A little bit of seaside

Dreamy Dagger beads

Bead love alert!
dreamy dagger beads!
When these arrived in the post, I decided that deadlines could
go hang, time to follow my bliss for a few evenings and bead me a necklace!

The hanks of beads were silky and tactile and I soooo wanted to have them with me as fringy pendants to swish my fingers through.

The colours reminded me of a piece of Abalone shell, picked up during a last long walk on a beach at the end of a holiday. I kept it to remind me of the pure luxury of sand between the toes, salt in my hair and the warmth of the sun.

The necklace grew simply, from the colours and with no particular plan in mind. More importantly, no stopping. No stopping to get caught up with re-works, rip outs, or planning, no stopping to think too hard about bead choices... Instead I kind of worked with the same frame of mind as that walk on the beach. Oh, and no stopping to tidy up the bead board, random messy, definitely a new approach and the random juxtaposition of beads gave me ideas and choices I might not usually have made.

Random act of beadiness!

The cord is a length of crochet, worked in fine cotton around a length of narrow jewellery tube, which gave a simple base to add a bail and beaded beads around.

The finished necklace

The pendant is simple bead embroidery, it's been an age since I did any, but it seemed the easiest way to bezel the irregular shell piece, and add the swishy fringing. Accent beads include semi precious stone beads, of South African Jade and pink Phosphosiderite.
I'm really happy with the outcome, it's not ground breaking, all the techniques are old favourites, but it's a fun piece to wear, and while I might not have time to go dig my toes into warm sand just now, instead I can run my fingers through those swishy fringes and take a moment to dream.

Lots of swishy fringes

Random embellishments

bauble zeitgeist?

Estelle variation

The Estelle workshop is proving very popular, it's fun and easy,  and works up into prettiness in all sorts of variations. it is also a proving to be a fun class to explore colour and sparkly mixtures.
I'll carry on teaching it over the next year as requests keep coming in. In one class, we had a long discussion about math and beads, so I decided to tweek the basic bezel and work up some examples of how it can be used to make three dimensional forms.
In the next class, I shared the discussion and showed the baubles which were the result of my experiments. I had several requests to offer it as a follow up class.
This is always a lovely thing about teaching, to have students wanting to explore an idea some more, and to have more on tap to offer their enthusiasm.

I was just about to show and share on my facebook page... finger hovering on the upload button, when I noticed a very similar bauble being shown off proudly as a latest creation. The math determines there can be only so many ways to make a ball shape with bezelled stones; indeedy, a quick pootle round the facebook beading community revealed at least four more... so no show and share for me then!  I'll keep mine within the boundaries of my class as an interesting discussion point.

Estelle baubles

This got me thinking about how design ideas so often emerge en masse. There are the obvious ones, like everyone playing with a new bead shape (spikes or Rizo's anyone?). There are also more subtle ones and they can be profoundly frustrating!
I've more than once worked long and hard on a really exciting new idea, only to consign it to the 'Doh! can't use that now' folder.
And, yes in the pursuit of honesty, I do sometimes see designs that make me wince at their similarity to work I've already published.

That we get excited by the same processes with similar results is, I guess, inevitable. That we all fall in love with the latest colours, finishes or shapes of beads, likewise. We're also all working under the same powerful but subtle influences of media, trends, fashions and styling, even more so now, with a whole worlds worth available at the touch of a button, and arriving daily in the in-box.

For me, it's about searching out ways to have a genuinely authentic voice, and coincidences like these, I take as a gentle reminder to try again and find something new and fresh to say.

Did you Rizo yet?

Millipilli, two designs using
Rizo beads

Rizo, or little grain of rice (?), is a new Czech bead which is about the size and shape of... a grain of rice with a hole across one end. 'Meh, and so?' was my first thought, a mini dagger. But these are beguiling little things once you start working with them and now I am completely in love with Rizo!!!!!
I've created several patterns already, all of which, if only I had the time, I long to make in more and more colours and variations...

Centipilli, a Rizo and
Roses (montees) design

Colleagues have instantly used the beads as petals and in bezels, lovely and set to become a firm favourite with beaders. But, for me, what is truly appealing is to see them en masse, and happily, the neatly tapered shape behind the hole means that these beads will nestle and line up in any design from the simplest to the most complex.
To date here are my creations, made with the first sample beads to arrive. Millipilli was the idea that got me thinking about the satisfyingly bristly textures this bead can create, utterly tactile, like the best jewellery should be. Centipilli happened because there is always a need for simple patterns too, the 'make it in an evening and wear it next day' projects. I love this one and have plans for many more, and yes the Rizo do stay in that position. Both these designs are available from bead store www.stitchncraft.co.uk where you can also feast on Rizo in a truly delicious array of colours.

Jurassica, don't you just want to
 stroke it!

Jurassica too, a different
and more random texture

Jurassica is the successor of Millipilli, the design where I just wanted to explore the grouping of these beads to make something strokable and textured.
For me, this is where these beads become interesting and I'll be pushing this idea around some more in the weeks to come.
Truthfully I haven't taken my Jurassica bracelet off since I finished off the last thread tail! and I soooo want to go shopping for more and edgier colourways. The design can also be worked to make more random textures as in the pink version. Jurassica is available in my webshop as a download pdf or a traditional printed version.