The Eiffel Tower Bracelet

I'm over on the other side of the world in Taiwan. I'm here for a bit and thought kits were a good way to bring some beads with me without having to dig through my entire bead stash. First project that I've finished is a design by Laura McCabe called the Eiffel Tower Bracelet. The kit can be found at Just Let Me Bead.

It was a fun project and I definitely learned from it. Once I finished the first component, the rest went quickly. The construction is brilliant because I wouldn't have thought to combine the herringbone stitch and peyote stitch in this way!

Stashes

Bead stash, yarn stash. I have them both. I recently left my job for sanity reasons and have been doing some traveling and working on my house. I had moved into the place a year ago but it had only been a glorified hotel for that amount of time. The big things have been unpacked but I just didn't have the energy to DO anything to the place. Well, I painted and I got a wardrobe from IKEA. The wardrobe from IKEA was a big puzzle that left me near tears and I finally had to call someone in to finish it. I know people have been wanting to know how I store things and what my stash looks like. At the end of 2011, I showed you all my yarn stash all laid out on my bed. Well, now you can see that from the bed, it went into these Rubbermaid containers


I can't hide these containers in a closet so it gives me extra motivation to work through the yarn because this just looks ugly.
As for the beads...I present the IKEA wardrobe of beads!


The top shelf is just storage of jewelry trays, extra stuff. The large shelf has my stem wire, beading work trays, a couple of containers of unfinished projects, and my container of all of the Swarovski crystals. Then we get to the drawers.

I have trays of focal beads, buttons, lampwork beads, a box of glass beads, findings


A drawer of my tubed seed beads. These are mostly the Japanese beads.


Then 3 drawers full of Czech seed beads

In Suspense

I bought this kit last year at Bead Fest Philadelphia from School of Beadwork. It's a Carol Wilcox Wells design. It was simple and repetitive, perfect for my current mindset. Also, since I was traveling, I figured it was a good project to take a long because the kit came with everything! It's a two sided hanging pendant.

There's a purple side and an orange/gold side.

There are some dangling sparklies at the end of the lariat Overall, it was a fun piece to work on!

End of April round up

I realized this morning that it's the last day of April. Eeek!!!!!! I wanted to throw in a blog post so I have something for the month. I should definitely have something finished to show in the next week.

Then, I'm off to visit the family for an extended trip! I hope there's more to share beyond that but I'm doing a lot of planning so I'm keeping things close to the vest for now.

Suspended

Suspended. It refers to my job that I left but also to this necklace. I had recently bought a red dresses that I wanted some jewelry for.



This was originally inspired by a couple of Laura McCabe creates and I finally made this based off of her Crown Jewels design. Instead of six Swarovski rivolis, I used two and then used beaded rings for the other four sides. That is an odd count peyote rope that I then thread through the rings. I wanted this to seem like it is suspended on the rope, hence the name "Suspended".





I love my toggle clasps. I also love it when I can add a bit of details to the toggles!



The bracelet, well, I'm not that happy with it. I was inspired by a bangle bracelet that I had seen. If I make this again, I wouldn't make it a bangle. I would include a clasp. Also, I'm not sure if I would use the peyote rope because it does have a tendency to twist and stretch which was not something I was going for.

A trio of orchids

The month of beading started off slow. It picked up about halfway through. I went to the National Capital Orchid Society's monthly meeting and found out about the Maryland Orchid Society's show and the art exhibit they have there. I spoke to the woman in charge and hey, it was time to put 3 orchids together to submit.

The show is next weekend, March 9-11 at the Timonium Fairgrounds. If you're in the area and want to go look at orchids and maybe my three plants, go check it out!



I've had the Phalaenopsis for a couple of years. It had the dust to prove it. I wiped it down with a damp paper towel and it was good to go!



I shared with you the re-potted Dancing Lady last weekend.



Last night, I finished up the Lady Slipper Orchid.



The orchids are for sale at the show and I hope they do sell. However, if I have to bring them home, I can't say I would complain. They will end up going on etsy but in the mean time, I can enjoy the beauties!

More beady things!

Yes, I've been busy! I've actually had the parts for this African Violet sitting around my house. I had made them one day while I was teaching a class at Bead Obsessions. That would be at least 2 years ago. When it came time to assemble, I ended up making new leaves and let myself have the creative freedom to not follow a pattern but just go and came up with this.

This became a birthday present for my friend Nina because her cats eat all of her real plants so she can't keep any at home. Well, now she can have a plant at home.

Re-potting an orchid: A pictoral

A couple of weeks ago, I showed you this poor orchid:


It needed to be re-proportioned and a smaller cointainer.












Re-potting a plant in the beaded world is a little different than re-potting in the real world!

Repotting Needed

Some point soon, this baby will be repotted. It doesn't have enough support and getting a bit dusty. It will hopefully be looking better soon. I've been repotting (real) African Violets and orchids this weekk.

Balance

I want to make EVERYTHING! That's how I look at it. There are so many things I want to knit (have you seen my yarn stash???), there's so much pretty fiber I want to spin up. I have ideas for beaded jewelry in my head. There is just so much!

For years, I've been trying to find a balance but I have a hard to settling down and focusing on one thing. My attention had been bouncing all over the place like a 3 year old. In the last year, I've found myself getting better at focusing on a project and in doing this, I found myself finishing quite a few projects once I set my mind to it. Back and forth between the fiber and the beads, well, it's hard for me to say Monday I will bead, Tuesday I will spin. I just can't do it. But I think I could actually say January I will knit, February I will bead. And so, tomorrow is February and I'm looking forward to turning some of my beady dreams into reality.

For now, I leave you with what I've finished in January of 2012.

A long time coming - I finished Lady Eleanor from the book Scarf Style: Innovative to Traditional, 31 Inspirational Styles to Knit and Crochet (Style series)


On ravelry's Puck This group, it was our January Hattrick knit along. Knit three hats for a hattrick of hats! I got mine in!
Morehouse Merino Mushroom Cap


Fornicating Deer Hat


And Wurm


I even got in a cowl! This is the Honey Cowl from Madeline Tosh


I also managed to finish spinning some fiber! This was on my spindle and I transferred it to Suzie. I just couldn't take anymore spindle spinning.

A Race to the End

I had a couple of projects that I knew didn't require too much more effort to finish up and I wanted to finish them and it was getting to the end of the year. So, I worked to try to finish them up.

First up are the Climbing Lace Socks


Next, some roving I had on a wheel. I had gotten back to spinning it this week and I just needed a few hours to finish it up. I did finish up the fiber around 11pm and then spent the next hour plying. Everything was plied a few minutes after midnight. What started out as this


has become this


Happy New Year!

End of year

As we get to the end of the year, I get reflective. I like to have goals so that I have a direction. I'm getting better at focusing individual projects that I've started but I still have built up years worth of UFOs. So...current projects include:

Beaded Flower - amaryllis
Beading - ?
Knitting (large) - Frost Flowers & Leaves Shawl
Knitting (small) - Climbing Lace Socks
Spinnning - something on each wheel and a spindle

I also took a "flash my stash" picture tonight


So... I'm very close to finishing up the pair of socks and I may be able to get through that by the end of the year (yes, in 2 days). I'm also very close to finishing up the fiber I have on Suzie and plying goes quick so I can empty off that wheel. I'll probably finish spinning up what's on the spindle on Suzie.

I need a small break from the amaryllis but there's not much left to be done, okay well half. And if I take the metro to work more, I can work through more socks.

Also, the goal for the year is to reduce the size of the stash so that it can all fit on the full sized bed.

I also want to spin through one of the Socks That Rock bags of fiber.

A Bead Embroidered Bracelet

Bead embroidery is a beautiful thing...when you complete it. I've had some many starts on bead embroidered projects but I've never finished. For me, bead embroidery tends to be a free form thing and I get distracted and lose interest after a while. So, I was incredibly pleased with myself that I was able to finish this one for my friend Shawn's birthday.

Sunday night, I had my bracelet, my suede backing and the brass cuff


Then you add some epoxy and get high off the fumes


Then you sew the edges together


To get this






And finally

A holiday poinsettia

I don't tend to make many Christmas holiday season related beaded things because I don't really decorate for Christmas. However, when I was invited to my friend Susan's house and heard her jokingly complain about how none of her beading friends made her any flowers for her house, I knew exactly what I was going to make her





And here it is in its current setting