Reversible Zig Zag

Rachel is going to be shocked.  She originally started this blog for the three of us to share our creations on, but she has been the sole contributor.  I have been working on this bangle for the last few weeks and finally finished.  I am so happy with  how it turned out that I have decided to share it.  Unfortunately my photo skills don't do it justice.

 

 

This is a pattern that was published in the Beading Basics: Peyote Stitch magazine published this past summer by Bead & Button.  It was designed by Susan Harle.  If you ask me, it is a very clever design.  It is worked in tubular peyote stitch, but not in the way that you would imagine just by looking at the finished product.  It was a very interesting way to work both sides of the design at the same time.

It was easy to stitch and I really love the finished product.  For one side, I used matte black (310) and sterling silver(35) delicas (this is Frank and Cait's favorite side).  For the side that ended up being my favorite, I used an opaque grey AB delica(168) and reddish black delica (297).  These are both colors that I love and have been holding onto for just the right project.  Unfortunately my photo doesn't really highlight how interesting these two colors are together. 

I loved the two-sided effect of this bracelet so much, that I had to make some earrings to match.  I made 6 pieces that look like the points of the zig-zags of the bracelet.  Because I wanted the earrings to have movement to show both sides of the color schemes, I connected the points together with pieces of chain leftover from another project.

Karmann's Necklace

I recently beaded a necklace for my daughter for her birthday.  It was really playful and I even put a magnetic clasp on it so she could easily take it on and off.  I made it using the tubular peyote stitch.  Unfortunately, it didn't last long.  Just the other day I found her in her car seat with the necklace in her mouth and beads everywhere.  Oh well, we'll try again in a few years.  It sure was cute while it lasted though.

Something for Mark's wife

Back in November one of my husbands friends, Mark, had asked me to make him a necklace and earrings for his wife for Christmas.  I had told him that I would, although he might not get it until right before Christmas.  This is because I had decided to go back to school and I was knee deep in anatomy and microbiology at the time.  Classes ended last week and yesterday I began to make the necklace and this morning I finished it just in the nick of time for Mark to pick it up and get it wrapped for his lovely wife.

Mark had said that his wife liked her jewelry simple and that she liked the color blue.  So, I decided to work with 5 different colors of a denim like blue delica seed beads for the majority of the necklace.  I wove them in a tubular herringbone stitch.  I used bali silver end caps and spacer beads.  I also threw in some labradorite, denim lapis and fresh water pearls.  The pendant is a Lillypilly Design.  As for the clasp I used a silver edelweiss clasp.

I also made some matching earrings using labradorite and fresh water pearls. 

Something for Susanne

Wow, has it really been since 2008 that I beaded something? I guess it has. That's what happens when you are busy with a non-stop four year old and a newborn baby and you move three times in one year, no time to bead.

Well, my sis-in-laws birthday is coming up this month and I decided to break open my big box beads that I have been toting around for the past year and a half. It was kind of like finding a long lost treasure, going through all of those beads, that I haven't looked at in so long. A lot of the stuff I had forgotten I had. Now I have all kinds of ideas in my head for all of those beads. I'm afraid those projects will have to wait a bit longer though.

In the meantime, here is what I whipped together for Susanne.

My Pinwheel Bracelet

So here is my latest creation. It's taken me a while to get it posted but here it is. I had a little fun photo shopping the pictures this time. I think they turned out pretty cool though. The bracelet is a lot of fun to wear and because of all the colors I can wear it with a lot of different outfits.

Something for me!

Okay so I haven't made a whole lot lately and I decided to just make something for myself as I rarely do that anymore. So I bought a bunch of different Lucite cabs a while back thinking that they would turn into something cool one day and I finally got them out and started working with them. They are the blue and white ones in the picture above. I didn't want to bead them with just blue and white, so I went through my boxes of seed beads and picked out two colors that I thought really complimented them. The first is a delica seed bead called lined ruby/black.
The other is called opaque cactus luster.

I decided to bead the cabs with the two colors and soon realized that some of the cabs would also look good with a blue delica so I chose to use one called silver lined sapphire. I plan on weaving the cabs together some how to form a bracelet. So in the next few days I should be finished and I will post the final piece here.

Summer Corn

I recently made this necklace and earring set for my mother-in-law, as a gift for her birthday. I've noticed over the years that she enjoys wearing simple jewelry that is pleasing to the eye. So when I decided to make her a piece of jewelry, I knew that it would need to be something that she would enjoy wearing. It couldn't be something so extravagant that she would never wear it, yet I did want it to be a quality piece.

I decided to try the herringbone stitch in this piece because I have admired it for a while, but have never tried using it until now. Needless to say I love the herringbone stitch! Definitely a stitch I will be incorporating into other projects in the future. Both the necklace and the earrings were made with it. While the necklace uses the tubular herringbone, the earrings are made with a circular herringbone. For the colors I used a variety of delica beads including copper, gold, a wine color, and a rose tinted metal. The necklace is accented with gold and copper spacer beads and also rainbow amozonite. The necklace clasp is gold filled and the earring clasps are gold.