On to New Things

I've had to put the tutorial for Mirror Mirror on hold. Either the design will need to be simplified, or my illustrating skills will have to improve before I can finish it.

It's time to start Christmas ornaments. Those of you who know me know I make beaded ornaments for the younger ones of the three generations that come after me.  This year there are a total of 17.  I'll try to get the five youngest ones a brick stitch "toy" made, the next age group will get a beaded star I think and the oldest five will get my new Holly Wreath.

This is a 3-D design, quite sturdy and very "blingy".  After struggling with my last design for a whole frustrating month, I was delighted with the ease with which this one came together. Only took me a week and a half, most of which was spent on the tutorial.

The pattern has been uploaded to all three of my pattern shops. 

BeadPatternsBoutique

The Bead Coop

Craftsy

Renewal Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek of the earring design I'm working on. I didn't use the light box for this picture and it's really hard to get a good picture of the sparky iridescent seed beads and swarovski bicones without filters. Hopefully I'll be able to get a better picture of the finished product.

I've named this design Renewal.  It represents new leaves and budding flowers that follow the long, unusually cold, hard winter we've had this year.

I have all the illustrations drawn for this two needle RAW design and now I'm working on writing the instructions.  That may take a while as finding the right words seems to be a real challenge lately.  I'll finish the tutorial, then work the second earring from it to make sure everything's in order.

Are you celebrating spring?  The weather hasn't been nearly as bad here in the southwest as it has further east, but I'm more than ready to be able to get out and work in the yard.

Architecture For Inspiration

Architecture is a wonderful inspiration for beaded jewelry design.  Just look at these gracious curves, detailed scrolling and color combinations in this picture of the Castello de Sammezzano in Tuscany, Italy that design dautore.com posted.

Huib Petersen posted this to his facebook status and I just had to go see what else this page had.  There are so many design inspirations there I could spend all day looking.  Much of what attracted my attention was architecture, but there are many other things to spark your creativity!  Take a look.

Slaying Dragons Inspiration Friday

Slaying Dragons by Jewelry Tales

I use various methods for inspiration. Sometimes it's a building with unique lines, sunsets (beautiful color combos), or any number of things can inspire a bead design. I often go searching for pictures of beaded jewelry for inspiration and often see them on my Facebook feed.

A few days ago, I came across this beautiful design by Cynthia NewComer Daniel of Jewelry Tales. This one's got everything - elegance, sparkle, sweeping curves, spikes, what else could you ask for? You can just use this for inspiration to create your own design, or if you work from patterns alone, you can buy the tutorial from Cynthia on her Etsy shop.

Have a great week end and I hope you have loads of time for pursuing your beading addiction.

New RAW Idea Teaser

I'm working on something very different for me.  I've created quite a few elegant RAW designs, but I've never made flat RAW with seed beads and worked designs in it with color.  I need to get permission from another designer who doesn't make patterns to share the finished product since it was her idea, but here's my first design.  It was supposed to be basket weave, but it's so narrow that I don't know if that's an apt name for it.  I have some other designs in my head, but getting the beads to configure themselves to the design in RAW is quite different from designing with brick or peyote stitch.  The great thing about creating the RAW flat weave is that it's so much easier to embellish than brick or peyote because the open weave is easier to maneuver a needle, so you can create a design on each end and leave the center a solid color to be embellished if you want to.

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Pondo or African Circle Stitch

Oh my goodness I don't know where the last 7 months have gone.  I never did figure out anything unique to do with a beaded rope although I did create a few different types.
Then I finally found a tutorial for Pondo or African circle stitch that made sense to me and I was hooked on that for a while. The possibilities for designs are endless in the simple stitch and then there are all sorts of modifications you can make.  To the right you see my "Pondo Ripples" design worked in patriotic red, white and blue.  You can find the pattern for this at BeadPatternsBoutique
http://www.beadpatternsboutique.com/catalog/vendor/Pond_O_Ripples.html

Next I made a design that reminded me of a floral ceramic tile.  The original was shades of green, gold and purple, but it was a little busy.  I've always been a fan of the beautiful blue delft tile made popular by the Dutch in the 1800's so I set about changing the colors to shades of blue with white accents.  This design is a little more complex and I've found making the pattern very tedious because I'm illustrating each of 5 squares in each of 6 rows for a single repeat.  I hope to have it finished and published soon.

I've also written a tutorial for Basic Pondo. You'll find it here:  http://www.bubblews.com/news/833090-pondo-basics or you can click on the "My Stitch Tutorials" tab at the top of the page and follow the link.

Preciosa Twin Seed Beads

Have you seen the new TWIN seed beads from Preciosa? They come in 80 different colors.  I'm drooling over the design possibilities of these two hole beads in combination with seed beads and crystals.

I contacted the representative for the continental United States and Canada about availability.  I found out that they should be available from distributors around the end of this month. I was very pleased to learn that Shipwreck Beads and Fire Mountain Gems will be distributing them, as those are two of my favorite online bead sources.

OK, now it's time to get back to pattern making.  I'm almost finished with the Christmas ornament cover pattern I mentioned.  I'll post as soon as I've finished and published it for sale.