A new day and a new project!
Spring is here and I seem to be bursting with new ideas for jewelry pieces. My latest project is a piece that I call "Gifts from the Sea". I had a similar idea many years ago, but never go around to working on it.
I love the ocean and we get so many gifts from the sea! I love to work with shells and pearls in my jewelry making! And I love ocean colors! This project puts all of this together to create a wonderful new bracelet for my collection!
Here is my palette:
I usually begin a project with a focal piece and then set up a palette of beads and embellishment like a painter sets up his paint palette.
I "sketch" out a general idea of what I want to do, but this changes as I work on the piece.
I really enjoy working on a piece and seeing it develop! I love he creative process and I am always excited to see the final outcome!
I have been working most of my pieces directly on ultrasusede fabric, but I have noticed lately that the fabric pulls out of shape as I am working. I don't like to work with "Laceys Stiff Stuff" like a lot of beaders do. I like the look of the ultrasuede on the finished beadwork. I am going to try to use some heavyweight fusible interfacing and see if that helps.
I did a simple beaded bezel around a pale peach calcite donut. I added beautiful pieces of "everlasting" shell to the center of the donut. These shell pieces are in shades of beige , pale peach, white and brown gave me the colors that I wanted to work with. And I knew that I wanted the "waves" on the bracelet to be turquoise blue/green with white "breakers". I am happy with the colors that I have chosen and I think that the piece will turn out beautifully! I will post the finished piece when it is done!
It has rained all day, so it was a good day to write a log entry and work on my latest project! I found this pattern on a blog called Beads Magic. This is a necklace called "Teresa".
The original necklace is done in black white and gold seed beads. I decided to try it with Spring colors and this is what I came up with!
The pattern on the blog was just drawn out diagrams with no real instructions or list of supplies, but it was not too hard to follow. I made my own drawing for the blog pictures!
And I designed a pair of earrings to go with the necklace!
I am enjoying working on this necklace! It looks floral and great for Spring!
In the past couple of days, I have been working along and all of a sudden my needle breaks! Annoying! Well, I decided to say a little about beading needles here for new beaders who might experience this!
I use a size 12 beading needle. I find that most of what I do requires many passes of thread through the beads, and a larger needle just would not work.
I use two brands of needles. Each brand has it's issues and I will share this with you.
The first brand I use is John James.
These needles are English nickle-plated steel needle. They are very good quality and have a larger eye that is easier to thread. They are the more expensive of the needles that I buy.
The issue with these is that they seem to break easily!
If you put too much pressure on them or bend them too much, they just snap! I use these with projects that I know I won't have to do a lot of manipulation of the needle.
The second brand of needles I use is Lance.
These needles come from India and are also nickle-plated steel. They are much thinner than the John James and that must be why they are much cheaper!
The issue with these needles is that they bend out of shape very easily. This keeps them from breaking as easily as the John James. You can straighten they by holding near the eye with flat nose pliers and then pull the needle between your thumb and finger. They usually don't stay straight for very long, but you can still work with them curved!
I switch between the two needles depending on the project and they seem to work well for me!
I am going to go back to working on my necklace and blog again later!
