I bought myself a new loom!
I sold one of my turquoise loomed bracelets
and I used the money from that to buy this wonderful loom!
It is called "The Ricks Loom" by BeadSmith.
The reason I bought the loom is that I saw a YouTube video about the loom and I liked that you ended up with only two threads to weave in at the end. My old loom left many threads to deal with and that can be a real pain!
The loom is wooden with metal warp rods. It can be adjusted to the finished length of the piece you are doing with the wing nuts on either side of the tailstock. There are wooden pegs to hold the threads in place.
This loom is so much easier to warp than my old loom! It is a little more difficult to start the piece you are working on due to the way the threads are set up, but after the first two rows it gets a lot easier! I really love this loom!
I started using the loom as soon as I got it!
I love Native American Beadwork and I love to adapt patterns to my jewelry! Here are some of the latests pieces I am working on!
This was a "trial" piece. Unfortunately, I miscalculated the length and the piece is uneven! I am working on a way to fix it!
This is a new piece that will be like the one I sold recently. I love using silver,black,red and turquoise with Native American patterns! I love turquoise and these patterns work well!I will be posting the finished bracelet when it is done!
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!
