Autumn leaves

It's Sunday and I'm as usually spending the weekend writing a week's worth of posts for my other blog so today will be more pictures than words. As it's (still) autumn I thought the colours and theme in these old photos was fitting.

This is a handmade boro glass cab surrounded by hessonite garnet chip beads. Like a lot of beaders, I'm not a big fan of chips, but I like how they can feel like autumn leaves sometimes. So I figured they might look good with an autumnal cab like this one. This is how far my ideas for this cab has come.

It's almost like a flower, a chrysanthemum of some sort, in that flat cab. Love it!

What Joanna got

More on the bead soup blog party. Joanna just posted a pic of the beads and pendant I sent her. So I thought I'd show some pics here as well.

For a focal, I choose one of my etched onyx pendants. The bird motif comes from a peel off sticker so it's not a fancy hand-drawn picture by me. I like to try making my own motifs in the future, though. And for a clasp, I choose a swarovski crystal button. I wanted to keep the mix metal free and also leave it to my recipient to choose what colour palette she prefers when it comes to metals.

Then there's the rest of the soup, a mix of stone and glass. There's a blend of Miyuki beads featuring matte black 2,8 mm drops, jet black drops (regular size) and matte black long magatamas. Joannas pic shows the shapes much better so do read her post if you want a better look of the Miyukis. Then there's blue luster farfalles and erinite green fire-polished, both Czech.

To that I added stone beads that would match the focal: onyx chips (some of them etched), two big sodalite rondelles, a round matte blackstone bead and three large hole beads in stone. Unsure about exactly what type.

I included chips eventhough many dislike them, either because they feel cheap or because it's a shape that can be hard to use. I nurture a hate-love relationship towards them myself. In this case I included them because they remind med of leaves and that fitted the theme of the focal with the bird on a twig with leaves.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Joanna will do with this mix. She often uses colour so will she stay with my dark and faded, almost monochromatic, palette or add more colour? What will she do with all de different bead shapes I've presented to her? Which will she use and, most of all, will she use the infamous chips? I'm looking forward to the big reveal on February 26!

"Trick sennit" bead bracelet

Making a loose "trick sennit" is my favourite way of getting that feeling of twisted "ruffled" necklaces or bracelets without actually having to twist the strands. I found the instructions at the website of the International Guild of Knot Tyers and soon realised it would be useful for my beadwork. It doesn't require twisting or braiding strands without fastening the first, making it a simple method you can't go wrong with. You can divid the strands into three (as I've done above) or weave through each and every strand. You can weave a couple of times for a loose style or keep working until you get a tighter braid.

The colours of the bracelet in the photo might need a few comments as well. I got a colour challenge to use a mix of yellow, orange and dark pink (rose). It toook a while for me to find matching colours -- it's not a combo I normally use -- but I think my mix of carnelian chips, smokey topaz gold luster cubes, and dk rose lined lt topaz luster 11/0 seeds turned out better than I could wish to hope for.