night with the work colleagues I had a rich food induced, vivid dream of the completed bag, but alas, when I woke the bead elves (if such exist) had not done the work for me (boo!) I am happy with this bit I have done though, and slow and steady is probably better since I'm designing as I go.

Here is a picture of the work on the bag to give you an idea of the placement. What do you think? Too much? Too little? I know there is a large area to fill so I am fighting the urge to cover the whole thing with big blingy elements!

A bit  of a close-up:

Then I thought I'd divert myself with working the beaded ring for the handle/bag junction. I had a look at various beaded bead type designs including Nikia Angel's sparkly wheel, but decided to use this:

It is the Scheherezade Pendant from Sabine Lippert's Beaded Fantasies book, and was surprisingly quick to make: circular RAW in increasing bead sizes zipped into a donut shape then reinforced with netting. I'm pleased with my colours and will probably make another for a necklace if I can buy the metallic finish 4mm again (don't you hate when you get to the bottom of a pack of beads you know you haven't seen on sale anywhere lately?) If anyone has seen any, do let me know where they can be found!

 





Theatricals

This has been a slightly odd week! I continued my obsession with Sabine Lippert's Beaded Fantasies by making a lantern earring. Why one earring? Well it was going to be a pair, but I couldn't decide on a colour scheme, so I made a different one, thinking I could just make a third in the preferred colours.... and then I found a stash of 4mm firepolished beads and just kept going! Result was a 'rainbow' of beads which I have temporarily strung as a bracelet, but could yet become a necklace:

Then on Thursday I received a delivery of chatons from Rachel at RB beads. Chatons are harder to come by than Rivolis in the UK, and Rachel responded to my queries by getting some in for her shop. The moral is 'If you can't find a particular bead, ask your friendly bead store to consider stocking them' I am now all set to try 'Amazon Jewel', here is the central rivoli (Heliotrope) bezeled in my favourite Light Bronze, and I'm still deciding on the chaton colours for the surrounding 'petals':

My Mother has also been visiting this week, and the whole family went to the Theatre Royal in Norwich to see Shakespeare's 'The Winter's Tale'. Mum is a great fan of Shakespeare and volunteers regularly at the Globe Theatre in London. She is also a follower (groupie?) of the Propeller Company, who are touring with this production, and knows some of the actors. All parts are played by the 14 men as are the music and the scene shifting. There is also audience participation! If you get the chance do go and see them! The next night we were there again to see them in Henry V which was a great contrast in mood to the other play, with lots of battle effects. My 13 year old son enjoyed this more needless to say, although he has actually enjoyed all the Shakespeare he has seen so far!

Caution, Excited Beader!

I am soooo excited! In a few days I'm heading off to Edinburgh to take a class at the Scottish Bead Shop in Haddington. Jo and I are flying up and spending time enjoying the hospitality of fellow beaders! Best of all there will be a group of 6 (maybe more) of us internet buddies taking the class. I must just be sure to bead at least as much as I chat. This is the Class project, and the teacher is the Great Huib Petersen, on his European tour! Can't wait, and probably won't sleep much from excitement

Another nice thing that happened this week, is that I was asked to test a tutorial for the lovely and extremely talented Nancy Dale of NEDBeads. It is a Right Angle Weave variation bracelet, and is embellished as you go. It uses the new Preciosa Twin beads (or as my friend Mary likes to call them 'otter snouts') as well as 4mm bicones, and is lovely to work. If you can't wait until this pattern is released, maybe you could try the 'Labyrinth' tutorial, which Nancy already sells on Etsy (click here!) which is a good warm up for the new design, using some similar ways of joining RAW units. Here is a pic of my (not quite complete) version of Labyrinth:

I wanted to tone it with the Cubic RAW necklace I made with some lovely picasso finish rondelles from Beads and Babble. I love the selection of beads in this shop, and just received an order of the new Czech spike beads to try Helena Tang's Points Boheme earrings. You can tell I am an Etsy Addict!

Beading with Friends

Although most of my beading is done on my own at home, it is always nice to bead in company. For the last two years I've attended a Bead Retreat with some like minded beaders in the Peak District of Derbyshire UK.

This May will be the third such event (provided I manage to step into the capable shoes of Donna, and sort all the payments!). We don't have any organised classes, everyone works on different projects, and we are a mixture of seed beaders, wireworkers, stringers and lampworkers. Obviously the lampworkers don't bring their torch set up, but they do bring lovely examples of their wares to sell to the others.

(Beads by Helen Mitchell at LaLa Lampwork )

The central beads in the ring of pressed hearts finally made it into one of my beady projects 'Serpentina' previously featured in this blog!

We also bring beads/beaded items for swapping, and exchange hints and tips, get beginners started, eat, drink and make merry! One of the best parts is leaving behind our various domestic duties and beading all day and late into the night...and not having to put the beads away!

Sometimes I get the opportunity to bead with a friend, although many of my best beady friends and I interact mainly in the internet, and I don't get to see them in real life. This weekend, after two unsuccessful attempts, my friend Jo came over to play with beads. I persuaded my family to go to the cinema, and we took over the dining table for beading.

Fabulous Jo has organised Laura McCabe classes in Norwich, although we had previously met on Internet forums, I first met her in real life at the class. This year we don't have the Laura classes here to look forward to, but will be travelling to Edinburgh together to take a class with Huib Petersen! Can't wait!

Jo and I both worked on some freeform RAW based on the method of NanC Meinhardt in her Izzy and Lucy bracelet design, and with inspiration from Nancy Dale's Garnet Garden (my Christmas present from Roy...but I bought it myself as I admired it so much!) Jo's is in Wintry whites and mine in Autumnal shades, using as a base some seed bead soup which Nancy kindly sent me. I have a cute little goldstone Zuni bear to add to mine, now I'm onto the embellishment phase. Pictures soon I hope!

I had loads of fun and the day just whizzed by (we did remember to stop for lunch though!) I hope we can do it again soon!

Post-Christmas beading

I hope the Seasonal festivities left you rejuvenated and ready to go in 2012!

Once the preparation was all out of the way, I enjoyed seeing family and friends, and apart from a heavy cold (me) everyone seemed fit and healthy. Before Christmas, most of my beading was intended for presents with the exception of the Dragonfly necklace. I stocked up on some bead goodies in order to use the break productively. As I had to clear my beading table this meant smaller projects which could easily be contained in a case, and worked on without a large table surface.

My first project was Debbie van Tonder's Seahorse chart from her Etsy shop which requires only three colours of delica beads and is worked in even count 2-drop peyote. It was great fun to do even though charted designs are not my usual choice. I finished it with a Sterling silver sliding clasp:

My next project was a kit I ordered online on the 21st December and received the next day, perfect timing! The kit is from Heatherworks and is a little dimensional piece in the form of an owl. I thought the kit was well presented and the instruction booklet was pretty good too.

I think you might struggle a little if you were not familiar with all the stitches (peyote, netting, herringbone, RAW, and Albion) and working at this small scale can be quite tricky once the owl takes shape. My only real quibble is that the instructions for the eyes ask for an initial round of 11 silver beads in size 11, which were not supplied in the green colourway. I substituted the size 15 silver, but then had to alter the stitch counts to fit the central pearl. The outer round is to be 16 size 11 beads so several increases are required. I ended up swapping the pearls for slightly larger ones, making the inner round 14 beads and increasing twice, though perhaps an initial round of 16 size 15 followed by 16 size 11 would have been easier. I might experiment with this... The diagrams for the head show an initial round of 8 beads rather than the 4 stated in the written instructions (I followed the written version). Here is the work in progress:

The Owl is stuffed with wool, and once assembled is about 5cm tall:

 How cute is that? I will probably gift it to my Mum, as she loves owls!

Overall I am really happy with my Post-Christmas projects, thanks to these rather fabulous designs from Debbie and Heather