More bead flowers

I've got some new flowers to show. Two of them are based on the same pattern as the ones I showed in my previous post.

The flower above is made using 11 mm daggers and Miyuki drop beads. A smaller version of my blue-and-brown picasso flower in the other post. It looks slightly different not just because the shape of the centre beads (smooth drops instead of facetted fire-polished), but also because these small daggers are about as wide as they are thick so all the petals are about the same width.

I also made a new large dagger bead flower as I wanted to see what it would look like with 6 mm pressed-glass drops instead of the 7 mm fire-polished drops used in my first big dagger flower. When making it, I found that flat drop bead you can see to the right. I'm thinking that would make a pretty flower if substituting it for the daggers standing on end. I just have that one bead, though, so I couldn't test my new idea.  And I didn't find this bead shape in the bead shops I normally buy from so I'll have to scour the web finding a place that does have them.

The colours of the drops doesn't really match the daggers, but as I've said before: these flowers are made from whatever I find in my stash and as I'm working on the design, the colours doesn't really matter as the flowers aren't necessarily going to be incorporated in a piece of jewellery or finished beadwork.

My third flower is made with long magatama beads (Miyuki). At first I just made one row, thinking it was a cute little flower -- and it could also be used as an unusual bead cap. But just for fun, I added a second row of beads underneath the first. And was pleased with the result. This is such a cute little flower -- or hop (as in Humulus lupulus flower cone -- and the size is perfect for a ring or even earrings.

This flower isn't finsihed, it needs one or several beads in the centre to cover the thread and hole. I've got a few ideas for that. We'll see which one I settle with.

(I want a light table or light-thing-a-ma-jig so I can take backlit photos. Looks fab when working with transparent glass beads. In this case I took the photo with the flower placed on the milky white semi-transparent plastic lampshade of a lit lamp.)

Because I know how difficult it can be to gauge sizes when seeing photos like these, I took a snapshot of my four favourite flowers where you can really see how small the magatama flower is compared to the big dagger flowers. (Darn, one of the magatama beads have been pushed out of shape -- have to secure that stitch a bit more, I think.)